Romesh Chunder Dutt (1848-1909)
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Indian Postage Stamp (1973)
Romesh Dutt: Ancient Indian Epics (1898-99)
[Purchased: Paeroa, Sunday, September 20, 2020]:
Vyasa. Mahabharata: The Epic of Ancient India, Condensed into English Verse. Trans. Romesh Dutt, C.I.E. 1898. The Temple Classics. Ed. Israel Gollancz. London: J. M. Dent and Co., 1903.
Valmiki. Ramayana: The Epic of Rama, Prince of India, Condensed into English Verse. Trans. Romesh Dutt, C.I.E. 1899. The Temple Classics. Ed. Israel Gollancz. London: J. M. Dent and Co., 1903.
It has been claimed that anyone who succeeds in reading (or hearing) the longest poem in existence, the Hindu Mahabharata, to the end is guaranteed a place in heaven. Presumably this refers to the original Sanskrit version, rather than one of the many translations and abridgements of it that exist, but I've always hoped that the story might be true. It could be my only hope for a spot!
The other day in Paeroa I came across the two turn-of-the-century verse adaptations of the Mahabharata and Ramayana listed above, and promptly decided to add them to my collection.
Their author, Romesh Chunder Dutt, turns out to have been rather an important man: a champion of Bengali literature and an economic historian, as well as a lecturer, poet and civil servant. His thesis about the effects of British rule on India remains compelling to this day:
India in the eighteenth century was a great manufacturing as well as a great agricultural country, and the products of the Indian loom supplied the markets of Asia and of Europe. It is, unfortunately, true that the East Indian Company and the British Parliament ... discouraged Indian manufactures in the early years of British rule in order to encourage the rising manufactures of England ... millions of Indian artisans lost their earnings; the population of India lost one great source of their wealth.No wonder he was elected President of the Indian Congress Party, the party of Gandhi and Nehru, in 1899!
The series the books are included in is interesting, too:
The Temple Classics, focused on “accepted classic literature”, predated Dent’s Everyman’s Library by a decade and a significant number of its titles were later incorporated into Everyman’s. Everyman’s Library had a wider audience and broader scope than the Temple Classics, yet titles in the Temple Classics series continued in print at least through the 1950s.
Here's what the books looked like on the outside:
Here's a group of them in their original dustjackets:
Dante Alighieri. The Inferno. Ed. & trans. Philip H. Wicksteed et al. 1900. Rev. ed. 1932. The Temple Classics. London: J. M. Dent & Sons. Ltd., 1941.
Dante Alighieri. The Purgatorio. Ed. & trans. Philip H. Wicksteed et al. 1901. Rev. ed. 1933. The Temple Classics. London: J. M. Dent & Sons. Ltd., 1946.
Dante Alighieri. The Paradiso. Ed. & trans. Philip H. Wicksteed et al. 1899. The Temple Classics. London: J. M. Dent & Sons. Ltd., 1946.
Dante Alighieri. The Convivio. Trans. Philip H. Wicksteed. 1903. The Temple Classics. London: J. M. Dent & Sons. Ltd., 1908.
And here's an example of the author information on the inside:
As well as the Dante volumes listed above, the other major titles I have in this series include the following:
Plutarch’s Lives. 1517. Trans. Sir Thomas North. 1579. The Temple Plutarch. Ed. W. H. D. Rouse. 10 vols. London: J. M. Dent, 1898.As for the Ramayana and Mahabharata themselves, I have a number of other translations, abridgements and retellings:
- Kisari Mohan Ganguli, trans. The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa: Translated into English Prose from the Original Sanskrit Text. 1883-1896. 4 vols. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt Ltd., 2002.
- Hari Prasad Shastri, trans. The Ramayana of Valmiki. 1953. 3 vols. London: Shanti Sadan, 1976.
- J. van Buitenen, trans. The Mahābhārata. Book 1: The Book of the Beginning. 1973. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1983.
- John D. Smith, trans. The Mahābhārata: An Abridged Translation. Penguin Classics. London: Penguin, 2009.
- R. K. Narayan. The Indian Epics Retold: The Ramayana (1972); The Mahabharata (1978); Gods, Demons, and Others (1964). 1995. New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2000.
I also have two editions of the Bhagavad Gita, a small section of the Mahabharata, on its own:
- Juan Mascaró, trans. The Bhagavad Gita: Translated from the Sanskrit. Penguin Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1962.
- A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda. Bhagavad-Gītā As It Is: Complete Edition, Revised and Enlarged, with the original Sanskrit text, Roman transliteration, English equivalents, translation and elaborate purports. 1983. Los Angeles, California: The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1994.
And I also have some books and DVDs recording Peter Brook's breathtaking production of this 'epic history of mankind', which I was lucky enough to see and review when it was performed in Glasgow in 1988.
- Jean-Claude Carrière. The Mahabharata: A Play, Based upon the Indian Classical Epic. 1985. Trans. Peter Brook. London: Methuen, 1988.
- Garry O’Connor. The Mahabharata: Peter Brook’s Epic in the Making. Photography by Giles Abegg. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1989.
- Peter Brook, dir. The Mahabharata. Written by Jean-Claude Carrière & Marie-Hélène Estienne – starring Robert Langton-Lloyd, Antonin Stahly-Vishwanadan, Bruce Myers, Vittorio Mezzogiorno, Andrzej Seweryn, Urs Bihler, Ryszard Cieslak, Georges Corraface – (UK, 1989). 2-DVD set:
- A Game of Dice
- Exile in the Forest
- The War
That's two exciting finds from one shop in Paeroa, self-styled 'antiques capital' of New Zealand. In other words, it's well worth branching off from State Highway 1 to pay it a visit next time you find yourself driving through the North Island.
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- category - Eastern Literatures: Indian Literature
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