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15 - Translator's Epilogue - Mahabharata · Sacred Texts Archive

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Translator's epilog. Ancient India, like ancient Greece, boasts of two great epics.
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One of them, the Mahawalad, relates to a great war in which
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all the warlike races of northern India took asher, and may therefore be compared
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to the Iliad. The other, the Ramayana, relates mainly to the adventures
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of its hero vanished from its country and wandering for long years in the wilderness
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of southern India, and may therefore be compared to the Odyssi. It is
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the first of these two epics, the Iliad of ancient India, which is
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the subject of tile foregoing pages. The Great War which is the subject of
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this epic, is believed to have been fought in the thirteenth or fourteenth century
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before Christ. For generations and centuries after the war, its main incidents must
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have been sung by birds and minstrels in the courts of northern India. The
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war thus became the center of a cycle of lizens, songs and poems in
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ancient India. Evenice, charle Magne and Arthur became the center of lizens in
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medievali Rome and then, probably under the direction of some enlightened king. The
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vast mass of lizens and poetry accumulated during centuries was cast in a narrative form
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and formed the epic of the great Varat nation, and therefore called the Mahavadad.
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The real facts of the ore had been obliterated by age, legendary heroes
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had become the principal actors, and, as is invariably the case in India,
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the trade of a high moral purpose, of the triumph of virtue and
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the subjugation of vice was woven into the fabric of the great epic. OHI
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should have been thankful if this epic, as it was thus originally put together
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some centuries before the Christian era, had been preserved to us. But this
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was not to be. The epic became so popular that it went on growing.
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With the growth of centuries. Every generation of poets had something to add.
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Every distant nation in Northern India was anxious to interpolate some account of its
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deeds in the old record of the international war. Every preacher of a new
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creed desired to have in the old epic some sanction for the new truths.
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He inculcated passages from legal and moral codes were incorporated into work, which appled
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to the nation much more effectively than dry codes and rules about the different castes
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and about the different stages of human life were included. For the same purpose.
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All the floating mass of tales, traditions, listens, and meats for
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which ancient India was famous found a shelter under the expanding wings of this wonderful
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epic, and as Krishna worship became the prevaling religion of India after the decay
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of Buddhism, the old Epic caught the complexion of the times, and Krishna
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cult is its dominating religious idea in its present shape. It is thus that
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the work went on growing for a thousand years after it was forced, compiled,
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and put together in the form of an epic, until the crystal reel
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of the epic itself was all but lost in an unending morass of religious and
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deductiveata Lizends, tales and traditions. When the michief had been done and the
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epic had nearly assumed its present proportions, a few centuries after Christ, according
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to the late doctor Boehler, an attempt was made to prevent a further expansion
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of the work. The contents of the epic were described in some prefetory verses,
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and the number of couplets in each book was stated. The total number
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of couplets, according to this metrical preface is about eighty five thousand, but
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the limit so fixed has been exceeded in still later centuries. Further editions and
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interpolations have been made, and the Epic, as printed and published in Calcutta
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in this century, contents over ninety thousand couplets, excluding the supplement about the
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race of Hurry. The modern reader will now understand the reason why this greet
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Epic, the greatest work of imagination that Asia had produced, has never yet
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been put before the European reader in a readable form. A poem of ninety
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thousand couplets, about seven times the site of the Iliad and now Dissiput together
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is more than what the average reader can stand, and the heterogeneous nature of
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its contents does not add to the interest of the work. If the religious
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works of Hooker and Jeremy Taylor, the philosophy of Hobbes and Lockey, the
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commentaries of Blackstone and the Ballads of Percy, together with the tractarian writings of
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Newman, Cabel, and Bussey, who are all thrown into blank verse and
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incorporated with the paradise lost. The reader would scarcely be much to blame if
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he failed to appreciate that delectable compound. A complete translation of the Mahafara,
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therefore into English verse is neither possible nor desirable, but portions of it have
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now and then been placed before English readers by distinguished writers. Dan Milmann's graceful
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rendering of the story of Null and tamante He is still read and appreciated by
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a silic circle of breeders, and Sir Adinernald's beautiful translation of the concluding books
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of the epic is familiar to a large circle of Englishmen. A complete translation
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of the epic into English prose has also been published in India, and is
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useful to Sanskrit scholars for the purpose of reference. But although the old Epic
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thus has been spoiled by unlimited expansion, yet nevertheless the leading incidents and characters
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of the real epic are still discernible, uninjured by the mass of foreign substance
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in which they are embedded, even like those immortal marble figures which have been
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recovered from the ruins of an ancient world and now beautify the museums of modern
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Europe. For years past, I have thought that it was perhaps not impossible
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to exhume this varied epic from the superincumbent mass of episodical matter and to restore
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it to the modern world. For years past I have felt a longing to
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undertake this work, but the task was by no means an easy one.
