Note 2 — CHAPTER 5

The work of Chand is a universal history of the period in which he wrote. In the sixty-nine books, comprising one hundred thousand stanzas, relating to the exploits of Prithiraj, every noble family of Rajasthan will find some record of their ancestors. It is accordingly treasured amongst the archives of each race having any pretensions to the name of Rajput. From this he can trace his martial forefathers who ‘drank of the wave of battle’ in the passes of Kirman when the ‘cloud of war rolled from Himachal’Himachal’ to the plains of Hindustan. The wars of Prithiraj, his alliances, his numerous and powerful tributaries, their abodes and pedigrees, make the works of Chand invaluable as historic and geographical memoranda, besides being treasures in mythology, manners, and the annals of the mind. To read this poet well is a sure road to honour, and my own Guru was allowed, even by the professional bards, to excel therein. As he read I rapidly translated about thirty thousand stanzas. Familiar with the dialects in which it is written, I have fancied that I seized occasionally the poet’s spirit; but it were presumption to suppose that I embodied all his brilliancy, or fully comprehended the depth of his allusions. But I knew for whom he wrote. The most familiar of his images and sentiments I heard daily from the mouths of those around me, the descendants of the men whose deeds he rehearses. I was enabled thus to seize his meaning, where one more skilled in poetic lore might have failed, and to make my prosaic version of some value. [For Chand Bardāi see Grierson, Modern Literary History of Hindustan, 3 f.]