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

Preface [xxxii]
inflections are nearly all lost, and for this very reason the sense is so
dependent on the word-order as to leave little freedom in the arrangement
of words, save at the cost of unclearness or extreme harshness. And since
a translation, whatever else it pretends to be, must be intelligible, I have
had, yet oftener and against my will, to sacrifice the effects of the original
in the interest of ready intelligibility.
The alliterative effects of the original are often very striking. Bhava-
bhūti uses smooth liquid sounds for the softer emotions and harsh guttural
combinations to express the sturdier ones. To reproduce these effects in
English is in some cases not feasible, and in others not advisable, and in
most cases I had to give up the attempt.
Finally, as to exotic colour. If East and West are ever to understand
each other, then each must bring to the other a sympathetic hearing. On
either side a top-lofty condemnation of the peculiarities of the other quite
defeats the purposes of a book like this. Accordingly, I have not tried to
avoid an idea or an expression peculiar to the Hindus and easily understood
by them, just because it may seem ‘queer’ to a foreigner, and I venture to
hope that my attitude will be taken as the best compliment that I could
pay, not only to the author or to his native country, but also to the fair-
mindedness of my foreign readers. An instance or two. An older person
in addressing a younger, says āyushman. This I have rendered by
‘long-lived one’, meaning thereby not ‘one who has lived long’, but ‘one
who, it is hoped, may live long’. My version is un-English; but the
prayer for long life or the benediction (if indeed the speaker is conscious of
it at all) is an implicit one, and to render it always as if it were an explicit
one, by the phrase ‘may thy days be long’, or the like, is wholly wrong.
The synonymous (Marāṭhī) chirañjīva, is still current in India, and is
almost equivalent to ‘my son’ as used by an older man (not necessarily the
father) to the younger. Like comment might be made on the phrases
‘my father’s feet’, ‘lotus-feet’, ‘vitals of my heart’, ‘valiant monkeys’,
‘shampooing’, and others.
A few minor matters. Certain words, like yathā or iti (as marking the
beginning or the end of a quotation), or like iti or abhinīya with a stage-
direction, are sufficiently rendered by the italics in which those directions
are printed or by marks of punctuation. Sometimes, where my version
seemed too free, the original word is given in parentheses, although it is not
to be regarded as the precise equivalent of the adjacent English word.
Words inserted to complete the sense or to bring out more fully the exact
force of the original are put in square brackets. Most of the other devices
are self-explaining. In all these matters I have tried to follow the dictates
of common sense.