V. Raghavan's Sanskritisation of Rabindranath Tagore's lyrics in the play NAțī Pūjā

V. Raghavan(1908–1979) was a great Indologist and a Sanskritist per-excellence. He has shown sufficient interest in the literature of Rabindranath Tagore, so much so that he edited and compiled numerous pieces of Sanskrit translations of Tagore in the volume Samskrita-Ravindram published by Sahitya Akademy, New Delhi in 1966. In this volume he himself has translated into Sanskrit two plays of Tagore-Vālmīki Pratibhā and Națī Pūjā. Raghavan is a sound Sanskrit poet himself. He was famous as an instant poet. Hundreds of original verses in Sanskrit in the form of stotras and supravāta prayers to his credit prove his poetic heart. He has also Sanskritised some poems of the West. Therefore it would be interesting to see how he translates the lyrics of Rabindranath used in his plays and poems. At present we take Națī Pūjā, a play of Rabindranath and see how the Sanskrit translation of Bengali lyrics in it are capable of going parallel with the art and idea of Rabindranath.