INTRODUCTION.
The Sanskrit Rámáyana of Válmíki has been published more than once, with all the advantages of European editorial skill and the most luxurious typography. It has also been translated both in verse and prose, and, in part at least, into Latin as well as into Italian, French and English. The more popular Hindi version of the same great national Epic can only be read in lithograph or bazar print,[1] and has never been translated in any form into any language whatever. Yet it is no unworthy rival of its more fortunate predecessor. There can, of course, be no comparison between the polished phraseology of classical Sanskrit and the rough colloquial idiom of Tulsi Dás's vernacular; while the antiquity of Válmíki's poem further invests it with an adventitious interest for the student of Indian history. But, on the other hand, the Hindi poem is the best and most trustworthy guide to the popular living faith of the Hindu race at the present day—a matter of not less practical interest than the creed of their remote ancestors—and its language, which in the course of three centuries has contracted a tinge of archaism, is a study of much importance to the philologist, as helping to bridge the chasm between the modern tongue and the medimval. It is also less wordy and diffuse than the Sanskrit original and, probably in consequence of its modern date, is less disfigured by wearisome interpolations and repetitions; while, if it never soars so high as Válmíki in some of his best passages, it maintains a more equable level of poetic diction, and seldom sinks with him into such dreary depths of unmitigated prose. It must also be noted that it is in no sense a translation of the earlier work: the general plan and the management of the incidents are necessarily much the same, but there is a difference in the touch in every detail; and the two poems vary as widely as any two dramas on the same mythological subject by two different Greek tragedians. Even the coincidence of name is an accident; for Tulsi Das himself called his poem 'the Rám-charit-mánas,' and the shorter title, corresponding in character to 'the Iliad' or 'Æneid,' has only been substituted by his admirers as a handier designation for a popular favourite.
- ↑ A handsome edition of the text was issued from the press of the Baptist Mission in Calcutta many years ago; but it has long been out of print, and the only copy I have ever seen of it was the one in use at the College of Fort William. I had thus entirely forgotten the fact till reminded of it by Mr. Bate, a gentleman who has ably maintained the scholarly reputation of the Mission by the very useful Hindi Dictionary that he has lately compiled.
A
