The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 13 | Page 6

Peri-banu; History of the two
Sisters who envied their Cadette,
are borrowed mainly from the Indian version of Totßrßm Shßyßn.
And here I must quote the bibliographical notices concerning the
sundry versions into Urdu or Hindustani which have been drawn up
with great diligence by Mr. Blumhardt.
"The earliest attempt to translate the Arabian Nights was made by
Munshi Shams al-DÝn Ahmad Shirwßni. A prose version of the first
two hundred Nights made by him æfor the use of the College at Fort St.
George' was lithographed at Madras in the year A.H. 1252 (A.D. 1836)
and published in 8vo volumes (pp. 517, 426) under the title 'Hikayat
ool jaleeah'[FN#3] (Hikßyßt al-jalÝlah). The translation was made
from an Arabic original but it does not appear what edition was made
use of. The translator had intended to bring out a version of the entire
work, but states in his preface that, being unable to procure the Arabic
of the other Nights, he could not proceed with the translation, and had
to be content to publish only two hundred Nights. This version does not
appear to have become popular, for no other edition seems to have been
published. And the author must not be confounded with Shaykh Ahmad
Shirwßni, who, in A.D. 1814, printed an Arabic edition of the Arabian
Nights Entertainments (Calcutta, Pereira) which also stopped at No.
CC.
"The next translation was made by Munshi al-KarÝm, likewise in prose.
From the preface and colophon to this work it appears that 'Abd
al-KarÝm obtained a copy of Edward Foster's English version of the
Arabian Nights, and after two years' labour completed a translation of

the whole work in A.H. 1258 (A.D. 1842). It was lithographed at the
Mustafai Press at Kanp·r (Cawnpore) in the year A.H. 1263 (A.D. 1847)
and published in four vols., in two royal 8vos, lithographed; each
containing two Jilds (or parts, pp. 276, 274; 214 and 195).
"A second edition appeared from the same press in A.H. 1270 (A.D.
1853) also in two vols. 8vo of two Jilds each (pp. 249, 245; 192, 176).
Since then several other editions have been published at Cawnpore, at
Lakhnau[FN#4] and also at Bombay. This translation is written in an
easy fluent style, omitting all coarseness of expression or objectionable
passages, in language easily understood, and at the same time in good
and elegant Hindustani. It is therefore extremely popular, and selections
from the 4th Jild have been taken as text books for the Indian Civil
Service examinations. A Romanised Urdu version of the first two Jilds
according to Duncan Forbes' system of transliteration, was made 'under
the superintendence of T. W. H. Tolbort,' and published under the
editorship of F. Pincott in London, by W. H. Allen and Co. in
1882.[FN#5] There has been no attempt to divide this translation into
Nights: there are headings to the several tales and nothing more. To
supply this want, and also to furnish the public with a translation closer
to the original, and one more intelligible to Eastern readers, and in
accordance with Oriental thought and feeling, a third translation was
taken in hand by Totßrßm Shßyßn, at the instance of Nawal Kishore,
the well-known bookseller and publisher of Lucknow. The first edition
of this translation was lithographed at Lucknow in the year A.H. 1284
(A.D. 1868) and published in a 4to vol. of 1,080 pages under the title of
Hazßr Dastßn.[FN#6] Totßrßm Shßyßn has followed 'Abd al-Karim's
arrangement of the whole work into four Jilds, each of which has a
separate pagination (pp. 304; 320, 232, and 224.) The third Jild has 251
Nights: the other three 250 each. The translation is virtually in prose,
but it abounds in snatches of poetry, songs and couplets taken from the
writings of Persian poets, and here and there a verse-rendering of bits
of the story. This translation, though substantially agreeing in the main
with that of 'Abd al-Karim, yet differs widely from it in the treatment.
It is full of flowery metaphors and is written in a rich, ornate style full
of Persian and Arabic words and idioms, which renders it far less easy
to understand than the simple language of 'Abd al-Karim. Some

passages have been considerably enlarged and sometimes contain quite
different reading from that of 'Abd al-Karim with occasional additional
matter. In other places descriptions have been much curtailed so that
although the thread of the story may be the same in both translations it
is hard to believe that the two translators worked from the same version.
Unfortunately Totßrßm Shßyßn makes no mention at Ali the source
whence he made his translation whether English or Arabic. This
translation reached its fourth edition in 1883, and has been published
with the addition of several badly executed full-page illustrations
evidently taken from English prints.