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ANCIENT India, like ancient Greece, boasts of two great Epics. One of them,
the Maha-bharata, relates to a great war in which all the warlike races
of Northern India took a share, and may therefore be compared to the Iliad. The
other, the Ramayana, relates mainly to the adventures of its hero,
banished from his country and wandering for long years in the wildernesses of
Southern India, and may therefore be compared to the Odyssey. It is the first
of these two Epics, the Iliad of Ancient India, which is the subject of tile
foregoing pages.
The great war which is the subject of this Epic is believed to have been
fought in the thirteenth or fourteenth century before Christ. For generations
and centuries after the war its main incidents must have been sung by bards and
minstrels in the courts of Northern India. The war thus became the centre of a
cycle of legends, songs, and poems in ancient India, even as Charlemagne and
Arthur became the centres of legends in mediæval Europe. And then, probably
under the direction of some enlightened king, the vast mass of legends and
poetry, accumulated during centuries, was cast in a narrative form and formed
the Epic of the Great Bharata nation, and therefore called the Maha-bharata.
The real facts of the war had been obliterated by age, legendary heroes had
become the principal actors, and, as is invariably the case in India, the
thread of a high moral purpose, of the triumph of virtue and the subjugation of
vice, was woven into the fabric of the great Epic.
We should have been thankful if this Epic, as it was thus originally put
together some centuries before the Christian era, had been preserved to us. But
this was not to be. The Epic became so popular that it went on growing with the
growth of centuries. Every generation of poets had something to add; every
distant nation in Northern India was anxious to interpolate some account of its
deeds in the old record of the international war; every preacher of a new creed
desired to have in the old Epic some sanction for the new truths he inculcated.
Passages from legal and moral codes were incorporated in the work which appealed
to the nation much more effectively than dry codes; and rules about the
different castes and about the different stages of the human life were included
for the same purpose. All the floating mass of tales, traditions, legends, and
myths, for which ancient India was famous, found a shelter under the expanding
wings of this wonderful Epic; and as Krishna-worship became the prevailing
religion of India after the decay of Buddhism, the old Epic caught the
complexion of the times, and Krishna-cult is its dominating religious idea in
its present shape. It is thus that the work went on growing for a thousand
years after it was first compiled and put together in the form of an Epic;
until the crystal rill of the Epic itself was all but lost in an unending morass
of religious and didactic episodes, legends, tales, and traditions.
When the mischief had been done, and the Epic had nearly assumed its present
proportions, a few centuries after Christ according to the late Dr. Bühler, an
attempt was made to prevent the further expansion of the work. The contents of
the Epic were described in some prefatory verses, and the number of couplets in
each Book was stated. The total number of couplets, according to this metrical
preface, is about eighty-five thousand. But the limit so fixed has been
exceeded in still later centuries; further additions and interpolations have
been made; and the Epic as printed and published in Calcutta in this century
contains over ninety thousand couplets, excluding the Supplement about the Race
of Hari.
The modern reader will now understand the reason why this great Epic-the
greatest work of imagination that Asia has produced-has never yet been put
before the European reader in a readable form. A poem of ninety thousand
couplets, about seven times the size of the Iliad and the Odyssey put together,
is more than what the average reader can stand; and the heterogeneous nature of
its contents does not add to the interest of the work. If the religious works
of Hooker and Jeremy Taylor, the philosophy of Hobbes and Locke, the
commentaries of Blackstone and the ballads of Percy, together with the
tractarian writings of Newman, Keble, and Pusey, were all thrown into blank
verse and incorporated with the Paradise Lost, the reader would scarcely be much
to blame if he failed to appreciate that delectable compound. A complete
translation of the Maha-bharata therefore into English verse is neither
possible nor desirable, but portions of it have now and then been placed before
English readers by distinguished writers. Dean Milman's graceful rendering of
the story of Nala and Damayanti is still read and appreciated by a select
circle of readers; and Sir Edwin Arnold's beautiful translation of the
concluding books of the Epic is familiar to a larger circle of Englishmen. A
complete translation of the Epic into English prose has also been published in
India, and is useful to Sanscrit scholars for the purpose of reference.
