HINDUSTANI LITERATURE.—Hindustani literature falls into two great divisions, of which the first is comprehensively styled Hindi, the second Urdii. Both of these forms of speech are, in their application to literary purposes, at first intruders upon the ground already occupied by the learned languages, Sanskrit and Persian. At no time during modern Indian history has Sanskrit altogether ceased to be used for composition by the class who regard culture and literature as their special heritage, although during the last two centuries it has much fallen from its former estate; and Persian has been still less neglected by learned Muhammadans and their Hindu imitators in India. But there is this difference between them that, whereas Hindi has been raised to the dignity of a literary language chiefly by impulses of revolt against the monopoly of the Brahmans, Urdu has been cultivated with good will by authors who have themselves highly valued and dexterously used the polished Persian. Both, however, represent the popular side of the national culture, and in the present day they are almost in sole possession of the field. The subject may be conveniently divided as follows :—
1. Early Hindi, of the period during which the language was being fashioned as a literary medium, represented by the old heroic poems of Räjpütänä and the literature of the Bhagats or Vaishnava reformers, and extending from about 1200 to 1570 A.D.
2. Middle Hindi, representing the best age of Hindi poetry, and reaching from about 1570 to 1750 a.d.
3. The rise and development of literary Urdü, beginning about the end of the 16th century and reaching its height during the 18 th.
4. The modern period, marked by the growth of a prose literature in both dialects, and dating from the beginning of the present century.
1. Early Hindi literature has as yet been very insufficiently explored.· Chand’s Prithwïrâj Räsau is the only specimen of the heroic ballads of which any portion has been published, other ancient metrical chronicles of the same character being known to us only from the use made of them by such writers as Colonel Tod in his Annals of Rajasthan, and Major Pogson in his History of the Boondelas. Chand was the bard of Prithwiräj, the last Hindu king of Dehli, whose life and death he has related. He was himself a native of Lahore, which had for nearly 200 years (since 1023) been under Musulman domination at the time when the poem may be supposed to have been written. His language exhibits a considerable proportion of Persian words, but little of the distinctive features of what is now Panjabi. His work is probably, with the exception of a fragment by Jaideo (the author of the Sanskrit Gita·Govinda), preserved in the Ädi-Granth, the oldest specimen of Hindi which we possess: but it is impossible to suppose that he was the first to attempt poetical composition in that language. The metrical perfection of his verse alone shows that he must have had many predecessors; and rude and rough though his utterance is, it abounds in poetic conventionalisms which must have been the common stock of many singers of his class. The story is told in sixty-nine books, of which some are interludes and digressions, but most are occupied with the exploits of the hero and his warriors. Considering the early date of the poem, and the opportunities of knowing the truth which the author (if he was really Prithwiräj’s bard) possessed, it is remarkable how much legend and fiction is mixed up with history in the chronicle. The repeated conflicts between the räjä and Sultan Shihâbuddîn of Ghor, in which the latter always, except in the last great battle, comes off the worst, and is released on payment of a ransom, seem to be entirely unhistoric, our authorities knowing only one encounter (that of Tirauri near Thänesar, fought in 1191) in which the sultan was defeated, and there even he escaped uncaptured to Lahore. The Mughals (Book xv.) are brought on the stage more than thirty years before they actually set foot iu India (1222), and are related to have been vanquished by the redoubtable Prithwïrâj. These and other points make it questionable whether we have here, at least in its entirety, a genuine contemporary work; but we may concede, as indeed we are justified in doing by the language of the poem, that it is one of our earliest documents in Hindi.
It is very difficult for us now to form a just estimate of Chand’s poem: the language, essentially transitional in character, abounds in strange forms which have long since died out of the vernacular speech; few if any Hindus, even the most learned, are able to interpret him; and his meaning must be sought by investigating the processes by which Sanskrit and Prakrit words have been transfigured in their progress into Hindi. But upon the whole he may be said to exhibit both the merits and defects of ballad-chroniclers in general. There is much that is lively and spirited in his descriptions of fight or council; and the characters of the Räjpüt warriors who surround his.hero are not unfrequently sketched in their own words with skill and animation. The sound, however, too often predominates over the sense, and we find abundantly exemplified in his poem the wearisome iteration, uninventive sameness of machinery, and tedious unfolding of familiar themes and images which distinguish nearly the whole of Indian narrative poetry. His value, for us at least, is linguistic rather than literary.