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Leaving out all episodical matter. The leadinarrative of the epic forms about one fourth
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of the work, and the complete translation even of this leading story would be
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unreadable, both from its length and its prolixeness. On the other hand,
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to contence the story, the shorter limits would be not to make a translation,
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but virtually to write a new poem. And that was not what I
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desired to undertake, nor what I was competent to perform. There seemed to
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me only one way out of this difficulty. The main incidents of the epic
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are narrated in the original working passages, which are neither diffused nor antily products,
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and which are interspersed in the lidingarrative of the epic. At that narrative
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itself is interspersed in the midst of more lengthy episodes. The more carefully examine
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the arrangement, the more clearly it appeared to me that these main incidents of
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the epic would bear a full and unaveraged translation into English verse, and that
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these translations, linked together by short connecting notes, would virtually present the entire
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story of the epic to the modern reader in a form annudin limits which might
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be acceptable. It would, be, no doubt, a condensed version of
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the original epic, But the condensation would be affected not by the translator telling
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a sorts story in his own language, but by linking together those passages of
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the original which describe the main and striking incidence, and thus telling the main
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story as told in the original work. The advantage of this arrangement is that
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in the passages presented to the reader, it is the poet who speaks to
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them, not the translator. Though vast portions of the original are escaped over
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those which are presented are the portions which narrate the main incidence of the epic
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under describe those incidents as told by the poet himself. This is the plan
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I have generally adopted in the present work, except in the three books which
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describe the actual war, Books eight, nine, and ten. The under
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nine books of the translation are complete translations of selected passages of the original work.
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I have not attempted to content these passages, nor to expand them.
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I have endeavored to put them before the English reader as they have been told
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by the poet in Sanskrit. Occasionally, but rarely, a few redundant couplets
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have been lived out, or a long list of proper names or obscure allusions
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has been shortened, And in one place only at the beginning of the fifth
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book, I have added twelve couplets of my own to explain the circumstances under
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which the story of Savigry is told. Generally, therefore, the translation may
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be accepted as an unabridged, though necessarily a free translation of the passages describing
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the main incidence of the epic. From this matod, I have been compelled
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to depart much against my wish in the three books describing the actual war.
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No translation of an epic relating to a great war can be acceptable which does
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not narrate the main events of the ore. The War of the Mahavarat was
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a series of eighteen battles fought on eighteen conjugative days, and I felt it
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necessary to present a reader with an account of each day's work. In order
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to do so, I have been compelled to contents, and not merely to
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translate selected passages for the transitions of the ore. Unlike the other, incidents
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of the epic have been narrated in the original with almost inconceivable polexity and andless
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reputation, And the process of condensation in these three books has therefore been severe
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and thorough. But nevertheless, even in these books I have endeavored to preserve
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the character and the spirit of the original. Not only are the incidents narrated
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in the same order as in original, but they are told in the style
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of the poet as far as possible. Even the similes and metaphors and figures
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of speech are all or mostly adopted from the original. The translator has not
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ventured either to adopt his own distinct style of narration or to improve on the
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style of the original with its own decorations. Such is the scheme I have
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adopted in presenting an epic of ninety thousand Sanskrit couplets in about two thousand English
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couplets. The excellent and deservedly popular prose translation of the Odysseum Homer by Messrs
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Butcher and Lang often led me to think that perhaps a prose translision of these
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selected passages from the Mahavarad might be more acceptable to the modern reader. But
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a more serious consideration of the question dispelled that idea. Homer has an interest
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for the European reader which the Mahavarat cannot lay claim to. As the father
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of European poetry, he has a claim on the veneration of modern Europe which
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an Indian poet can never pretend to. To thousands of European readers, Homer
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is familiar in the original two hundreds of thousands. He is known in various
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translations in various modern languages. What Homer actually wrote a numerous class of students
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in Europe wished to know, and a literal prose translation therefore is welcome.
