About This Edition and Introduction

About This Edition

This is a complete Urdu text and English translation of *Rani Ketki ki Kahani* ("The Story of Rani Ketki"), also called *Dastan Rani Ketki aur Kunwar Ude Bhan ki*, by Sayyid Insha Allah Khan Insha (1756–1817).

Source of the Urdu text: *Dastan Rani Ketki aur Kunwar Ude Bhan ki*, edited by Maulvi Abdul Haq, Anjuman Taraqqi-e-Urdu, Aurangabad (Deccan), 1933; the copy in the Maulana Azad Library, Aligarh Muslim University, scanned by the Digital Library of India and freely available on the Internet Archive (archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.415753). The text was transcribed page by page from the scan for this edition.

What is left out: the editor's preface, his footnotes (variant readings and glosses) and the publisher's matter. Only Insha's own text is given. Spelling follows the 1933 printing, including Insha's older forms such as *ous* for *us* and *oun* for *un*. Paragraphs have been divided more often than in the printing, to make the facing translation easier to follow. Section headings are Insha's own.

Copyright: Insha died in 1817, so the work is in the public domain everywhere. The English translation is new.

Introduction

Insha was a poet of the Mughal court at Delhi who moved to Lucknow and served the Nawab of Awadh, Saadat Ali Khan. He was famous for his wit, his command of many languages and his love of verbal tricks. Around 1803 he set himself a challenge: to tell a whole story in the everyday speech of Hindustan without a single Persian or Arabic word, and without falling into rustic dialect either. He says so himself in the opening section, where a learned friend tells him it cannot be done.

The result is a short, playful romance. Prince Ude Bhan falls in love with Princess Ketki in a mango grove; her father refuses the match; a yogi turns the prince and his parents into deer; Ketki uses the yogi's magic ash to make herself invisible and goes looking for him; and in the end the god Indra restores them, and the book closes with one of the most extravagant wedding scenes in the language.

Why it is studied: *Rani Ketki* is a set text in classical Urdu prose courses, and it is claimed by both Urdu and Hindi literary history. Urdu scholars read it as a virtuoso experiment in pure *Hindvi*; Hindi scholars count it among the earliest prose works in Khari Boli, the dialect that became modern standard Hindi. It is short enough to read in a single seminar, and it raises the central questions of the Hindi–Urdu relationship: vocabulary, script and identity.

Names in this translation: Ude Bhan (Udaybhan), Ketki, Madan Ban, Raja Jagat Parkas (Prakash), Rani Kam Lata, Raja Suraj Bhan, Rani Lachhmi Bas, Mahendar Gir, Indra, Mount Kailas. Cultural terms are kept in italics with a short gloss on first use, and explained in the glossary at the end. Translator's notes are marked [TN: ...].

How to cite: Insha Allah Khan Insha, *Rani Ketki ki Kahani* (c. 1803), Urdu text from the Anjuman Taraqqi-e-Urdu edition (Aurangabad, 1933), with English translation, urduintranslation.com, 2026, https://www.urduintranslation.com/works/rani-ketki-ki-kahani.