402

THE INDIAN VERNACULARS.

Vernacular undetermined authorship. 1 Several of the Uriya poets andin^lfriyD theologians were prolific authors, and have left behind thema number of distinct compositions. Thus, Dina Krishna Das[circ. 1550 a.d.) was so popular a writer as to earn forhimself the title of ‘ The Son of God Jagannath.’ Hisseparate works number fifteen, and embrace a wide rangeof subjects, from ‘ The Waves of Sentiment,’ an account ofthe youthful sports of Krishna, to severe medical treatises.Another Orissa poet of the 16th century composed 23 works,on religious and metaphysical subjects, such as ‘A Walk roundthe Sacred Enclosures of the Puri Temple,’ and ‘The Sea ofthe Nectar of Faith.’ The greatest of the Uriya poets, Upen-dra Bhanj, a Raja of Gumsar, belongs to nearly the sameperiod. He left behind him 42 collections of poems andtreatises, some of them of great length.

Messrs. Hcernle and Grierson have lately exhibited thelocal literature of Behar, and its sub-divisions, with admirablelearning and distinctness. 2 It must suffice here to refer thein Bihari. student to their lists of works in Billin' and the modern dialectsof the Gaudian group.

Rajputana An idea of the wealth of poetry current in Rajputana mayliterature. g at -}j erec j f rom the following statement. The figures aretaken from a manuscript note forwarded to the author by theRev. John Traill, Presbyterian missionary at Jaipur . Besidesthe ordinary Hindi works, such as translations from the Sanskrit ,the Rajputs have a vast store of religious poetry and traditionalsong, still living in the mouths of the people. The works ofonly a single sect can be specified in detail.

Dadu. Dadu, a religious reformer, bom at Ahmadabad in 1544,

left behind him a Bani, or body of sacred poetry, extend-ing to 20,000 lines. His life, by Jai Gopal, runs to3000 lines. Fifty-two disciples spread his doctrinethroughout Rajputana and Ajmere , each of them leavinga large collection of religious verse. The literary fertility ofSacred the sect may be inferred from the works of nine of thea°single° f ^ lsc >pl es - The poems and hymnology of Gharib Das aresect. said to amount to 32,000 lines ; Jaisa is stated to have

composed 124,000 lines; Prayag Das, 48,000 lines; Rajab-ji,72,000 lines; Bakhna-jf, 20,000 lines; Baba Banwarf Das,12,000 lines; Shankar Das, 4400 lines; Sundar Das, 120,000lines; and Madhu Das, 68,000 lines.

1 Hunter’s Orissa , vol. ii., App. ix., ed. 1872.

2 Comparative Dictionary of the Bihari Language, pp. 38-42, 4to.(Calcutta, 1885.)