1873.] 
329 
A Metrical Version of the opening Stanzas of the Prithirdj Bdsau, with a 
critical commentary. — By F. S. (Trowse, M. A., B. C. S. 
“ Manuscripts are in general grossly incorrect; and a familiarity with the metre 
will frequently assist the reader in restoring the text where it has been corrupted.” 
ColebrooJc, on Sanskrit and Prakrit Poetry. 
The following version of the opening Stanzas of Chand’s great poem 
does not lay claim to any poetical merit. It simply professes to be a close 
and accurate reproduction of the original, so far as the difficulties of the 
text allow, in readable and intelligible English. Occasionally the exigencies 
of rhyme and metre have necessitated some slight expansion or curtailment; 
and in a few passages the exact turn of expression has been deliberately aban¬ 
doned, either because there was a doubt about the reading, audtherefore a little 
vagueness was preferable to what might turn out to be mistaken accuracy, 
or because a rigid adherence to Hindi style would have had a forced and un¬ 
natural effect, and to that extent have misrepresented the original. But 
throughout, the translation is line for line, not unfrequently word for word ; 
the connection of ideas, not always easy to trace, has been carefully studied 
and faithfully preserved ; and not a word materially affecting the sense has 
anywhere been either omitted or inserted. 
These, it must be admitted, are rather the merits which should charac¬ 
terize a prose translation ; and as a literal rendering of these very same 
stanzas has aleady appeared in the last volume of the Society’s Journal, the 
present version might be hastily condemned as a mere work of super-eroga- 
tion. The rendering to which I refer is therefore appended in a running 
foot-note ; the words to which exception is taken as being (in my opinion) 
specially incorrect being printed in italics ; and the text is inserted above, 
in order that the correspondence, or otherwise, of the one with the other 
may be rapidly apprehended. For other reasons it was desirable that such 
comparison should be made; though it may be added that the present 
metrical version would never have been attempted but for the opening 
sentence of the preface to the prose translation, which fathers upon me a 
retractation which I am not conscious of having made. 
In my reprint of the text I have for the sake of the metre corrected the 
copyist’s errors of spelling in many places where without such correction the 
lines could not possibly be scanned. It is incredible that Cliand himself was 
guilty of these false quantities, since in one of the verses which I translate, 
it will be seen that he specially prides himself upon his accurate knowledge 
and observance of the laws of prosody. The alterations, which affect the 
sense, are very few in number, and are all fully explained and defended in 
my running commentary. 