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After the Great Epic has been so often translated in verse. The case is
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very different, with the Mahavaraed practically unknown to European readers, and the translators
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of Homer themselves gracefully acknowledge. We have tried to transfer not all the route
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about the poem, but the historical truths into English. In this process,
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Homer must lose at least half his charm, his bright and equable speed,
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the musical current of the narrative, which like the river or visit, flows
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from an undiscoverable source, and mirrors the temples and the palaces of the unforgotten
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gods and kings. Whout the music of Verse, only a half truth about
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Homer can be told. Another earnest worker of the present day, who is
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endeavoring to interpret to modern Englishmen the thoughts and sentiments and poetry of their Anglo
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section ancestors, has empatically declared that of all possible translations of poetry, a
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merely prose translation is the most inaccurate. Prose, says mister Stockford Brook further
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on, no more represents poetry than architectured as music. Translations of poetry are
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never much good, but at least they should always endeavor to have the musical
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movement of poetry and to obey the laws of the verse they translate. This
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appears to me to be a very sound maxim and one of my greatest difficulties
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in the task I have undertaken has been to try and preserve something of the
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musical movement of the sonorous Sanskrit poetry in the English translation. Much of the
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Sanskrit Epic is written in the well known slowcometer of sixteen syllables in each line,
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and I endeavored to choose some English meter which is familiar to the English
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here, and which should reproduce to some extent the rereadom the Majesty and the
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long and immediate sweep of the Sanskrit wars. It was necessary to adopt such
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a meter in order to transfer something of the truth about the Mahawarat into English,
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for without such reproduction or imitation of the musical movement of the original ary,
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much less than half a truth is told. My kind friend, mister
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Edmund Russell, impelled by that enthusiasm for Indian poetry and Indian art which is
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a part of him, rendered me valuable help and assistance in this matter,
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and I gratefully acknowledge the benefit I have derived from his advice and suggestions.
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After considerable trouble and anxiety, and after rendering several books in different English matters,
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I felt convinced that the one finally adopted was a nearer approach to the
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Sanskrit Sloca than any other familiar English meter known to me. I have recited
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a verse in this English meter and the sloka in presence of listeners who have
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a better year for music than myself, and they have marked a close resemblance.
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I caught a few lines from the san striet showing varieties of the Sloka
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meter and companying them with the scheme of the English meter selected Yisha kuntishu Ta
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srimane Ihama Damapan Daba, yhabud Thro Mahindrasha, Kurunamayisha, Rakshita Mahwarred one fifty
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three fifty seven. Yet I doubt not through the ages, one increasing purpose
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runs and the thoughts of man are wadened with the process of the suns Locksley
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Hall Malan Sa, Samupudaya, kan Janim Samalamakritam Avatin Nataturangam, Drapati, varadar
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Shava Mahwarred one sixty nine seventy four. Vegians of the days departed, shadowy
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phantoms feeled my brain. Those who live in history only seemed to walk the
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earth again. Belfry of brooches asurayam Ivasuriina nriwatam Iva bay Yuna vasitom laditan Jeva
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Krishnaidam Zadohina Mawarad two thirteen thirty four. Quaint old town of toil and traffic,
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Quaint old town of art and song memories, hornedy pointed gables like the
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rooks that round Dee trong Niuremburg Hapan doo Hamaharaj Khashi kim Zamobek Shassi Puttrina Viva
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Shaya te Saduna arivirid you ta Nijitana Mahawarred two twenty sixteen. In her ear,
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he whispers gaily, if my heart by signs can tell Maiden, I
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have watched it daily, and I think TA lovest me well, Lord of
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Burleigh. It it be too much tassium that, even with the help of
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dissimilarity in meters, I have been able to transfer into my English that sweep
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and majesty of verse, which is the charm of Sanskrit, and which often
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sustains and elevates the simplest narration and the plainest ideas. Whether the support of
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these sustaining wings, my poor narration must often plow through the dust, and
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I can only ask for the indulgence of the reader, which every translator of
