The long wait is finally over and the day has come for the release of the books of Adil Shahi literature in Kannada, the ambitious project which was started in March 2013.
“We will be releasing the first volume of six books on February 27 at BLDEA ground. This is certainly a proud moment for us,” said Krishna Kolhar Kulkarni, the director of Adil Shahi Literature Translation Committee set up by the Department of Kannada and Culture.
Announcing this at a press conference here on Tuesday, he said that the first volume of six books, comprising approximately four thousand words was ready to be released.
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Describing the work as historic and unprecedented, the veteran historian claimed in the past, no literature of Indian dynasty has been translated so extensively, like this project.
Admitting that it was a mammoth task to collect numerous original books and hundreds of manuscripts for translation, Mr. Kulkarni said that the committee visited places such as Salarjung Museum in Hyderabad, Archeological Survey of India (ASI) Archives in Delhi and other government libraries to collect the books for translation.
“After the end of Adil Shahi dynasty, the literature of that era got completely scattered across the country and some of it was even taken to London in the past. Now, collecting all the documents proved to be a big task”, he said.
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He also said that since the literature of that era is mostly available in Dakhani Urdu and Persian, finding the best translators in these languages was also a major task.
“Without the best translators, the job would prove a futile exercise, thus, the committee headed by noted writer and former Vice Chancellor, M.M. Kalburgi took enormous care in selecting the right people for the job,” he said.
Mr. Kulkarni informed that the six books: Tareekh-e-Farishta, Basateen-e-Salateen, Ibrahim Nama, Guldasda-e-Bijapur, Haftakursi and Futuhat-e-Alamgir would be released.
To a question, he said that another six volumes would be released by the end of this year. “We plan to release a total of at least 18 volumes, for which we are in a process of collecting books even from Indian Office Library, London,” he said.
Mr. Kulkarni said that after going through the work, the ASI has asked the committee to translated the entire work into English and Urdu for which the ASI was ready to offer financial aid.