THE RAMAYANA

AND THE MAHABHARATA

CONDENSED INTO ENGLISH VERSE

By Romesh C. Dutt

(1899)

TO
THE RIGHT HON. PROFESSOR F. MAX MULLER
WHO HAS DEVOTED HIS LIFETIME TO THE ELUCIDATION OF
THE LEARNING, LITERATURE, AND RELIGION OF
ANCIENT INDIA
AND HAS RECOGNISED AND VINDICATED WHAT IS
TRUE AND GREAT AND ENNOBLING IN
MODERN INDIA
THIS TRANSLATION OF THE RAMAYANA
IS DEDICATED AS A
SINCERE TOREN OF THE ESTEEM AND REGARD OF MY
COUNTRYMEN

A NOTE ON
THE LATE ROMESH C. DUTT

ROMESH CHUNDER DUTT, to whom English readers are indebted for the condensed metrical version of the ancient Indian epics given in this volume, was one of the most distinguished sons of modern India. He came of a Hindu family standing high among the Kayasths, second of the great castes in Bengal, was born in 1848, and grew to manhood amid influences of deep spiritual disturbance. In those days an Indian youth who had felt the call of the West encountered the sternest opposition from both his own family and the community, if hie avowed his ambition of making the voyage to Europe. Rornesh Dutt, having passed through the Presidency College, Calcutta, took his fate into his own hands. Accompanied by two friends, both of whom after wards rose to eminence in Bengal, he secretly took ship, came to London, entered for the Indian Civil Service, and took third place in the open examination of 1869. He was the first of his race to attain the rank of divisional commissioner, and long before his retirement in 1897, at the end of twenty-five years' service, had made a high reputation as an administrator. He sat for a time in the Bengal Legislative Council, and, in recognition of his official work, received the Companionship of the Indian Empire. He died on November 30, 1909, at Baroda, the capital of the important Native State which he had served with brilliant success as revenue minister and dewan.