Nalopákhyánam : Story of Nala / an episode of the Mahábhárata: the Sanskrit text, with a copious vocabulary, grammatical analysis, and introduction by Monier Williams. The metrical translation by the Very Reverend Henry Hart Milman.

Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Nalopákhyánam : Story of Nala / an episode of the Mahábhárata: the Sanskrit text, with a copious vocabulary, grammatical analysis, and introduction by Monier Williams. The metrical translation by the Very Reverend Henry Hart Milman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    8/388
    Hitopadesa has been the hook first studied cifter the Gram¬ mar; and although this well-known collection of fables is an admirable specimen of a class of composition in which the Hindus are unrivalled, yet as a mixture of prose and verse by various authors it contains numerous difficult passages. The Megha-duta, though a beautiful poem, is still more exceptionable as a first book, every verse pre¬ senting examples of long compounds and complex con¬ structions. Professor Johnson’s Selections from the Maha- bhdrata have been made with great care, but the style of the pieces he has chosen is not so plain and unencumbered as that of the Nala. This also is an extract from the Mahd-bhdrata, but by far the simplest of all the episodes abounding in that vast store-house of Indian legends. The exceeding diversity of style in Sanskrit composition —a diversity unequalled in any other language, and admit¬ ting of every shade between the extremes of simplicity and complexity, condensation and diffuseness—makes it im¬ portant that early students should be guided to a judicious choice in their first readings. Henceforth, in fixing the order of their studies, the Nala may advantageously be placed first, and next to it the Selections from the Maha- bhclrata. The Hitopadesa and Megha-duta may then follow in order. The main features of the present volume will be patent at once. Like the Grammar, to which it is a supplement, it adapts itself especially to English students. Now that our Indian empire has passed its first great climacteric, and vast changes are being effected in its constitution, the value of Sanskrit to all preparing for the Civil Service or missionary labour cannot be insisted on too forcibly. Its relation to the spoken languages is not its only attrac¬ tion. Tlie study of Latin bears closely on Italian, and yet if the empire of Italy belonged to this country, we should not attach moi-e importance to proficiency in Latin than