Jain Journal 1998 10

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 46

BANERJEE RESEARCH IN SANSKRIT AND JAINA LITERATURE
of these poets, they have analysed their poetic values and estimated these poets in the light of the ancient critics. The idea is welcome and I hope this trend will continue also in future. Some also worked on modern Sanskrit satire when the works of Siddheswara Chattopadhyaya, Biresvara Bhattacharya, Amiya Chakraborty and many others are analysed in the light of modern European critics.
In modern times lots of scholars composed works in Sanskrit on Kavyas - Mahākāvya, Khaṇḍakāvyas (lyrical poets), dramas, satires, stories, and research papers. The Sankrit language they use is highflown and can go on a par with the classical Sanskrit literature of Kalidasa. Recently a Mahākāvya in Sanskrit was composed by Satyavrat on the Thai Rama legend which can vie with the compositions of Kālidāsa, Bharavi, Bhavabhuti and others. In a similar way mention can be made of a modern lyrical poem Vilapa-pañcikā by Dr Dipak Ghosh of Calcutta University.
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One of the most important features of modern Sanskrit literature is the translation of some modern works into Sanskrit. These translations are made from Bengali works, or even at times from English literature, dramas or poems. Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyaya's Kapala-kunḍalā was translated first by Haricarana Bhattacharya and was dramatised by his son Bishnupada Bhattacharya-both the works published from Sanskrit Sahitya Parishat. Tagore's works Dākghar and Rather Darhi were translated as Vartagṛham and Ratharajju by Dhyanesh Narayan Chakraborty and Bimal Krishna Motilal respectively.
The adaptation of English drama into Sanskrit was started in the last decade of the nineteenth century. R. Kṛṣṇamachari translated into Sanskrit Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream in 1892 in his Vasantika-svapna published from Kumbhakonam. In the middle of the 20th century Hamlet was translated into Sanskrit as Chandralekha by one Maharastian poet and also by Sukhamay Mukhopadhyaya as Hemalekham. Gray's Ellegy Written in a Country Churchyard is translated into Sanskrit by one Gosvami in the Sanskrit Sahitya Parishat Patrikā.