But although the old Epic had thus been spoilt by unlimited expansion, yet
nevertheless the leading incidents and characters of the real Epic are still
discernible, uninjured by the mass of foreign substance in which they are
embedded--even like those immortal marble figures which have been recovered
from the ruins of an ancient world, and now beautify the museums of modern
Europe. For years past I have thought that it was perhaps not impossible to
exhume this buried Epic from the superincumbent mass of episodical matter, and
to restore it to the modern world. For years past I have felt a longing to
undertake this work, but the task was by no means an easy one. Leaving out all
episodical matter, the leading narrative of the Epic forms about one-fourth of
the work; and a complete translation even of this leading story would be
unreadable, both from its length and its prolixness. On the other hand, to
condense the story into shorter limits would be, not to make a translation, but
virtually to write a new poem; and that was not what I desired to undertake,
nor what I was competent to perform.
There seemed to me only one way out of this difficulty. The main incidents
of the Epic are narrated in the original work in passages which are neither
diffuse nor unduly prolix, and which are interspersed in the leading narrative
of the Epic, at that narrative itself is interspersed in the midst of more
lengthy episodes. The more carefully I examined the arrangement, the more
clearly it appeared to me that these main incidents of the Epic would bear a
full and unabridged translation into English verse; and that these
translations, linked together by short connecting notes, would virtually
present the entire story of the Epic to the modem reader in a form and within
limits which might be acceptable. It would be, no doubt, a condensed version of
the original Epic, but the condensation would be effected, not by the
translator telling a short story in his own language, but by linking together
those passages of the original which describe the main and striking incidents,
and thus telling the main story as told in the original work. The advantage of
this arrangement is that, in the passages presented to the reader, it is the
poet who speaks to him, not the translator. Though vast portions of the
original are skipped over, those which are presented are the portions which narrate
the main incidents of the Epic, and they describe those incidents as told by
the poet himself.
This is the plan I have generally adopted in the present work. Except in the
three books which describe the actual war (Books viii., ix., and x.), the other
nine books of this translation are complete translations of selected passages
of the original work. I have not attempted to condense these passages nor to
expand them; I have endeavoured to put them before the English reader as they
have been told by the poet in Sanscrit. Occasionally, but rarely, a few
redundant couplets have been left out, or a long list of proper names or
obscure allusions has been shortened; and in one place only, at the beginning
of the Fifth Book, I have added twelve couplets of my own to explain the
circumstances under which the story of Savitri is told. Generally, therefore,
the translation may be accepted as an unabridged, though necessarily a free
translation of the passages describing the main incidents of the Epic.
From this method I have been compelled to depart, much against my wish, in
the three books describing the actual war. No translation of an Epic relating
to a great war can be acceptable which does not narrate the main events of the
war. The war of the, Maha-bharata was a series of eighteen battles,
fought on eighteen consecutive days, and I felt it necessary to present the
reader with an account of each day's work. In order to do so, I have been
compelled to condense, and not merely to translate selected passages. For the
transactions of the war, unlike the other incidents of the Epic, have been
narrated in the original with almost inconceivable prolixity and endless
repetition; and the process of condensation in these three books has therefore
been severe and thorough. But, nevertheless, even in these books I have
endeavoured to preserve the character and the spirit of the original. Not only
are the incidents narrated in the same order as in the original, but they are
told in the style of the poet as far as possible. Even the similes and
metaphors and figures of speech are all or mostly adopted from the original;
the translator has not ventured either to adopt his own distinct style of
narration, or to improve on the style of the original with his own decorations.
Such is the scheme I have adopted in presenting an Epic of ninety
thousand Sanscrit couplets in about two thousand English couplets.
