“In the year 990” His Majesty assembled some learned Hindus and gave them directions to write an explanation of the ‘Mahabharata,’ and for several nights he himself devoted his attention to explain the meaning to Nakib Khan, so that the Khan might sketch out the gist of it in Persian. On the third night the king sent for me, and desired me to translate the ‘Mahabharata,’ in conjunction with Nakib Khan. The consequence was that in three or four months I translated two out of the eighteen sections, at the puerile absurdities of which the eighteen thousand creations may well be amazed. Such injunctions as one never heard of—what not to eat, and a prohibition against turnips! But such is my fate, to be employed on such works. Nevertheless I console myself with the reflection that what is predestined must come to pass.
“After this, Mulla Shi and Nakib Khan together accomplished a portion,” and another was completed by Sultan Haji Thanesari by himself. Shaikh Faizi was then directed to convert the rough translation into elegant prose and verse, but he did not complete more than two sections. The Haji aforesaid again wrote it, correcting the errors which had appeared in his first translation and settling the conjectures which he had hazarded. He had revised a hundred sheets, and, nothing being omitted, he was about to give the finishing touch when the order was received for his dismissal, and he was sent to Bakar. He now resides in his own city (Thanesar). Most of the scholars who were employed upon this translation are now with the Kauravas and Pandavas. May those who survive be saved by the mercy of God, and may their repentance be accepted.
“The translation was called ‘Razm-nama,’ and, when fairly engrossed and embellished with pictures, the nobles had orders to take copies, with the blessing and favour of God. Shaikh Abul Faizi, who had already written against our religion, wrote the Preface, extending to two sheets. God defend us from his infidelities and absurdities.”[129]
III. English Versions of the “Mahabharata.”—For full details of this epic the reader may be referred to “The ‘Mahabharata’ of Krishna Dwaipayana Vyasa,” translated into English prose by Pratab Chandra Roy (Calcutta), of which several volumes have been published.
A tolerably detailed account of the poem, with a running commentary, occupies about 500 pages of vol. i. of the “History of India,” by J. Talboys Wheeler.
A summary of all the eighteen sections of the epic is to be found in Sir Monier Williams’s “Indian Epic Poetry” (Williams and Norgate, 1863).
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Having presented to the reader the foregoing condensed epitomes of the great Hindu Epics, it only remains for me to offer a few brief observations upon some of the more abiding features of the national life and the religious and moral sentiments of the Hindus, as illustrated by these gigantic poems, in which we see, as in a mirror, an unconscious reflection of the ideas and tendencies, the intellectual cravings and the moral instincts, of the age to which they belong.
It may seem superfluous to remind the reader that the “Ramayana” describes the adventures of Rama, including amongst them a war which he undertook in order to avenge an insult and to recover the person of his wife, who had been carried off by an unscrupulous enemy. The campaign against Ravana had not for its object extension of territory, but the punishment of an evil-doer and the righting of a personal wrong; while the protracted struggle, which is the basis of the “Mahabharata,” is purely a contest for supremacy between kindred families, each side being backed by friends and allies from amongst their own race, as well as from amongst alien tribes (the Mlecchas). In neither poem, be it noted, does any question of patriotism arise; for the contest in which the heroes are involved are not against foreign invaders or national enemies.
The India known to the compilers of the “Ramayana” and “Mahabharata,”—the extensive theatre upon which their heroes played the stirring drama of their lives—was evidently a land covered with vast tracts of dense forest, whose mysterious gloom, pervaded with the aroma of incense and burnt-offerings, has cast a vague and mighty shadow over the hearts of the Hindu bards, as surely as the breezy atmosphere and the restless waves of the Ægean have imparted a healthy buoyancy to the Homeric rhapsodists.