Page:The Rámáyana of Tulsi Dás.djvu/39

Rh where it could be obtained, were most gratifying evidences of the favour that the public accorded to my labours. I was thus encouraged to continue my undertaking, though after my transfer to Bulandshahr in 1877 I laboured under the serious disadvantage of writing in a thoroughly Muhammadanized district, where it is impossible to obtain any assistance, every subject connected with Hindu literature or scholarship being almost as incongruous with my environment as it would be in England. I can only hope that my familiarity with my author has been sufficiently long and intimate to save me from falling into many serious misconceptions of his meaning.

At the outset I was under the impression that as a translator there was no one at all in the field before me; but after making some little progress in the second book I discovered that there was already in existence for that particular section of the poem, an English version, published in 1871, by Adálat Khán, a Muhammadan Munshi of the College of Fort William in Calcutta. I at once procured a copy of it, and it is only proper to acknowledge that it was of considerable assistance to me. It does not, however, encroach very largely upon the ground that I had intended to occupy. The Munshi appears to have written solely with a view to lighten the labours of his own pupils and of others who like them were preparing for a special examination. Despite not a few misapprehensions of the sense, such persons will probably find it quite as useful for their purpose as my translation, if not more so. But in the attempt to secure literal accuracy, and also no doubt from the fact that English was not the mother-tongue of the translator, the language employed is throughout so curiously unidiomatic that in many places it is absolutely unintelligible without a reference to the original, and this the general reader would not be in a position to make. As a specimen I give the chaupái following dohá 224 (with which may be compared my rendering, page 286):—

"If he leaves me, knowing my mind wicked, and receives me, considering his servant, my sheltering-place then will be in the shoes of Ráma: he is my good master; but the fault is in this servant. The chátak and the fish deserve the praise of the world; they are sincere in their asual vow and love. Thus having reflected in his mind, he went along the road, ashamed and overpowered with love. The sin committed by his mother was as if keeping him back; but the Bull of patience was walking by the power of his faith, and when he knew the nature of Ráma, his feat fell on the ground hurriedly. The state of Bharat at that time was such as that of the bee in a current of water. Seeing the grief and love of Bharat, the pilot became stupefied at that moment."

As may be readily imagined, a translation of which the above passage is a fair specimen, might occasionally be useful in allowing me to take a rapid view of the context, but was not a very trustworthy guide on any point of real difficulty, though the Munshi states that he consulted a great many learned authorities.