सङ्गीतरत्नाकर: प्रथम भाग (शार्ङ्गदेव - स्वरगताध्याय सविस्तार व्याख्या व अनुवाद सहित)

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A NOTE ON TRANSLATION
The present English translation of Saṅgīta-ratnākara of
Śārṅgadeva is based on the Adyar edition of the Sanskrit
text published by the Adyar Library and Research Centre of
the Theosophical Society, Madras in 1943. The text has
almost entirely been adopted from that edition excepting a
few places where the readings were not found to be techni-
cally significant and relevant to the context, and where some-
times the readings of the Ānandāśhrama (Poona) edition
(edited by Shri Maṅgesh Ramakrishna Telaṅga) are found
to be more meaningful; though, that edition has been refer-
red to only in very exceptional cases only and not as a gene-
ral rule. Apart from these two editions of Saṅgīta-ratnākara
no other edition or Ms. has been consulted in preparing
this translation, probably because it was not considered with-
in the scope of a translator's work to do so.
When the project of translating this monumental work
of Saṅgīta-śāstra was taken up in 1972, there were quite a few
translations available in English, Hindi, Telugu, Kannaḍa
and so on, most of them fragmentary. However, even though
they were available, none of them was noticed by the
author till the first draft of the work was nearly completed so
far as this volume is concerned. But by and by the follow-
ing works were noticed.
(i) Saṅgīta-ratnākara (Part—I), Hindi translation by
Shri Laksminarayana Garg, Saṅgīta-kāryālaya
Hathras, 1964 (consists of Chapter I only)
(ii) Telugu translation of the first chapter with that of
Kallinātha's commentary in an appendix, by
Gandam Sri Ramamurti published by the Saṅgīt
Nāṭak Akademi, Andhra Pradesh, Kalā Bhawan,
Hyderabad—4, in 1966.
(iii) Kannaḍa translation of the first three sections of
Chapter—I with a commentary (also in Kannaḍa)

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( vii )
called Niḥśaṅka-hṛdaya by Prof. R. Sathyanarayana,
published by Prasaranga, Mysore University, 1968.
(iv) English translation of Chapter I by C. Kunhan
Raja from Adyar Library, Madras, 1945.
(v) English translation of Chapter VII on Dancing by
K. Kunjunni Raja and Radha Burnier, first pub-
lished in Vol. XXIII parts 3 & 4 of Adyar Library
Bulletin, Brahma Vidya, 1959. This has been
reprinted in 1976.
Excepting C. Kunhan Raja's English translation, no
other work could possibly be consulted by the author (i. e.
the present translator). It has been beneficial to consult
this translation since some of the charts have been adopted
from it with some modification. Another work published in
1975 was noticed as under.
(vi) Marathi translation of chapters I to IV along with
the translation of Kallinātha's commentary by
G. H. Tarlekar published by Maharastra Rajya
Sahitya Sanskriti Mandal, Bombay—32 in 1975.
The author of this work plans to complete the Marathi
translation of the entire Saṅgīta-ratnākara in his 2nd and 3rd
Volumes on which he is presently working. Any other
translations of this work, if available, have not yet been
noticed.
The present English translation is executed in quite a
different manner. First of all, the translation does not follow
the traditional śloka-wise order, rather it is presented in con-
venient paragraphs that naturally comprehend a complete
idea or expound it conceptually. The śloka-wise translations
may be suitable for literature but so far as technical works,
as this, are concerned, they hardly make any clear and
lucid presentation so that, more often than not, the subject