The English translation of these tales has been made by special
request, to meet repeated demands for a translation of the text as
edited by the late Dr. Duncan Forbes. The aim of the Translator has been
to produce a work which would enable the student to study the original
with facility and accuracy. It being considered that few save students
who are compelled to study the Hindi original would be likely to peruse
the work, the translation has been made as literal as it was possible
to make it without doing unpardonable violence to English idiom. All
difficulties have been boldly, if not successfully, met; and explanatory
and other notes have been added, wherever the text appeared to call for
such. The study of the translation must not be supposed to dispense with
that of the Grammar of the language; it will be found, however, to prove
of the highest utility to a student who has mastered the elementary
principles of Grammar, and uses it--not as a mere “crib” but--for the
purpose of discovering what light it sheds on the application of those
principles.