Yin 
Preface. 
together more than half of it while he remained in England; and 
after his return to India I continued my studies alone, and he 
allowed himself to be my continual referee in all cases of difficulty. 
There were often obscure words and allusions, but he generally 
solved them all; and he sometimes amused me by his interesting 
accounts of the consultations which he had held with Calcutta 
friends over any passages of special obscurity. These attempts of 
mine to put certain episodes of the “ Candl ” into an English dress 
had lain for many years forgotten in my desk, until I happened to 
read Mr. G. A. Grierson’s warm encomiums on this old Bengali poem 
“as coming from the heart and not from the school, and as full 
of passages adorned with true poetry and descriptive power.” * This 
mention of my old favourite rekindled my slumbering enthusiasm, 
and I have tried to make my imperfect translations as worthy as 
I could of a place in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. 
I shall be delighted if some younger scholar is roused to an earnest 
study of this fascinating poem. 
With regard to the Bengali text, I may add that, although the 
“ Candl ” is a favourite poem in Bengal, many passages appear to 
be more or less interpolated, and the readings of many lines are 
corrupt and obscure. I have generally used the edition printed at 
Cuncura in b.s. 1285 (a.d. 1878), but I have often derived help from 
comparing it with the text in the common bazar editions printed 
at Calcutta in Qaka 1789 (a.d. 1867) and b.s. 1286 (a.d. 1879). In 
my translation I have sometimes ventured to shorten the long 
descriptions, which are apt to become tedious. 
* See his “Note on the Languages of India,” p. 108. There is a good account of 
“ Candi ” in R. C. Datt’s “ Literature of Bengal.” 
