महावीरचरितम् (महाकवि भवभूति - वीररस-प्रधान रामकथा नाटक सम्पूर्ण ७ अङ्क सटीक)

Note by the General Editor [xiv]
in India, have mixed (so far as possible) with its people, and have mastered at
least one of the great modern vernaculars, such as Marāṭhī or Bengālī. And,
on the other hand, since the Hindus themselves are already actively engaged
in interpreting the East to the West, it is needful also that they visit us, not
merely to learn our way of doing things, but also to look at life as we look
at it, and thus to find out what things—such, let us say, as repose of spirit
or the simple life—the West most needs to learn of the East.
Sir William Jones and Henry Thomas Colebrooke, illustrious pioneers
of Indic philology, are ideal examples of the spirit and methods that were
and are and must ever remain exemplary. They went to India and learned
of the Hindus, and to the work of making the East known to the West
they gave, with heroic devotion, all that they had to give. And ever since
their day, the business of the East India Company or of the Imperial
Government has taken men to India who have proved to be not only
faithful officials, but also Indianists of large achievement. With the spread
of Sanskrit studies upon the Continent in the second third of the last
century, there arose men who, like Eugène Burnouf or the lexicographers
Böhtlingk and Roth, accomplished great things without ever visiting the
Land of the Rose-apple. More recently, the ease and speed of ocean-travel
have brought it about that the Indianists who have not visited India are
few indeed. They feel that they must go; for thus, as so often in modern
life, do greater opportunities make obligations greater.
But it is not only for a better understanding of each other's hopes and
aspirations that the Indianists of the two hemispheres must join forces.
They must realize, far better than they now do, the importance of turning
to account the modern methods of organization and business efficiency, and
the modern progress of the graphic arts. The value of organization, and
of combining the labours of isolated scholars for well-considered ends, is
illustrated by the Kāvya-Mālā of Bombay and the Ānandāçrama Series
of Poona. Moreover, as regards wide circulation and usefulness, complete
works issued in such large groups or series as those, and in such form as only
an adequate printing establishment can give them, have an enormous
advantage over works issued singly or in incomplete parts, and at some
obscure press, and in a small edition. Let me add that the work of eminent
printers, such as the late Jāvaji Dādāji of Bombay, seems to me to be
a very real service to science, and as such to deserve generous recognition
from scholars.