The Baitâl Pachchisi; Or, The Twenty-Five Tales of a Sprite / Translated From the Hindi Text of Dr. Duncan Forbes

CONTENTS

The English translation of these tales has been made by special request, to meet repeated demands for a translation of the text as edited by the late Dr. Duncan Forbes. The aim of the Translator has been to produce a work which would enable the student to study the original with facility and accuracy. It being considered that few save students who are compelled to study the Hindi original would be likely to peruse the work, the translation has been made as literal as it was possible to make it without doing unpardonable violence to English idiom. All difficulties have been boldly, if not successfully, met; and explanatory and other notes have been added, wherever the text appeared to call for such. The study of the translation must not be supposed to dispense with that of the Grammar of the language; it will be found, however, to prove of the highest utility to a student who has mastered the elementary principles of Grammar, and uses it—not as a mere “crib” but—for the purpose of discovering what light it sheds on the application of those principles.

THE origin of these tales is as follows:—In the reign of the Emperor Muhammad Shah, Rajã Jaisinh Sawãr (who was the ruler of. Jainagar) ordered the eminent poet, named Sürat, to translate the Baitãl Pachisi (which was in the Sanskrit) into the Braj dialect. Thereupon he translated it into the dialect of Braj, in accordance with the king’s command. And now, during the reign of the Emperor Sfãhi ’Alam, and in the time of the lord of lords, the cream of exalted princes, the Privy-Counsellor of the Monarch of England, whose court stands as high as Saturn; the noblest of the noble, the Governor-General, Marquis Wellesley (may his government be perpetuated!); and in accordance with the bidding of His Honour, Mr. John Gilchrist (may his good fortune endure!); to the end that illustrious gentleman may learn and understand, the poet Mazhar Ali Khan (whose nom de plume is Vila), with the aid of the poet Shrï Lallü Lãl, rendered the same into easy language, such as high and low use in speaking, and which the learned and the ignorant, the talented and the obtuse, would all comprehend, and which would be easy to the mind of every one, no difficulty of any kind presenting itself to the intellect, and wherein the dialect of Braj frequently occurs.