हम्मीर महाकाव्यम् (रणथम्भौर चौहान वीरगाथा एवं इतिहास)

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work. Part of this will bear reproduction here in an English
dress:—
"Hail, Krishna Gachha, who gladdened the whole earth, the
beauty of whose person was like that of a blooming bunch of
the Navajâti flower, and whose praises were celebrated by
crowds of learned men, who might well be compared to so many
black humming bees,—he whose feet were ever borne on the
crowns of the followers of the Jain religion!
"In the circle of the Suris, whose actions are the homes of
wonders, in time, Jayasiṁha Sûri was born, who was the
crowning ornament of the wise, who easily vanquished in dispu-
tation S'âranga, who was the leading poet among those who
were able to write poetical compositions in six languages, and who
was honest among the most honest, who wrote three works—
(1) Nyâya Suratikâ, (2) A New Grammar, (3) A Poem on Kumâra
Nripati,—and who hence became known as the chief of those who
knew the three sciences of logic, grammar, and poesy.
"To the lotus like Gâdi of Jayasiṁha Nayachandra
is like the life giving sun, who is the essence of the knowledge
of the sciences, who is the exciting moon to the sea of the races
of the poets. This poet his spirits raised to the height of the
subject by a revelation imparted to him in a dream by the king
Hammîra himself, has composed this poem,¹ which is gratify-
ing to the assembly of the kings and in which the heroic (rasa)
is developed.
"The author in lineal descent is the grandson of Jayasiṁha
Sûri, the great poet, but in that of poesy his son.
"Let not good readers take into much account the faults of
expression that I may have fallen into. How can I, who am of
¹ Our poet also says that he was incited to the composition of this poem by a
rash assertion which some courtiers of king Tomara Vîrama had the presumption
to make in the presence of our poet that there existed no one now who could
compose a poem that would come up to the excellence of the works of old Sanskrit
poets. King Tomara Vîrama whoever he was appears to have lived seventy
years before Akbar.