Page:The Malavikagnimitra, Tawney (2nd edition, 1891).djvu/14

 PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. The following translation is intended for the use of persons beginning the study of Sanskrit literature. The admirable edition of this play by Shankar Pandit, M.A., forming No. VI. of the Bombay Sanskrit Series, will hardly meet the needs of the tiro. Professor Weber's German translation was made from a faulty text ; and it is possible that many who take up the study of Sanskrit may not be familiar with German. There seems therefore to be an opening for an English translation sufficiently literal to assist beginners in unravelling the difficulties of the Sanskrit text. The number of students who master the rudiments of Sanskrit is increasing every day. A knowledge of the grammar of this language is indispensable to the student of Comparative Philology, and whatever may be thought of the abstract merits of Sanskrit literature, it must always have its value for Englishmen who have chosen an Indian career, as throwing a flood of light upon the social customs and modes of thought of the more cultivated classes of modern Hindu society.

The Malavikagnimitra furnishes us with a vivid picture of a native court in the most flourishing period of Indian history, probably about the third century after Christ. An attempt was indeed made by the late Professor Wilson to show that the play could not have been written before the tenth or eleventh century, and was therefore not the work of the great Kalidasa. His