The excellent and deservedly popular prose translation of the Odyssey of
Homer by Messrs. Butcher and Lang often led me to think that perhaps a prose
translation of these selected passages from the Maha-bharata might be
more acceptable to the modern reader. But a more serious consideration of the
question dispelled that idea. Homer has an interest for the European reader
which the Maha-bharata cannot lay claim to; as the father of European
poetry he has a claim on the veneration of modern Europe which an Indian poet
can never pretend to. To thousands of European readers Homer is familiar in the
original, to hundreds of thousands he is known in various translations in
various modern languages. What Homer actually wrote, a numerous class of
students in Europe wish to know; and a literal prose translation therefore is
welcome, after the great Epic has been so often translated in verse. The case
is very different with the Maha-bharata, practically unknown to European
readers. And the translators of Homer themselves gracefully acknowledge,
"We have tried to transfer, not all the truth about the poem, but the
historical truth into English. In this process Homer must lose at least half
his charm, his bright and equable speed, the musical current of that narrative,
which, like the river of Egypt, flows from an undiscoverable source, and
mirrors the temples and the palaces of unforgotten gods and kings. Without the
music of verse, only a half truth about Homer can be told."
Another earnest worker of the present day, who is endeavouring to interpret
to modern Englishmen the thoughts and sentiments and poetry of their
Anglo-Saxon ancestors, has emphatically declared that "of all possible
translations of poetry, a merely prose translation is the most
inaccurate." "Prose," says Mr. Stopford Brooke, further on,
"no more represents poetry than architecture does music. Translations of
poetry are never much good, but -it least they should always endeavour to have
the musical movement of poetry, and to obey the laws of the verse they
translate."
This appears to me to be a very sound maxim. And one of my greatest
difficulties in the task I have undertaken has been to try and preserve
something of the "musical movement" of the sonorous Sanscrit poetry
in the English translation. Much of tile Sanscrit Epic is written in the
well-known Sloka metre of sixteen syllables in each line, and I
endeavoured to choose some English metre which is familiar to the English ear,
and which would reproduce to some extent the rhythm, the majesty, and the long
and measured sweep of the Sanscrit verse. It was necessary to adopt such a
metre in order to transfer something of the truth about the Maha-bharata.
into English, for without such reproduction or imitation of the musical
movement of the original very much less than a half truth is told. My kind
friend Mr. Edmund Russell, impelled by that enthusiasm for Indian poetry and
Indian art which is a part of him, rendered me valuable help and assistance in
this matter, and I gratefully acknowledge, the benefit I have derived from his
advice and suggestions. After considerable trouble and anxiety, and after
rendering several books in different English metres, I felt convinced that the
one finally adopted was a nearer approach to the Sanscrit Sloka than any other
familiar English metre known to me.
I have recited a verse in this English metre and a Sloka in presence
of listeners who have a better ear for music than myself, and they have marked
the close resemblance. I quote a few lines from the Sanscrit showing varieties
of the Sloka metre, and comparing them with the scheme of the English
metre selected.
It would be too much to assume that even with the help of this similarity in
metres, I have been able to transfer into my English that sweep and majesty of
verse which is the charm of Sanscrit, and which often sustains and elevates the
simplest narration and the plainest ideas. Without the support of those
sustaining wings, my poor narration must often plod through the dust; and I can
only ask for the indulgence of the reader, which every translator of poetry
from a foreign language can with reason ask, if the story as told in the
translation is sometimes but a plain, simple, and homely narrative. For any
artistic decoration I have neither the inclination nor the necessary
qualification. The crisp and ornate style, the quaint expression, the chiselled
word, the new-coined phrase, in which modem English poetry is rich, would
scarcely suit the translation of an old Epic whose predominating characteristic
is its simple and easy flow of narrative. Indeed, the Maha-bharata would
lose that unadorned simplicity which is its first and foremost feature if the
translator ventured to decorate it with the art of the modern day, even if he
had been qualified to do so.
