LITMIR.BIZ

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      ‘A lovely Ladie rode him faire beside

      Upon a lowly Asse more white then snow,

      Yet she much whiter,’

      and in Bāṇa many a description like that of Mahāçvetā’s fairness (pp. 95–97) – the undiscriminating praise bestowed on those whom they would fain honour, the shadowy nature of many of their personages, and the intricacies in which the story loses itself, are faults common to both. Both, too, by a strange coincidence, died with their work unfinished. But if they have the same faults, they have also many of the same virtues. The love of what is beautiful and pure both in character and the world around, tenderness of heart, a gentle spirit troubled by the disquiet of life,30 grace and sweetness of style, and idyllic simplicity, are common to both. Though, however, Candrāpīḍa may have the chivalry and reverence of the Red Cross Knight, and Una share with Kādambarī or Rohiṇī ‘nobility, tenderness, loftiness of soul, devotion and charm,’31 the English hero and heroine are more real and more strenuous. We are, indeed, told in one hurried sentence of the heroic deeds of Candrāpīḍa in his world-conquest, and his self-control and firmness are often insisted on; but as he appears throughout the book, his self-control is constantly broken down by affection or grief, and his firmness destroyed by a timid balancing of conflicting duties, while his real virtue is his unfailing gentleness and courtesy. Nor could Kādambarī, like Una, bid him, in any conflict, ‘Add faith unto your force, and be not faint.’ She is, perhaps, in youth and entire self-surrender, more like Shakespeare’s Juliet, but she lacks her courage and resolve.

      The Purpose of ‘Kādambarī.’

      The likeness of spirit between these two leads to the question, Had Bāṇa, like Spenser, any purpose, ethical or political, underlying his story? On the surface it is pure romance, and it is hard to believe that he had any motive but the simple delight of self-expression and love for the children of his own imagination. He only claims to tell a story ‘tender with the charm of gracious speech, that comes of itself, like a bride, to the possession of its lord’;32 but it may be that he gladly gathered up in old age the fruits of his life’s experience, and that his own memory of his father’s tenderness to his childhood, of the temptations of youth, and of the dangers of prosperity and flattery that assail the heart of kings, was not used only to adorn a tale, but to be a guide to others on the perilous path of life. Be that as it may, the interest of ‘Kādambarī,’ like that of the ‘Faerie Queene,’ does not depend for us now on any underlying purpose, but on the picture it presents in itself of the life and thought of a world removed in time, but not in sympathy, from our own; on the fresh understanding it gives of those who are in the widest sense our fellow-countrymen; and on the charm, to quote the beautiful words of Professor Peterson, ‘of a story of human sorrow and divine consolation, of death and the passionate longing for a union after death, that goes straight from the heart of one who had himself felt the pang, and nursed the hope, to us who are of like frame with him … the story which from the beginning of time mortal ears have yearned to hear, but which mortal lips have never spoken.’

      The Plan of the Translation

      The translation of Bāṇa presents much difficulty from the elaboration of his style, and it has been a specially hard task, and sometimes an impossible one, to give any rendering of the constant play on words in which he delights. I have sometimes endeavoured to give what might be an English equivalent, and in such cases I have added in a note the literal meaning of both alternatives; perhaps too much freedom may have been used, and sometimes also the best alternative may not have been chosen to place in the text; but those who have most experience will know how hard it is to do otherwise than fail. Some long descriptions have been omitted, such, e. g., as a passage of several pages describing how the dust rose under the feet of Candrāpīḍa’s army, and others where there seemed no special interest or variety to redeem their tediousness. A list of these omissions33 is given at the end, together with an appendix, in which a few passages, chiefly interesting as mentioning religious sects, are added. I have acted on Professor Cowell’s advice as to the principle on which omissions are made, as also in giving only a full abstract, and not a translation, of the continuation of ‘Kādambarī’ by Bhūshaṇa. It is so entirely an imitation of his father’s work in style, with all his faults, and without the originality that redeems them, that it would not reward translation. In my abstract I have kept the direct narration as more simple, but even when passages are given rather fully, it does not profess in any case to be more than a very free rendering; sometimes only the sense of a whole passage is summed up. I regret that the system of transliteration approved by the Royal Asiatic Society came too late for adoption here.

      The edition of ‘Kādambarī’ to which the references in the text are given is that of the Nirṇaya-Sāgara Press (Bombay, 1890), which the full commentary makes indispensable, but I have also throughout made use of Professor Peterson’s edition (Bombay Sanskrit Series, No. xxiv.). For the last half of the Second Part34 I have referred to an anonymous literal translation, published by the New Britannia Press Depository, 78, Amherst Street, Calcutta.

      I have now to offer my grateful thanks to the Secretary of State for India, without whose kind help the volume could not have been published. I have also to thank Miss C. M. Duff for allowing me to use the MS. of her ‘Indian Chronology’; Miss E. Dale, of Girton College, for botanical notes, which I regret that want of space prevented my printing in full; Mr. C. Tawney, librarian of the Indian Office, for information as to the sources of Indian fiction; Mr. F. F. Arbuthnot and Professor Rhys-Davids, for valuable advice; Professor C. Bendall, for his description of the Kāmandakīya-Nīti-Çāstra, and his constant kindness about my work; Mr. F. W. Thomas, of Trinity College, for letting me see the proof-sheets of the translation of the ‘Harsha Carita’; and others for suggested renderings of difficult phrases, and for help of various kinds.

      But especially my thanks are due to Professor Cowell35 for a generosity and unwearied helpfulness which all his pupils know, and which perhaps few but they could imagine. I read through with him the whole of the First Part before translating it myself, so that mistakes in the translation, many as they may be, can arise only from misunderstanding on my part, from too great freedom of rendering, or from failing to have recourse to the knowledge he so freely gives.

      ‘Vṛihatsahāyaḥ kāryāntaṃ kshodīyānapi gacchati;

      Sambhūyāmbodhim abhyeti mahānadyā nagāpagā.’

      KĀDAMBARĪ

      (1) Hail to the Birthless, the cause of creation, continuance, and destruction, triple36 in form and quality, who shows activity in the birth of things, goodness in their continuance, and darkness in their destruction.

      (2) Glory to the dust of Tryambaka’s feet, caressed by the diadem of the demon Bāṇa37; even that dust that kisses the circle of Rāvaṇa’s ten crest-gems, that rests on the crests of the lords of gods and demons, and that destroys our transitory life.

      (3) Glory to Vishṇu, who, resolving to strike from afar, with but a moment’s glance from his wrath-inflamed eye stained the breast of his enemy, as if it had burst of itself in terror.

      I salute the lotus feet of Bhatsu,38 honoured by crowned Maukharis: the feet which have their tawny toes rubbed on a footstool made by the united crowns of neighbouring kings.

      Who is there that fears not the wicked, pitiless in causeless enmity; in whose mouth calumny hard to bear is always ready as the poison of a serpent?

      The wicked, like fetters, echo harshly, wound deeply, and leave a scar; while the good, like jewelled anklets, ever charm the mind with sweet sounds.

      (4) In a bad man gentle words sink

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