SRI AUROBINDO

POEMS

FROM BENGALI

SRI AUROBINDO ASHRAM

PONDICHERRY

1956

Publishers:

Sri Aurobindo Ashram

Pondicherry

August, 1956

Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press,

Pondicherry

477/6/56/I50O

PUBLISHERS' NOTE

In translating Bengali poems, Sri Aurobindo rendered the proper names, as much as possible, in their Bengali way of pronunciation; for example, he wrote Ganodas for Jnanadas, Lolita for Lalita, Jamouna for Yamuna, even Horo (Thakur) for Horn {Thakur). Elsewhere too he used Himalaya for Himalaya, Menoca for Menaka and so on. We did not think it proper to make airy change in the text, but in the titles we have followed the current spelling so that ordinary readers may find it easy to understand the reference.

These translations, which are, by the way, not really translations in the usual sense of the word, but what may be called amplified transmutations, were done, like the poems of Vidyapati, in the early part of the writer's Baroda life. As it has been said, they are a youthful creation, that is to say, fresh with the perfume of instinctive sensibility and spontaneous artistry.