For if there is one characteristic feature which distinguishes the Maha-bharata
(as well as the other Indian Epic, the Ramayana) from all later Sanscrit
literature, it is the grand simplicity of its narrative, which contrasts with
the artificial graces of later Sanscrit poptry. The poetry of Kalidisa for
instance, is ornate. and beautiful, and almost scintillates with similes in
every verse; the poetry of the Maha-bharara is plain and unpolished, and
scarcely stoops to a simile or a figure of speech unless the simile comes
naturally to the poet. The great deeds of godlike kings sometimes suggest to
the poet the mighty deeds of gods; the rushing of warriors suggests the rushing
of angry elephants in the echoing jungle; the flight of whistling arrows
suggests the flight of sea-birds; the sound and movement of surging crowds
suggest the heaving of billows; the erect attitude of a warrior suggests a tall
cliff; the beauty of a maiden suggests the soft beauty of the blue lotus. When
such comparisons come naturally to the poet, he accepts them and notes them
down, but he never seems to go in quest of them, he is never anxious to
beautify and decorate. He seems to trust entirely to his grand narrative, to
his heroic characters, to his stirring incidents, to hold millions of listeners
in perpetual thrall. The majestic and sonorous Sanscrit metre is at his
command, and even this he uses, carelessly, and with frequent slips, known as arsha
to later grammarians. The poet certainly seeks for no art to decorate his tale,
he trusts to the lofty chronicle of bygone heroes to enchain the listening
mankind.
And what heroes! In the delineation of character the Maha-bharata is
far above anything which we find in later Sanscrit poetry. Indeed, with much
that is fresh and sweet and lovely in later Sanscrit poetry, there is little or
no portraiture of character. All heroes are cast much in the same heroic mould;
all love-sick heroines suffer in silence and burn with fever, all fools are
shrewd and impudent by turns, all knaves are heartless and cruel and suffer in
the end. There is not much to distinguish between one warrior and another,
between one tender woman and her sister. In the Maha-bharata we find
just the reverse; each hero has a distinct individuality, a character of his
own, clearly discernible from that of other heroes. No work of the imagination
that could be named, always excepting the Iliad, is so rich and so true as the Maha-bharata
in the portraiture of the human character,-not in torment and suffering as in
Dante, not under overwhelming passions as in Shakespeare,--but human character
in its calm dignity of strength and repose, like those immortal figures in
marble which the ancients turned out, and which modern sculptors have vainly
sought to reproduce. The old Kuru monarch Dhrita-rashtra, sightless and feeble,
but majestic in his ancient grandeur; the noble grandsire Bhishma,
"death's subduer" and unconquerable in war; the doughty Drona,
venerable priest and vengeful warrior; and the proud and peerless archer
Karna-have each a distinct character of his own which can not be mistaken for a
moment. The good and royal Yudhishthir, (I omit the final a in some long names
which occur frequently), the "tiger-waisted" Bhima, and the
"helmet-wearing" Arjun are the Agamemnon, the Ajax, and the Achilles
of the Indian Epic. The proud and unyielding Duryodhan, and the fierce and
fiery Duhsasan stand out foremost among the wrathful sons of the feeble old
Kuru monarch. And Krishna possesses a character higher than that of Ulysses;
unmatched in human wisdom, ever striving for righteousness and peace, he is
thorough and unrelenting in war when war has begun. And the women of the Indian
Epic possess characters as marked as those of the men. The stately and majestic
queen Gandhari, the loving and doting mother Pritha, the proud and scornful
Draupadi nursing her wrath till her wrongs are fearfully revenged, and the
bright and brilliant and sunny Subhadra,--these are distinct images pencilled
by the hand of a true master in the realm of creative imagination.
