हम्मीर महाकाव्यम् (रणथम्भौर चौहान वीरगाथा एवं इतिहास)

11 Cantos V-VII of the poem are taken up, according to the rules of Sanskrit epic poetry, with descriptions of the seasons, and the sports and festivities in which Hammîra engaged. These cantos, as not possessing any historical value, may be ignored in this precis of the poem. I pass over a long lecture also on Nîti- sâstra which Jaitrasingh, the father of Hammîra is made to deliver to Hammîra. Chand gives a similar dissertation on grammar in his Prithvîrâja Râsau. With these introductory remarks, I come to the Pûrvaja Varnanam, i. e., the account of the ancestry of Hammîra, and, in order to give some faint idea of the author's style of writing, I shall, in the following, attempt some sort of translation of the first few reigns. The style throughout is so ornate, inflated and redundant, and the tendency of the author to punning is so per- sistent, that a longer translation is as difficult as the task would be tedious :— "Once upon a time, Brahmâ wandered in search of a holy place where to hold a sacrifice. The lotus which he held in his hand fell on the ground as if unable to bear the superior beauty of the lotus-like palm of the god. The god from this circumstance regarded the spot where the lotus fell as an auspicious one, and there, freed from anxiety, commenced the sacrifice. Anticipating persecution from the Dânavas, the god remembered the thousand- rayed one (the Sun), when a being, his face surrounded by a halo of radiance, came down from the orb of the sun. Him, the destroyer, Brahmâ appointed to the work of protecting the sacrifice. I "From that day the place where the lotus fell has been called Pushkara and he who came down from the sun the Chohân.* Having obtained the paramount power from the

• The 'Chaturbhuja Chohân as described by Tod issued like the other three progenitors of the Agnikulas—Parmâra Parihâra Châlukya—from the Agni Kunda the sacrificial fire fountain. But the genesis is described differently in different books. Perhaps where there is no truth we must not expect to find concord.