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Section Two
Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
Hymn to the Mother Bande Mataram
Mother, I bow to thee! Rich with thy hurrying streams, Bright with thy orchard gleams, Cool with thy winds of delight, Dark fields waving, Mother of might, Mother free. Glory of moonlight dreams Over thy branches and lordly streams, — Clad in thy blossoming trees, Mother, giver of ease, Laughing low and sweet! Mother, I kiss thy feet, Speaker sweet and low! Mother, to thee I bow.
Who hath said thou art weak in thy lands, When the swords flash out in twice seventy million hands And seventy million voices roar Thy dreadful name from shore to shore? With many strengths who art mighty and stored, To thee I call, Mother and Lord! Thou who savest, arise and save! To her I cry who ever her foemen drave Back from plain and sea And shook herself free.
Thou art wisdom, thou art law, Thou our heart, our soul, our breath,
Page – 465 Thou the love divine, the awe In our hearts that conquers death. Thine the strength that nerves the arm, Thine the beauty, thine the charm. Every image made divine In our temples is but thine.
Thou art Durga, Lady and Queen, With her hands that strike and her swords of sheen, Thou art Lakshmi lotus-throned, And the Muse a hundred-toned. Pure and perfect without peer, Mother, lend thine ear. Rich with thy hurrying streams, Bright with thy orchard gleams, Dark of hue, O candid-fair In thy soul, with jewelled hair And thy glorious smile divine, Loveliest of all earthly lands, Showering wealth from well-stored hands! Mother, mother mine! Mother sweet, I bow to thee, Mother great and free!
Page – 466 Bande Mataram (Translation in Prose)
I bow to thee, Mother, richly-watered, richly-fruited, cool with the winds of the south, dark with the crops of the harvests, the Mother! Her nights rejoicing in the glory of the moonlight, her lands clothed beautifully with her trees in flowering bloom, sweet of laughter, sweet of speech, the Mother, giver of boons, giver of bliss!
Terrible with the clamorous shout of seventy million throats, and the sharpness of swords raised in twice seventy million hands, who sayeth to thee, Mother, that thou art weak? Holder of multitudinous strength, I bow to her who saves, to her who drives from her the armies of her foemen, the Mother!
Thou art knowledge, thou art conduct, thou our heart, thou our soul, for thou art the life in our body. In the arm thou art might, O Mother, in the heart, O Mother, thou art love and faith, it is thy image we raise in every temple.
For thou art Durga holding her ten weapons of war,
Translator’s Note. It is difficult to translate the National Anthem of Bengal into verse in another language owing to its unique union of sweetness, simple directness and high poetic force. All attempts in this direction have been failures. In order, therefore, to bring the reader unacquainted with Bengali nearer to the exact force of the original, I give the translation in prose line by line.
Page – 467 Kamala at play in the lotuses and Speech, the goddess, giver of all lore, to thee I bow! I bow to thee, goddess of wealth, pure and peerless, richly-watered, richly-fruited, the Mother! I bow to thee, Mother, dark-hued, candid, sweetly smiling, jewelled and adorned, the holder of wealth, the lady of plenty, the Mother!
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