हम्मीर महाकाव्यम् (रणथम्भौर चौहान वीरगाथा एवं इतिहास)

6

has any reference to the history of the hero of our poem.
Colonel Tod does not inform us in what language the Hammîra
Kâvya and the Hammîra Râsâ were written, though he says he
possessed both, and mostly translated with the assistance of
his Jain Guru. He does not attempt anything like a connected
narrative of Hammîra. Indeed, what he says incidentally of
Hammîra does not at all relate to any one individual of that name,
but is a jumble of anecdotes relating to several distinct personages
bearing the same name.
I obtained the Hammîra Mahâkâvya through Mr. Govinda
Śâstri Nirantar of Nâsik, who got it from a friend of his.
The colophon reads—"The present copy was made for the
purpose of reading by Nayahaṁsa, a pupil of Jayasiṁha Sûri, at
Firuzpur, in the month of Śrâvaṇa of the Saṁvat year 1542"
(A.C. 1496). Possibly this was made from the poet's original
copy, and, as such, possesses an interest of its own.
Nayachandra Sûri's work, as a poetical composition,
has considerable merits, and deserves publication as a specimen
of the historical poems so rarely met with in the range of Sanskṛit
literature. Though the author did not live, like Bâṇa and
Bilhaṇa, in the reign of the hero whose history he celebrates,
yet his work is not of less historical importance than theirs.
The information that the poems of Bâṇa and Bilhaṇa contain
has been made accessible to English readers through the
labours of two eminent European Sanskṛitists. The present
attempt to place the English reader in possession of the historical
information contained in the Hammîra Kâvya will, I presume, be
acceptable to those who are interested in the advancement of our
knowledge of Indian history.
Following the custom of other writers in Sanskṛit, who have
attempted historical compositions, our author devotes the greater
part of one entire chapter, the fourteenth and last, to an account
of his lineage, and the reasons that led to the production of his