PREFACE.
Several persons of note and personages even in high rank, sympathising with the objects of the "Datavya Bharat Karyalya," have from time to time recommended to me that the Mahabharata, if translated into English, would, to quote the sentiments of the Right Honorable the Marquis of Hartington, as conveyed to me in Mr. Rost's letter of the 6th of October, 1882, and published at the time in nearly all the Indian newspapers, "supply a want long felt and be a real boon to the ever-increasing band of students of Indian history and archæology." These recommendations exactly falling in with the views entertained by me from some time past, have been taken into earnest consideration. The ancient literature of India is our glorious inheritance. In his letter to me Prof. Max Müller remarks, "I expect the time will come when every educated native will be as proud of his Mahabharata and Ramayana as Germans are of their Nibelunge, and Greeks, even modern Greeks, of their Homer." The vanity is excusable, if it were only vanity, that persuades a Hindu to seek the means of placing this splendid inheritance of his before the eyes of foreign nations, of foreigners particularly who from their culture are capable of appreciating and understanding it. But such an endeavour, if successful, may not satisfy vanity alone. It is really fraught with results of the utmost importance to the cause of historical and philological research, in fact, to the cause of Knowledge in all her principal departments.
Apart from all these, there is another consideration the importance of which it is difficult to exaggerate. Providence in its inscrutable wisdom has linked the destiny of this country with that of an island in the remote west which, though unable to boast of a bright past, has, nevertheless, a splendid present, and, if signs are to be trusted, a more glorious future still. England, however, by her wise administration of this her richest and most extensive dependency, has already ceased to be regarded in the light of a conquering power bent only upon self-aggrandisement at the expense of the children of the soil. Untrue to the traditions of Empire and the instincts of their
