Page:TheBirth of the War-God.djvu/10

viii It may be as well to inform the reader, before he wonder at the mis-nomer, that the was either left unfinished by its author, or time has robbed us of the conclusion; the latter is the more probable supposition, tradition informing us that the poem originally consisted of twenty-two cantos, of which only seven now remain.

I have derived great assistance in the work of translation from the Calcutta printed edition of the poem in the Library of the East-India House; but although the Sanskrit commentaries accompanying the text are sometimes of the greatest use in unravelling the author's meaning, they can scarcely claim infallibility; and, not unfrequently, are so matter-of-fact and prosaic, that I have not scrupled to think, or rather to feel, for myself. It is, however. 's edition, published under the auspices of the Oriental Translation Pund (a society that has liberally encouraged my own undertaking), that I have chiefly used; valuable as this work is (and I will not disown my great obligations to it), it is much to be regretted that the extracts from the native commentators are so scanty, and the annotations so few and brief.

And now, one word as to the manner in which I have endeavoured to perform my task:—though