PREFACE.

IN

one of the letters which bear the title of EDIFYING, though moft of them fwarm with ridiculous errours, and all must be confulted with extreme diffidence, I met, fome years ago, with the following paffage: "In the north of India "there are many books, called Nátac, which,

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as the Bráhmens affert, contain a large portion "of ancient history without any mixture of fable;" and having an eager defire to know the real ftate of this empire before the conqueft of it by the Savages of the North, I was very folicitous, on my arrival in Bengal, to procure access to those books, either by the help of translations, if they had been tranflated, or by learning the language in which they were originally compofed, and which I had yet a stronger inducement to learn from its connection with the administration of juftice to the Hindûs; but when I was able to converse with the Bráhmens, they affured me that the Nátacs were not hiftories, and abounded with fables; that they were

extremely popular works, and confifted of converfations in profe and verfe, held before ancient Rájás in their publick affemblies, on an infinite variety of fubjects, and in various dialects of India: this definition gave me no very diftinct idea; but I concluded that they were dialogues on moral or literary topicks; whilst other Europeans, whom I confulted, had understood from the natives that they were discourses on dancing, musick, or poetry. At length a very fenfible Bráhmen, named Rádhácánt, who had long been attentive to English manners, removed all my doubts, and gave me no lefs delight than furprise, by telling me that our nation had compositions of the fame fort, which were publickly represented at Calcutta in the cold feafon, and bore the name, as he had been informed, of plays. Refolving at my leisure to read the best of them, I asked which of their Nátacs was most univerfally esteemed; and he answered without hefitation, Sacontalá, fupporting his opinion, as ufual among the Pandits, by a couplet to this effect: "The ring of Sacontalá, in which the "fourth act, and four flanzas of that act, are eminently brilliant, difplays all the rich exu"berance of Cálidáfa's genius." I foon procured a correct copy of it; and, affifted by my teacher Rámalóchan, began with tranflating it verbally into Latin, which bears fo great a refemblance

any

to Sanferit, that it is more convenient than modern language for a fcrupulous interlineary verfion: I then turned it word for word into English, and afterwards, without adding or fuppreffing any material fentence, difengaged it from the stiffness of a foreign idiom, and prepared the faithful tranflation of the Indian drama, which I now present to the publick as a most pleafing and authentick picture of old Hindû manners, and one of the greatest curiofities that the literature of Afia has yet brought to light.

Dramatick poetry muft have been immemorialiy ancient in the Indian empire: the invention of it is commonly afcribed to Bheret, a fage believed to have been infpired, who invented alfo a fyftem of mufick which bears his name; but this opinion of its origin is rendered very doubtful by the univerfal belief, that the first Sanferit verse ever heard by mortals was pronounced in a burft of refentment by the great Válmic, who flourished in the filver age of the world, and was author of an Epick Poem on the war of his contemporary, Ráma, king of Ayodhyà; so that no drama in verfe could have been represented before his time; and the Indians have a wild ftory, that the first regular play, on the fame fubject with the Rámáyan, was compofed by Hanumat or Pávan, who commanded an army of Satyrs or Mountaineers in Ráma's expedition

against Lancà: they add, that he engraved it on a smooth rock, which, being diffatisfied with his compofition, he hurled into the sea; and that, many years after, a learned prince ordered expert divers to take impreffions of the poem on wax, by which means the drama was in great measure restored; and my Pandit affures me that he is in poffeffion of it. By whomsoever or in whatever age this fpecies of entertainment was invented, it is very certain, that it was carried to great perfection in its kind, when Vicramaditya, who reigned in the first century before Christ, gave encouragement to poets, philologers, and mathematicians, at a time when the Britons were as unlettered and unpolished as the army of Hanumat: nine men of genius, commonly called the nine gems, attended his court, and were splendidly fupported by his bounty; and Cálidás is unanimoufly allowed to have been the brightest of them.-A modern epigram was lately repeated to me, which does fo much honour to the author of Sacontalá, that I cannot forbear exhibiting a literal verfion of it: "Po

etry was the fportful daughter of Válmic, and,

having been educated by Vyáfa, she chose Cá"lidás for her bridegroom after the manner of "Viderbha: fhe was the mother of Amara, Sun"dar, Sanc'ha, Dhanic; but now, old and de

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crepit, her beauty faded, and her unadorned

"feet flipping as the walks, in whofe cottage "does the difdain to take fhelter?"

All the other works of our illustrious poet, the Shakespeare of India, that have yet come to my knowledge, are a fecond play, in five acts, entitled Urvasí; an heroic poem, or rather a feries of poems in one book, on the Children of the Sun; another, with perfect unity of action, on the Birth of Cumára, god of war; two or three love tales in verfe; and an excellent little work on Sanfcrit Metre, precisely in the manner of Terentianus; but he is believed by fome to have revised the works of Válmic and Vyáfa, and to have corrected the perfect editions of them which are now current: this at least is admitted by all, that he ftands next in reputation to thofe venerable bards; and we muft regret, that he has left only two dramatick poems, especially as the ftories in his Raghuvanfa would have supplied him with a number of excellent fubjects. Some of his contemporaries, and other Hindû poets even to our own times, have compofed fo many tragedies, comedies, farces, and mufical pieces, that the Indian theatre would fill as many volumes as that of any nation in ancient or modern Europe: all the Pandits affert that their plays are innumerable; and, on my first inquiries concerning them, I had notice of more than thirty, which they confider as the flower