THE MODERN VERNACULARS.

4°3

These figures are stated on the authority of Mr. Traill, Daduand they are subject to the qualification that no European }^™ 0 "scholar has yet collected the writings of the sect. They aregiven as reported by the natives among whom the poemsare still current. It is to be regretted that so little has yetbeen done to edit the stores of vernacular literature in theFeudatory States of India. A noble task lies before the moreenlightened of the native princes ; and in this task they wouldreceive the willing assistance of English scholars now in India .

A very brief notice of the most distinguished authors in Selected

Hindi , Marathi , and Bengali must conclude this chapter. For vernacular. . , . , , authors,

practical purposes, those three vernaculars represent the

highest modern development of the Indo - Aryan dialects.

This is, of course, exclusive of the non-Aryan Dravidian litera-ture in the South of India, which has already been dealt withat the beginning of the chapter. The monastic literature ofBurma is almost entirely a reproduction of the ancient Buddhist writings, and does not come within the scope of this work.

Hindi ranks, perhaps, highest among the Indian vernaculars Hindi in strength and dignity. At the head of Hindi authors is aut h° rs :Chand Bardai. Chand was a native of Lahore , but lived at Chandthe court of Prithwl Raja, the last Hindu sovereign of Delhi , Bardal >at the close of the 12th century. 1 His poems are a col-turyA.n.lection of ballads, in which he recites, in his old age, thegallant deeds of the royal master whom he had served, andwhose sad fate he had survived. They disclose the ancientPrakrit in the very act of passing into the modem vernacular.

In grammatical structure they still retain many relics of thesynthetic or inflectional type; although the analytical forms ofthe modern vernaculars are beginning to crowd out theseremnants of the earlier phase of the Indian speech. Chand’sballads have been printed, but they also survive in the mouthsof the people. They are still sung by wandering bardsthroughout North-Western India and Rajputana, to near themouths of the Indus, and to the frontier of Baluchistan .

The vernacular literatures derived their chief impulse, how- Laterever, not from court minstrelsy, but from religious movements.

Each new sect seems to have been irresistibly prompted toembody its doctrines in verse. Kabir, the Indian Luther of 15th cen-the 15th century, may be said to have created the sacred tul T A-D,;literature of Hindi '. 2 His Ramainls and Sabdas form an

1 For Prithwi Raja, vide ante , chap. x. p. 329.

2 For Kabir’s work as a religious reformer, vide ante, pp. 258, 268.