Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/886

846 HINDUSTANI [LITERATURE (maharasa-mul), and equal to the speech of the gods" (i.e., Sanskrit). Kesav-Das was a Brahman who lived under Jahanglr ! and Shahjahan. He was the author of a poem on Rama, | entitled the Rdmachandrikd, written in 1602; the Kavi- priya, written in the same year, a treatise on the poetic art of much celebrity ; the Rasik-priya, on rhetoric, written in 1592: the Bhakta-lildmrita, an exposition of the doctrine of Ramanandl Vaishnavism; and several other works. Kesav-Das s compositions are widely popular, and have been frequently lithographed in Northern India. Biharl-Lal is renowned as the author of the Sat-sal, a collection of 700 distichs, which is perhaps the most cele brated work of Hindi poetic art, as distinguished from narrative and simpler styles. They are inspired by the Krishna side of Vishnu-worship, and take the form of amorous dialogues between Radha and the other Gopls and their lover. The author was a native of Goaliyar, and lived at Amber during the early part of the 17th century. Editions of this work, one of the most difficult in Hindi and abounding in subtle conceits, are very numerous. It has been commented on by a crowd of scholars, among them, strange to say, more than one Musalman, a sufficient proof of the value set by natives of India, irrespective of their creed, on its perfection of language. It has even been translated into Sanskrit. TulsI-Das, though perhaps inferior in poetic skill to the two last mentioned, is undoubtedly the most popular Hindi poet. His Rdmdyan (originally named by the author Ram- char it-mdnas, or " the Lake of Rama s deeds ") is perhaps batter known among Hindus in Upper India than the Bible among the rustic population of England. He was a KanaujI Brahman, and probably (from his language) a native of Oudh. The greater part of his life he spent at Benares; he died in 1624. His Rdmdyan was commenced at Ayodhya in 1573. Besides this great work, he is the author of six other poems, all bearing more or less on the history and worship of Rama, called the Ram-gltavali, the Dohdvali, the Kalit-sambandh, the Binay-patrikd, the Pad- Rdmdyan, and the Chhanddvall. Seven other minor works are attributed to him, but their authenticity is doubtful. Tulsi s Rdmdyan is a rehandling of the great theme of Valmlkl, but in no sense a translation of the Sanskrit poem ; real translations are scarcely to be found in original Hindi literature, the vernacular authors permitting themselves great liberty of excision, adaptation, and addition. It consists of seven books, of which the first two, called the Bdl-kdnd and Ayodhyd-kdnd, make up more than half the work, and relates the birth and boyhood of Rama and his brethren, his marriage with Slta, their dwelling together in the forest, her abduction by Ravan, the expedition to Lanka and the overthrow of the ravisher, and the life at Ayodhya after the return of the reunited pair. It is written chiefly in dolids, sorathds, and chaiipdls, with here and there a chhand interspersed ; the style is very even and well sustained, and the language, while fundamentally the Old Purbl of eastern Hindustan, borrows largely from Braj. The most admired portion of the work is the second book, Ayodhya, which tells of the mischief wrought by Kaikeyl, one of the queens of Dasarath, Rama s father, who had bound himself by a vow to grant her what boon she should . ask, and whom by this bond she compelled to command Rama and Slta to go into exile in the great forest south of the Jumna, and to give the throne to her own son Bharat. In this trouble Dasarath dies, and his son obediently goes forth with his wife and his broth erLachhman to the southern wilderness. The sorrow of Dasarath, the sweet filial piety and perfect manhood of the divine Rama, the valour and prompt affection of Lachhman, the sincerity and humility of Bharat, the purity and wifely obedience of Slta, are themes which a Hindu reader is never tired of dwelling upon in Tulsi s pages. And unlike though the treatment be to our own standards of taste, overgrown with theological digressions and explanations, and stocked with conventional images and stereotyped phrases as the poem is, even a European may fiucl in it something of literary achievement which appeals to him, however distantly, as the work of a master of the heart. The first two books of the Udmdyan have been admirably rendered into English prose by Mr F. S. Growse (Allahabad, 1877-78). Tulsl, though essentially a Hindu and a Brahman in religious feeling, yet belongs to the class of Yaishnavas who count among them Ramanand and Kablr. He has little or nothing of the sensual passion of the devotees of Krishna and Radha ; and in the commentary on the Bhaktamdld it is related that, when in his old age he paid a visit to Brindaban, the centre of the Krishna-cult, he- refused to render homage to any other form of the god than Rama. According to the legend, he was beguiled into a temple of Krishna, and bidden there to worship Rama ; he answered that he would only bow his head before one who should bear in his hand the bow and arrows of the king of Ayodhya ; hearing his speech, the image- of the god, standing till then as Krishna with the flute (Bansidhar], suddenly changed to the similitude of Rama with the bow. The Bhaktamdld, or " Roll of the Bhagats" is a celebrated work of this period, and is ascribed to Nabhajl, a Yaishnava of the despised caste called Doms or Domrds, who lived during the reign of Jahanglr, and was a contemporary of TulsI-Das. The Bhaktamdld, in the form in which it is commonly met with, consists of a mul, or original text, ascribed to Nabhajl, and a ilka, or commentary, of which there are two, due respectively to Krishna-Das and Priya- Das, both stated to have been written in 1713, in verse, and many more in prose. The mul is a short stanza (chhappai) for each saint, the first line of which is repeated again at the end, stating, in the briefest and most obscure language, his characteristics. The original work of Nabhajl was amplified and added to by Narayan-Das, who lived during the reign of Shahjahan. Mr Growse justly says of it : " The style (of the mill) might be described as of unparalleled obscurity, were it not that each separate portion of the text is followed by a Filed, or gloss, in which confusion is still worse confounded by a series of the most disjointed and inexplicit allusions to different legendary events in the saint s life." A considerable portion of the Bhaktamdld was printed in 1817 in Major Price s Hindi and Hindustani Selections, and it has been largely drawn upon by "Wilson in his account of the religious sects of the Hindus. The saints treated in it are chiefly of the class of Vaishnavas addicted to the worship of Rama ; and the anecdotes of them contained in the work are generally insipid and extravagant in the extreme. " Such as it is, however, it exercises a powerful influence in Upper India on popular belief, and holds a similar place in the supersti tions of this country to that which was occupied, in the darkest ages of the Roman Catholic faith, by the Golden Legend and Acts of the Saints" (Wilson). The other side of Vaishnavism, that devoted to the cult of the infant or youthful Krishna, with or without his mistress Radha, is represented by a work similar in character to the Bhaktamdld, called the Vdrttd, or Chaiirasl Vdrttd, already mentioned. Specimens of its contents will be found in Wilson s Religious Sects of the Hindus, p. 132. Its legends are of the most trivial and childish description ; but, with the tenth chapter of the Bhdgavata Pin-ana, rendered into Braj-bhakha by Chaturbhuj Misr, and into modern Hindi in 1804-10 by Lallu Lai, they are neverthe less the inspirers of the greater part of the popular worship

throughout the whole of Northern India. The universality