surely ungenerous and prejudiced. The Hindu desire of eternal life, the acknowledgment of man's sinfulness, the efficacy of atonement for sin, their inveterate idea of a divine incarnation and the merits of sacrifice, should not be ignored, while all that is ludicrous and hideous in the religion of the Hindu people is put forward as its unredeeming feature.”—Indo-European Correspondence, 1877.
“We frankly own to prejudice when we say that in spite of the lofty thoughts and principles which are embodied throughout the poem, and in spite of Mr. Growse's wonderful combination of a pure English style and idiom with fidelity to the text of the original, we seem, as we read through the long string of dohas and chaupais, to hear the nasal drone of the Hindu minstrel and the wearisome beat of the tom-tom. It is prejudice, too, we fear, that throws a colouring of exaggeration over the expression of feelings on the part of the men, and somewhat of a whining querulous tone over those of the women. Mr. Growse, however, disarms, or at all events deprecates, this kind of prejudice. ‘The constant repetition,’ he says, ‘of a few stereotyped phrases, such as 'lotus feet,' 'streaming eyes,' and 'quivering frame' (a phrase which, he says, was rendered by a Calcutta Munshi, horripilation, which word he greatly admired on account of its six syllables), though they find a parallel in the stock epithets of the Homeric poem, are irritating to modern European taste.’ We think the learned translator would be justified in saying 'prejudice' (taste and prejudice are much akin), for there are phrases in the Bible—in the Song of Solomon for instance—which would strike us as irritating as the Hindu poet's, had we not been accustomed to the former from our childhood.
“Prejudice and taste apart, the great value of Mr. Growse's translation to English readers lies in the insight it gives us into the feelings of the mysterious Hindu people, among whom so many of us live for years without fathoming the depths of the national mind and heart. Of the pathetic parts of Tulsi Dás's poem—precisely those which an English, reader would feel inclined to skip—Mr. Growse says that when publicly recited ‘there is scarcely one of the audience who will not be moved to tears’. It certainly is a great service to put before us in good English the sterling equivalent of what touches the hearts of men who seem to us to have no hearts at all. We often hear it said of the people of this country that when they congregate, their talk is mostly about bhát and paisa—rice and pence. The most popular of Hindu ballads has been composed—so says Tulsi Dás in his epilogue—‘for the bestowal of pure wisdom and continence;’ and it would be sheer prejudice to deny that the tale which it tells of noble and heroic qualities has not justified the epilogue. Yet this is the poem which has the strongest hold on the people of Upper India!”—Indo-European Correspondence, 1878.
“Mr. Blochmann said he was much struck with a passage in Mr. Growse's translation; it was an additional proof that religious thought repeats itself, and that it was not difficult to cull passages from Hindu works that bear the most striking similarity to passages of the New Testament, though the authors could not be supposed to have been acquainted with Jewish or Christian writings. He hoped that Mr. Growse would have leisure and strength to complete the great—he might say national—work which he had commenced. Mr. Growse was well known both for the extent of his researches in Hindi folklore and philology and for the classical taste that pervades his translations, and there was no one better qualified to bring out a faithful and truly readable version of Tulsi Dás's Rámáyana.”—Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.
“I have read the book with very great interest. The language of Tulsi Dás is so difficult that even most of the Pandits in Hindustan can understand little of many passages in his books, especially in the Rámáyana, almost all sentences of which, besides allegory or other figure, have a number of colloquial Hindi words. Such being the case, an English translation must have been wanted by English readers; but now the author has done it beyond expectation. The version is quite literal and in easy style; and nothing difficult or figurative in the original text is omitted. So, after comparing the version with the original, I expect that this will assist not only English readers of the Rámáyana, but the Pandits also who have to teach English scholars.”—Opinion of Pandit Guru Prásád, Head Pandit of the Oriental College, Lahor (received through Dr. Leitner).
“The Hindi Rámáyana is doubly valuable. It is in the first place a key to the living creed of the modern Hindu who does not know Sanskrit. Secondly, it is in a style of transition, like our Elizabethan English, which shows the scholar and the etymologist what the language was three centuries back, as it passed
