Page:Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, a story of his life and work.djvu/139

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ISVAR CHANDRA VIDYASAGAR.

has been nicely got up and written in easy, chaste language. I, therefore, gladly approve of its publication in the Patrika (magazine).

Sd. Isvar Chandra Sarma"

"The corrections and alterations made by Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar here and there have been very nice.

Sd. Syama Charan Mukhopadhyay."

It was at the instance of Babu Akshay Kumar Datta, that Vidyasagar commenced publishing his translation of the Mahabharat in February, 1848, in the sixty-seventh issue of the Tattvabodhini Patrika. Some portions of its Adiparvva had only been brought into publication, when Babu Kali Prasanna Singha requested him to desist, and, with his permission, began to publish his translation of the great epic. Kali Prasanna Babu himself has acknowledged it:—

"In the translation of the Mahabharat I have had to seek and obtain much assistance from many learned men. I am, therefore, under a deep debt of obligation and gratefulness to them. Of these, my venerable friend, Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, was the foremost. He had himself begun a translation of the Mahabharat and already published a part of it, in several issues of the Tattvabodhini Patrika, as well as in the form of pamphlets. But when he came to learn that I was endeavouring to issue a translation of the great poem, he very kindly desisted from his translation. If he had not