Ralph Thomas Hotchkin Griffith

In the dim twilight preceding the dawn of Indian literature the historical imagination can perceive the forms of Aryan warriors, the first Western conquerors of Hindustan, issuing from those passes in the north-west through which the tide of invasion has in successive ages rolled to sweep over the plains of India. The earliest poetry of this invading race, whose language and culture ultimately overspread the whole continent, was composed while its tribes still occupied the territories on both sides of the Indus now known as Eastern Kabulistan and the Panjab. That ancient poetry has come down to us in the form of a collection of hymns called the Rigveda. The cause which gathered the poems it contains into a single book was scientific and historical. The number of hymns comprised in the Rigveda, in the only recension which has been preserved, that of the Çakala school, is 1017, or, if the eleven supplementary hymns (called Valakhilya) which are inserted in the middle of the eighth book are added, 1028. These hymns are grouped in ten books, called mandalas, or "cycles," which vary in length, except that the tenth contains the same number of hymns as the first. In bulk the hymns of the Rigveda equal, it has been calculated, the surviving poems of Homer.

The Hymns of the Rigveda

Specimens of Old Indian Poetry

The Hymns of the Atharvaveda

The Texts of the White Yajurveda

Kālidāsa

The Birth of the War-god a Poem by Kalidasa

The Hymns of the Atharva-veda

Vālmīki

The Ramayan of Valmiki

Jagdish Lal Shastri

Ralph Hotchkin Griffith

The Rgveda, the oldest literary record of the Aryan race and the sacred book of the Hindus, has very few authentic translations in English. Most of the translations are only the imitations of interpretations which the mediaeval Hindus, as represented by Sayana, have offered. Griffith`s is the only translation which, though guided by Sayana, ventures to deviate from him widely and frequently. It may be ranked as an independent translation hitherto made in English. But this century old translation needed re-editing, necessitating a new edition incorporating improvements without disturbing the original. In this edition the Greek letters have been romanized wherever there are references in the footnotes from the Greek language. The system of transcription has been modernized even in regard to Avestan words in the footnotes, following the system of Bartholomae. The complete translation has been published in a single volume for the convenience of the reader. Each and every figure in the index has been duly checked and revised.

The Hymns of the Ṛgveda

Scenes from the Ramayan, Etc

Ralph Thomas Hotchkin Griffith

About

Books

Join the club