SOAS Research Online

Abstract

The importance of Padumavati cannot be overstressed. Its value consists chiefly in its age. It is a work of great interest from the point of view both of the philological data it supplies and of its literary value. Malik Muhammad is, without dispute, the oldest Hindi poet of whom any uncontested remains are available. He flourished under Sher Shah in the year 1540 A.D. In tha same year he wrote this poem in Avadhi, which was evidently the actual spoken language at the time in Avadh. It seems that he originally wrote it in the Persian characters and spelt each word rigorously as it was pronounced. Here an attempt is made to give a correct text constructed on modern methods of critical and scientific editorship and a translation - literal with occasional freedom, where to be literal was to be unjust to the spirit of the poet. The text has been constructed after critically comparing five MSS. in Persian characters, one MS. in Nagari characters and the edition of the Nagari Pracarini Sabha, Benares (1924). I have taken as the basis throughout MS. Pb., described in the catelogue of Hindi MSS. of India Office Library, No.1975, dated 1109 Hij. = 1697 A.D. In the absence of a single Persian MS. with complete vowel marks and of a fairly accurate MS. in Nagari characters, the difficulties of an editor are obvious and many; the difficulties met in translating the work are no fewer. THIS WORK FALLS INTO FOUR PARTS:- PART I A grammatical study of the language of the text. PART II. Text with critical footnotes. PART III. Translation with some critical notes. PART IV A complete word index of the text with lexical comparison with Guru Nanak's adi Grantha and Ramacarita-manasa (Ramayana) of Tulsi Das. In preparing the last part I have made an index of the adi Grantha because none exists at present.