The other class of composition which is characteristic of the period of Old Hindi, the literature of the Bhagats, both possesses more intrinsic interest and has exercised a more important influence on subsequent literary endeavour. The heroic chronicles, with perhaps the single exception of a famous saga relating the history of Padmävati, wife of Ratan Sen Räjä of Chitor, who in 1303 at the taking of that fortress by Sultan *Ala-ud-din burnt herself and (so says the tale) 13,000 other women rather than fall into the hands of the conqueror, which has been several times handled by poets outside the pale of Rajput traditions, and especially in a still highly esteemed work by Jaisi under Sher Shäh (1540), had only a local currency, and contributed but little to the furtherance of literature outside the limits of Râjpûtânâ. The Vaishnava reformers, on the other hand, exercised the most powerful influence both upon the national speech and upon the themes chosen for poetic treatment. Nearly the whole of subsequent Hindi literature is impressed with one or other form of Vaishnava doctrine; a very large proportion of the poets whose works are still current among the people were Vaishnava saints or bhagats ; and to their initiative is due the almost exclusive use as a poetic dialect of that form of archaic Hindi known as Braj-bhäkhä. Vaishnavism was essentially a reaction against Brahmanical influence and the chains of caste, a claim for the rights of humanity against the monopoly which the “twice-born ’’ asserted of learning, of worship, of righteousness. As Siva was the peculiar deity of the Brahmans, so was Vishnu of the people; and while the literature of the Sai vas and éâktas is almost entirely in Sanskrit, and exercised little or no influence on the popular mind, that of the Vaishnavas is mainly in Hindi, and in itself constitutes the great bulk of what has been written in that language.
The Vaishnava doctrine is commonly carried back to Ramanuja, whose appearance is placed by Wilson about the middle of the 12th century. He was a native of Southern India, and had few immediate followers in the north. In the latter region the new opinions were spread by Rämänand, whom the Bhaktamälä makes the fourth head of the sect, and other authorities the fifth; both Wilson and Trumpp place him about 1400 of our era. Nothing in Hindi by Ramanuja has come down to us; of Rämänand we have one short poem in the Grαηth (Introduction, p. cxxiv.). Between Ramanuja and Rämänand (though not in the line of teachers descending direct from the former) we may place Jaideo (about 1250) and Nämdeo (about 1300), of the first of whom we have a fragment in the Granth, and of the second six pieces have been similarly preserved. Jaideo was a Brahman, and well acquainted with Sanskrit; but Nämdeo (or Nämä) was a chhïpï or calico-printer, a very despised class, and was perhaps the first to proclaim among the followers of the new doctrine the essential unity of mankind as worshippers of Hari. Kabir comes next, and is incomparably the greatest, in the order of Vaishnava teachers. He was a weaver by caste, and in all probability originally a Musalmän. He is counted among the twelve disciples of Rämänand; but he seems himself to trace his spiritual paternity rather to Jaideo and Nämä. He dwelt first at Benares and afterwards at Magahar, in the present district of Gorakhpur, during the reign of Sikandar Shäh Lodi (1488-1517), and was probably dead before the end of the 15th century. Nänak, the first Guru of the Sikhs, whose Granth is little more than a paraphrase of Kabir’s writings, was born in 1469 and died in 1538; and from the relation between the two it seems necessary to suppose that Kabir was several years the senior.
