Sri O.M.C. Narayanan Namboodiripid wrote to me to write a Foreword to the last volume of his 8-volume translation and commentary on the Rg-Veda Samhita, which he has titled 'Deviprasadam Bhasa Bhasyam. In spite of my request to him, in my reply, to relieve me of this responsibility, since I have not studied the Vedic Samhita as devotedly as I have studied the Vedic Upanisads, he did not accept my excuses. Some days ago, we happened to meet each other in Shoranur when, saying that he would have none else to write it, he lovingly pressed me to accept the responsibility and I had to agree then and there to contribute this Foreword, influenced by my love for him and respect for his profound scholarship and devotion to the Vedas.
I knew my limitation, which can aptly be put in the words of Kalidasa in his Raghuvamsam:
Mandah kaviyasa-prürthi gamisyāmyupahāsyatām; Pramsulabhye phale lobhat udbahuriva vamanah-
Possessing very little knowledge, yet aspiring for the glory of being a poet, I shall become the laughing stock of people; I shall be like a dwarf, greedy to pluck, from a high tree, the fruits, attainable only by the outstretched hands of a tall person.'
But I took advantage of his translations of, and commentary on, the first seven volumes, his own scholarly introduction, and the Forewords of seven distinguished scholars to the earlier volumes. That has been a great help to me in writing this Foreword to his eighth volume. Kalidasa's sentiments in the next verse of Raghuvamsam illumine this special ad-vantage which I have derived:
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