Section Two   Bankim Chandra Chatterjee   Hymn to the Mother Bande Mataram   Mother, I bow to thee! Rich with thy hurrying streams, Bright with thy orchard gleams, Cool with thy winds of delight, Dark fields waving, Mother of might, Mother free. Glory of moonlight dreams Over thy branches and lordly streams, — Clad in thy blossoming trees, Mother, giver of ease, Laughing low and sweet! Mother, I kiss thy feet, Speaker sweet and low! Mother, to thee I bow.   Who hath said thou art weak in thy lands, When the swords flash out in twice seventy million hands And seventy mil

  Hexameters from Homer   Down he fell with a thud and his armour clangoured upon him.   *   Down from the peaks of Olympus he went, wrath vexing his heart-strings.   *   Down from the peaks of Olympus she went impetuously darting.   *   Silent he walked by the shore of the many-rumoured Ocean.   Page – 606  

  Selected Poems of Bidyapati   1   Wherever her twin fair feet found room There the flowers of the water bloom; Wherever her golden body shone, There have the waves of lightning gone. Wonderful beauty, golden-sweet, How in my heart hast thou set thy feet! Wherever her eyes have opened bright, The bloom of the lotus burns its light; Wherever her musical laugh has flown Need of the nectar is not known; Wherever her shy curved glances rove, There are ten thousand arrows of love; Eyes, for a little your orbs did see! In the three worlds now there is none but she. O shall I see her ever aga

Section Five   Other Translations from Sanskrit   Opening of the Kiratarjuniya   1. Appointed to know the dealings of the Kurus' lord with his people, conduct guardian of his fortune, the forest ranger garbed with the marks of the Brahmacharin came to Yudishthira in Dwaita wood.   2. Having made his salutation he turned to declare — and his heart hurt him not — to the enjoyer of the earth, earth conquered by his rival, for well-wishers desire not to speak pleasant falsehood.   Page – 379

  Since thou hast called me   Since thou hast called me, see that I Go not from thee, — surrounding me stand. In thy own love's diviner way Make me too love thee without end.   My fathomless blackness hast thou cleft With thy infinity of light, Then waken in my mortal voice Thy music of illumined sight.   Make me thy eternal journey's mate, Tying my life around thy feet. Let thy own hand my boat unmoor, Sailing the world thy self to meet.   Fill full of thee my day and night, Let all my being mingle with thine And every tremor of my soul Echo thy Flute of flutes divine

  The Birth of the War-God BLANK VERSE RENDERING OF CANTO I   A god concealed in mountain majesty, Embodied to our cloudy physical sight In snowy summits and green-gloried slopes, To northward of the many-rivered land Measuring the earth in an enormous ease, Immense Himaloy dwells and in the moan Of eastern ocean and in western floods Plunges his giant sides. Him once the hills Imagined as the mighty calf of earth When the Wideness milked her udders; gems brilliant-rayed Were born and herbs on every mountain marge. So in his infinite riches is he dressed, Not all his snows can slay his opulence,

  Lakshmi   At the mobile passion of thy tread the cold snows faint and fail, Hued by thy magic touches shimmering glow the horizons pale. The heavens thrill with thy appeal, earth's grey moods break and die; In nectarous sound thou lav'st men's hearts with thy voice of Eternity. All that was bowed and rapt lifting clasped hands out of pain and night, How hast thou filled with murmuring ecstasy, made proud and bright! Thou hast chosen the grateful earth for thy own in her hour of anguish and strife, Surprised by thy rapid feet of joy, O Beloved of the Master of Life.   DILIP KUMAR ROY   Page –561  

Udyoga Parva   PASSAGES FROM ADHYAYAS 75 AND 72   But the mighty-armed Keshava when he heard these words of Bhema, packed with mildness, words such as those lips had never uttered before, laughing a little, — for it seemed to him like lightness in a mountain or in fire coldness, to him the Showrian, the brother of Rama, the wielder of the bow of horn, — thus he spake to Bhema even as he sat submerged with sudden pity, & woke the heat & flame of him with his words as wind the fire hearteneth.   * * *   But when Sanjaya had departed, thus spake the just king, Yudishthere, to the Dasarhan, the bull of all the Satvatas. "Now is that hour

Udyoga Parva   TWO RENDERINGS OF THE FIRST ADHYAYA   Let the reciter bow down to Naraian, likewise to Nara the Highest Male, also to our Lady the Muse, thereafter utter the word of Hail!   Vaishampayan continueth. But the hero Kurus & who clove to them thereafter having  performed joyously the marriage of Abhimanyu rested that night and then at dawn went glad to the Assembly-hall of Virata. Now wealthy was that hall of the lord of Matsya with mosaic of gems excellent and perfect jewels, with seats set out, garlanded, perfumed; thither went those great among the kings of men. Then took their seats in front the two high kings Drupada & Virata, old they and ho

Bhagawat   SKANDHA I, ADHYAYA I   1. On Him we fix our thoughts from whom are birth and being and death, who knoweth the chain of things and their separate truth, King and Free, who [to] the earliest seer disclosed the Veda through his heart, which even illuminated minds find hard to understand, In whom like interchange of water, earth and light the triple creation stands free from falsehood, for by His inherent lustre He casts out always the glamour of the worlds, — to Him we turn, that Highest Truth of things. 2. Here shall ye find highest religion in which all trickery has been eschewed, here the one substantial thing that is utterly true, tha