he poet in Sanscrit. Occasionally, but rarely, a few
redundant couplets have been left out, or a long list of proper names
or obscure allusions has been shortened; and in one place only, at
the beginning of the Fifth Book, I have added twelve couplets of my
own to explain the circumstances under which the story of Savitri is
told. Generally, therefore, the translation may be accepted as an
unabridged, though necessarily a free translation of the passages
describing the main incidents of the Epic.

From this method I have been compelled to depart, much against my
wish, in the three books describing the actual war. No translation
of an Epic relating to a great war can be acceptable which does not
narrate the main events of the war. The war of the _Maha-bharata_
was a series of eighteen battles, fought on eighteen consecutive
days, and I felt it necessary to present the reader with an account
of each day's work. In order to do so, I have been compelled to
condense, and not merely to translate selected passages. For the
transactions of the war, unlike the other incidents of the Epic, have
been narrated in the original with almost inconceivable prolixity and
endless repetition; and the process of condensation in these three
books has therefore been severe and thorough. But, nevertheless, even
in these books I have endeavoured to preserve the character and the
spirit of the original. Not only are the incidents narrated in the
same order as in the original, but they are told in the style of the
poet as far as possible. Even the similes and metaphors and figures
of speech are all or mostly adopted from the original; the translator
has not ventured either to adopt his own distinct style of narration,
or to improve on the style of the original with his own decorations.

Such is the scheme I have adopted in presenting an Epic of ninety
thousand Sanscrit couplets in about two thousand English couplets.

The excellent and deservedly popular prose translation of the Odyssey
of Homer by Messrs. Butcher and Lang often led me to think that
perhaps a prose translation of these selected passages from the
_Maha-bharata_ might be more acceptable to the modern reader. But a
more serious consideration of the question dispelled that idea. Homer
has an interest for the European reader which the _Maha-bharata_
cannot lay claim to; as the father of European poetry he has a claim
on the veneration of modern Europe which an Indian poet can never