Great Medieval poet Bihari needs no introduction for students of Hindi. His excellent work, unforgettably compiled into 700 distichs, by Jagannath Das Ratnakar has been comprehensively edited by Lakshmidhar Malaviya.
Perhaps for the first time in the history of Hindi literature, has this kind of exhaustive study been carried out of the works of a Hindi poet.
Malaviya has edited the original text of Bihari on the basis of the most ancient Hindi and Urdu manuscripts, critically studying the changes wrought by Persian orthography to Bihari's original text.
Hence, Bihari's mula patha is presented in both Devanagari (Hindi script) and Nastaliq (Urdu script) and followed by no less than 5 commentaries in Hindi, followed by an exhaustive critical and poetical analysis of the verses.
The book has been handsomely printed and bound, worthy of the stature of poet Bihari.
For now, this work sets the benchmark as the definitive compilation, translation and study of Bihari. |