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poetry from a foreign language can which reason ask, if the story as told
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in the translation is sometimes but a plain, simple and homely narrative for any
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artistic decoration, I have neither the inclination nor the necessary qualification. The crisp
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and ornate style the quaint expression that chiseldored, the new coined phrase in which
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modern English poetry is rich, would scarcely soothe the translation of an old epic
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whose predominating characteristic is its simple and easy flow of narrative. Indeed, the
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Mahwarret would lose that unadulted simplicity which is its first and foremost feature, if
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the translator ventured to decorate it with the art of the modern day, even
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if he had been qualified to do so. For if there is one characteristic
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feature which distinguishes the Mawarra as well as the other Indian epic, the Ramayan,
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from all later Sanskrit literature, it is the grand simplicity of its narrative,
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which contrasts with the artificial graces of later Sanskrit poetry. The poetry of
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Kalidas, for instance, is ornate and beautiful and almost scintillates with similes in
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every verse. The poetry of the Mavarat is plain and unpolished, and scarcely
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stoops to a simile or a figure of speech, unless the simile comes naturally
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to the poet. The great deeds of godlike kings sometimes suggests to the poet
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the mighty deeds of gods. The rushing of warriors suggests the rushing of angry
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elephants in the echoing jungle. The flight of whistling arrows suggests the flight of
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sea birds, the sound and movement of surging crowds, such as the heaving
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of willows. The erectitude of a warrior suggests a tall cliff. The beauty
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of a maiden suggests the soft beauty of the blue lotus. When such comparisions
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come naturally to the poet, he accepts them and notes them down, but
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he never seems to go in quest of them. He is never anxious to
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beautify and decorate. He seems to trust entirely to his grand narrative, to
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his heroic characters, to his cheering incidents, to hold millions of listeners in
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perpetual trial. The majestic and sonorous sanscrit meter is at his command, and
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even this he huses carelessly and with frequent s lips known as usha to letter
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grammarians. The poet certainly seeks for no art to decorate his tale. He
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trusts to the lofty chronicle of eygun heroes to unchain the listening mankind and what
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heroes in the delineation of character, the Mavart is far above anything which you
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find in later Sanskrit poetry, indeed, with much that is fresh and sweet
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and lovely. In later Suscrit poetry there is little or no portraiture of character.
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All heroes are cast much in the same heroic mold. All lobsee heroines
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suffer in silence and barn with fever. All fools are shrewd and impudent by
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turns. All names are heartless and cruel and suffer. In the end,
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there is not much to deay distinguished between one warrior and another, between one
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tender woman and her sister. In the Mahavart, we find just the rivers.
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Each hero has a distinct individuality, a character of his own, clearly
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discernible from that of other heroes. No work of the imagination that could be
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named, always excepting the Iliad is so rich and so true as the mahwarret
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in the portraiture of human character, not in torment and suffering as in Dante,
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not under overwhelming passions as in Sakespeare, but human character in its calm,
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dignity, of strength and repose, like those immortal figures in marble which
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dancientstarnd out, and which modern sculptures have vainly sought to reproduce. The old
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Kurumoner treated Astra sightless and feeble, but majestic in his ancient grandeur. The
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noble grandsire Vishma Death, subduer and unconquerable in the Oar, The dotty drona
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venerable priest and vengeful warrior, and the proud and pureless archer Karn have each
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a distinct character of his own which cannot be is taken for a moment.
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The good and royally deistir i omit the final a. In some long names
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which occur frequently, the tiger wasted Vema and the helmuturing June are the Agamemnon,
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the Ajax and the Achilus of the Indian epic. The proud and unelding
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do you then, and the fierce and fiery to Sassan stand out foremost among
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the wrathful sons of the feeble old Kurum owner, and Krishna possesses a character
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higher than that of Ulysses, unmatched in human wisdom, ever striving for righteousness
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and peace, he is toorrow and unrelenting in war when war has begun.
