पृष्ठम्:हम्मीरमहाकाव्यम्.pdf/४

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has any reference to the history of the hero of our poem. Colonel Ted does not inform us in what language the Hammira Kavya and the Hammira Rasawere written, though he says he possessed both, and mostly translated with the assistance of his Jain Guru. He does not attempt anything like a connected narrative of Hammira. Indeed, what he says incidentally of Hammira does not at all relate to any one individual of that name, but is a jumble of anecdotes relating to several distinct personages bearing the same name.

 I obtained thọ Hammira Mahẩkầvya through Mr. Govinda Śāstri Nirantar of Nāsik, who got it from a friend of his.

 The colophon reads-" Tho present copy was made for the purpose of reading by Nayahahamsa, a pupil of Jayasimha Súri, at Firuzpur, in the month of Śrāvana of the Samvat year 1542” (A.C 1496). Possibly this was made from the poet's original Copy, and, as such, possesses an interest of its own.

 Nayachandra Suri's work, as a political composition, has considerable merits, and deserves publication as a specimen of the historical poems so rarely met with in the range of Sanskrit literature. Though the author did not live, like Bana and Bilhana, in the reign of the hero whose history ho colobrates, yet his work is not of lesş historcal importance than theirs. The information that the poems of Bana and Bilhana contain, has been made accessible to English readers through the labours of two eminent European Sanskritists. Tho present attempt to place the English reader in possession of the historical information contained in the Hammira Kavya will, I presume, be acceptable to those who are interested in the advancement of our knowledge of Indian history.

 Following the custom of other writers in Samskrit, who have attempted historical compositions, our author dovotes the greator part of on entire chapter, the fourteenth and last, to an account of his lineage, and the reasons that led to the production of his