And if the characters of the Maha-bharata impress themselves on the
reader, the incidents of the Epic are no less striking. Every scene on the
shifting stage is a perfect and impressive picture. The tournament of the
princes in which Arjun and Karna-the Achilles and Hector of the Indian
Epic-first met and each marked the other for his foe; the gorgeous bridal of
Draupadi; the equally gorgeous coronation of Yudhishthir and the death of the
proud and boisterous Sisupala; the fatal game of dice and the scornful wrath of
Draupadi against her insulters; the calm beauty of the forest life of the
Pandavs; the cattle-lifting in Matsyaland in which the gallant Arjun threw off
his disguise and stood forth as warrior and conqueror; and the Homeric speeches
of the warriors in the council of wax on the eve of the great contest,--each
scene of this venerable old Epic impresses itself on the mind of the hushed and
astonished reader. Then follows the war of eighteen days. The first few days
are more or less uneventful, and have been condensed in this translation often
into a few couplets; but the interest of the reader increases as he approaches
the final battle and fall of the grand old fighter Bhishma. Then follows the
stirring story of the death of Arjun's gallant boy, and Arjun's fierce revenge,
and the death of the priest and warrior, doughty Drona. Last comes the crowning
event of the Epic, the final contest between Arjun and Karna, the heroes of the
Epic, and the war ends in a midnight slaughter and the death of Duryodhan. The
rest of the story is told in this translation in two books describing the
funerals of the deceased warriors, and Yudhishthir's horse-sacrifice.
"The poems of Homer," says Mr. Gladstone, "differ from all
other known poetry in this, that they constitute in themselves an encyclopædia
of life and knowledge; at a time when knowledge, indeed, such as lies beyond
the bounds of actual experience, was extremely limited, and when life was
singularly fresh, vivid, and expansive." This remark applies with even
greater force to the Maha-bharata; it is an encyclopædia of the life and
knowledge of Ancient India. And it discloses to us an ancient and forgotten
world, a proud and noble civilisation which has passed away. Northern India was
then parcelled among warlike races living side by side under their warlike
kings, speaking the same language, performing the same religious rites and
ceremonies, rejoicing in a common literature, rivalling each other in their
schools of philosophy and learning as in the arts of peace and civilisation,
and forming a confederation of Hindu nations unknown to and unknowing the
outside world. What this confederation of nations has done for the cause of
human knowledge and human civilisation is a matter of history. Their inquiries
into the hidden truths of religion, embalmed in the ancient Upanishads,
have never been excelled within the last three thousand years. Their inquiries
into philosophy, preserved in the Sankhya and the Vedanta
systems, were the first systems of true philosophy which the world produced.
And their great works of imagination, the Maha-bharata and the Ramayana,
will be placed without hesitation by the side of Homer by critics who survey
the world's literatures from a lofty standpoint, and judge impartially of the
wares turned out by the hand of man in all parts of the globe. It is scarcely
necessary to add that the discoveries of the ancient Hindus in science, and
specially in mathematics, are the heritage of the modern world; and that the
lofty religion of Buddha, proclaimed in India five centuries before Christ, is
now the religion of a third of the human race. For the rest, the people of
modem India know how to appreciate their ancient heritage. It is not an
exaggeration to state that the two hundred millions of Hindus of the present
day cherish in their hearts the story of their ancient Epics. The Hindu
scarcely lives, man or woman, high or low, educated or ignorant, whose earliest
recollections do not cling round the story and the characters of the great
Epics. The almost illiterate oil-manufacturer or confectioner of Bengal spells
out some modern translation of the Maha-bharata to while away his leisure hour.
The tall and stalwart peasantry of the North-West know of the five Pandav
brothers, and of their friend the righteous Krishna. The people of Bombay and
Madras cherish with equal ardour the story of the righteous war. And even the
traditions and tales interspersed in the Epic, and which spoil the work as an
Epic, have themselves a charm and an attraction; and the morals inculcated in
these tales sink into the hearts of a naturally religious people, and form the
basis of their moral education. Mothers in India know no better theme for
imparting wisdom and instruction to their daughters, and elderly men know no
richer storehouse for narrating tales to children, than these stories preserved
in the Epics. No work in Europe, not Homer in Greece or Virgil in Italy, not
Shakespeare or Milton in English-speaking lands, is the national property of
the nations to the same extent as the Epics of India are of the Hindus. No
single work except the Bible has such influence in affording moral instruction
in Christian lands as the Maha-bharata and the Ramayana in India.
They have been the cherished heritage of the Hindus for three thousand years;
they are to the present day interwoven with the thoughts and beliefs and moral
ideas of a nation numbering two hundred millions.
ROMESH DUTT.
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON,
13th August 1893
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