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And the women of the Indian Epic pauses characters as marked as those of the
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man, the stately and majestic Queen Gandhari, the loving and doubting mother Preta,
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the proud and scornful Dropody nursing her rats till her wrongs are fearfully revenged,
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and the bright and brilliant and sunny Suvadra. These are distinct images penciled
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by the hand of a true master in the realm of creative imagination. And
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if the characters of the mahwarate In present themselves on the reader, the incidents
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of the epic are no less striking. Every scene on the shifting stage is
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a perfect and impressive picture. The tournament of the Princes, in which Urgin
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and Karn, the aquilius and actor of the Indian Epic, first met,
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and each marked the other for his foe, the gorgeous bridal of Dropothy,
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the equally gorgeous coronation of it Isture, and the death of the proud and
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boisterous Sisupal. The fatal game of dice and the scornful wrath of Dropody against
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our insulters. The calm beauty of the forest life of the Pandeps, the
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cattle lifting in much a land in which the gallant Urchin threw off his disguise
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and stood forth as warrior and conqueror. And the Homeric speeches of the warriors
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in the Council of War on the eve of the great contest. Each scene
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of this venerable old epic impresses itself on the mind of the hushed and astonished
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reader. Then follows the war of eighteen days. The first few days are
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more or less uneventful and have been condensed in this translation often into few couplets,
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but the interest of the reader increases as he approaches the final battle and
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fall of the grand old fighter of Vishma. Then follows the steering story of
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the death of Virgin's gallant boy and Urchin's fierce revenge, and the death of
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the priest and warrior Dothy Drona. Last comes the crowning event of the epic,
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the final contest between Arjun and Kern, the heroes of the epic,
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and the war ends in a midnight slaughter and the death of Derudan. The
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rest of the story is told in this translation in two books describing the funerals
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of the deceased warriors, and it is to sacrifice. The poems of Homer,
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says mister Gladstone, differ from all other known poetry in this that they
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constituting themselves an encyclopedia of life and knowledge at the time when knowledge, indeed,
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such as lies beyond the bounds of actual experience, was extremely limited,
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and when life was singularly fresh, vivid, and expansive. This remark applies
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with even greater force to the Mahaward. It is an encyclopedia of the life
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and knowledge of ancient India, and it discloses to us an ancient and forgotten
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world, a proud and noble civilization which has passed away. Northern India was
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then parceled among warlike races, living side by side under their warlike kings,
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speaking the same language, performing the same religious rites, and ceremonies, rejoicing
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in a common literature, rivaling each other in their schools of philosophy and learning,
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as in the arts of peace and civilization, and forming a confederation of
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Hindu nationians, unknown to and unknowing the outside world. What this confederation of
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nations has done for the cause of human knowledge and human civilization is a matter
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of history. Their inquiries into the hidden truths of religion, embombed in the
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anciento puniciats, have never been excelled within the last three thousand years. Their
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inquiries into philosophy, preserved in the Psychia and the Bedanda systems, where the
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first systems of true philosophy which the world produced, and their great works of
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imagination, the Mahwar and the Ramayan, will be placed without hesitation by the
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side of Homer by critics who survey the Word's literatures from a lofty standpoint and
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just impartially of the ways stand out by the hands of man in all parts
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of the globe. It is coarsely necessary to add that the discoveries of the
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ancient Hindus in science and especially in mathematics, are the heritage of the modern
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world, and that the lofty religion of Buddha, proclaimed in India of five
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centuries before Christ is not a religion of a thard of the human race.
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For the rest, the people of modern India know how to appreciate their ancient
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heritage. It is not an exhaggeration to state that the two hundred millions of
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windows of the present day cherish in their hearts the story of their ancient epics.
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The Hindus cours beliefs man or woman, high or low, educated or
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ignorant, whose earliest recollections do not cling around the story and the characters of
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the great epics. The almost illiterate, the oil manufacturer or confectioner of Bengal
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spells out some modern translation of the Mahavarate to while away his leisure hour.
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The tall and stalwart peasantry of the Northwest know of the five Banda brothers and
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of their friend the Rteas Krishna. The people of Bombay and Madras cherries with
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equal order the story of the Righteous War. And when the traditions entiales interspersed
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in the epic, and which spoil the work as an epic, have themselves
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a charm and an attraction, and the morals inculcated in these tails sink into
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the hearts of a naturally religious people and form the basis of their moral education.
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Mothers in India know no better to him for importing wisdom and instruction to
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their daughters, and elderly men know no rich a storehouse for neverting tales to
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children than these stories preserved in the epics. No work in Europe, not
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Homer in Greece, or Virgil in Italy, not Sixpere or Milton in English
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speaking lands, is the national property of the nations to the same extent as
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the epics of a In the art of the Hindus, no single work except
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the Bible has such influence in affording moral instruction in Christian lands as the Mahwarat
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and the Ramaan. In India, there have been the cherished heritage of the
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Hindus for three thousand years. They are to the present day interwoven with the
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thoughts and beliefs and moral ideas of a nation numbering two hundred millions. Rameshdad
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University College, London, thirteen Tugusts, eighteen ninety eight and of the translator's epilog