The works attributed to Kabir are very numerous; they are preserved complete at the headquarters of the sect, the Kabir chaura at Benares, and many portions of them have been separately printed and lithographed in India. The best known are those entitled the Sakhis,Sabds, and Rekhtas, which have a wide popularity even among those who are not professed disciples of the saint. Several of the compositions enumerated under the name of Kabir are, however, not by him, but by his disciples: as the lesser Bïjak, by Bhago-Däs, the Sukh-Nidhän, by Srut-Gopäl, &c.; it was the custom (as also that of Kabir’s religious heirs, the Sikh Gurus) for the successors in the guruship to speak in the name of him whose successors they were. The doctrine of Kabir
was philosophically a form of pantheism, accounting for the existence of phenomena (the reality of which was denied) by the agency of a Maya, or illusion, emanating from the Supreme. The varied lot of men in life, their differences of faith and aim, their desires, fears, hopes, loves, are all the work of this Mäyä, to know which, and to recognize beneath all the Supreme, is the only means of emancipation from the chains of illusion. Neither austerities, ritual, nor works of any kind are necessary to obtain the highest end; this is only to be gained by bhakti, li faith,” and perpetual meditation on the Supreme—His names, Hari, Ram, Govind, being ever on the lips and in the heart. The highest end is absorption in the Supreme, reunion with Him from whom all proceeded and who exists in all. Little place is left in this somewhat barren doctrine for a social code, since works are naught; but negatively, at least, it.is inoffensive, commanding respect for all forms of life, and quiet performance of duty without self-seeking or desire for gain.
Of the spiritual followers of Kabir many have left memorials in literature; one of the most eminent of these was Dädü, founder of a sect very prevalent in Räjpütänä. A translation of two chapters from the Granth or scripture of this Bhagat will be found in a note to Wilson’s Religious Sects of the Hindus, pp. 106-113, and will repay perusal. But those whose compositions, if not most excellent from a literary point of view, have at any rate wrought most in history, were the Gurus or spiritual heads of the Sikhs of the Panjâb. The Adi Granth, or Book of the first five Gurus (from Nänak, who died in 1538, to Arjun, who died in 1601), is described by its translator as “perhaps the most shallow and empty book that exists, in proportion to its size;” and certainly the translation is not attractive reading. But the doctrines, reiterated with the most painful diffuseness, are essentially those of Kabir, much of whose writings has been incorporated in the volume. The language is rather Old Hindi than Old Panjabi, and thus the work falls within the scope of this article; though Panjabi words and idioms frequently occur, the grammar is Hindi; and the authors evidently aimed at propagating their tenets rather among the Hindi-speaking races of Hindustan proper than (as actually happened) among the Panjabi-speaking tribes of the West and South-West. The Granth consists of six parts: I., the Japfi, the only portion as yet published in Europe in the original Hindi; II., III., and IV., arrangements for devotional purposes of extracts from Part V., the Rägs or body of the Granth; of these Rags there are thirty-one, but only four, Sm Rag, Majh, Gauri, and Asa, have been rendered by Trumpp; the remaining twenty-seven are described as “a second gathering or gleaning, as materials offered themselves, no attention being paid to the contents, but only to the bulky size of the Granthf VI., the Bhog or conclusion, containing verses by various authors, among them Kabir and Shekh Farid of Pâkpattan, a famous Indian Sufi, and panegyrics of the five Gurus by fifteen bhαtts or bards. At the end of each Räg is a collection of sayings of the Bhagats, chiefly of Kabir, in confirmation of the doctrines set forth by the Gurus; and it is in these additions that the literary importance of the work, as a treasure of specimens of early Hindi, mainly consists.
Another of the following of Rämänand, though consider ably later in time than Kabir, was Sür-Däs. Of his life little is known: as some of his verses are included in the Granth, he must have lived before its redaction (about 1600); if he be the same as a saint of that name mentioned in the Bhaktamalä, as is probable, he was a Brahman, amvn or revenue collector of the parganah of Sandilä in Oudh during the reign of Akbar, who is related to have appropriated the collections of his district for the service of the temple of Madan-Mohan at Brindäban, sending to the treasury instead chests filled with stones. When his delinquency was discovered, he was pardoned by Akbar, but thenceforth abandoned the world, and, becoming blind, led a wandering life as a singer of the praises of Vishnu. His stanzas, generally of four lines (padas), are said to number no less than 125,000; they are collected in a huge volume entitled the Sür-Sägar, and are extremely popular.
While the sects of which Rämänand may be considered the spiritual father adore the Deity chiefly under the names of Rama, Hari, Goviηd, and dwell but little on the avatars or human incarnations of the Hindu god whom they have selected as the type of the Supreme, there is another division of the λ z aishnavas which is not less important in Hindi authorship, and counts its adherents by millions, whose worship is of a different character. The sects belonging to this division take Krishna as their favourite type of the godhead, and, accepting the whole mass of legends (most of them probably of comparatively late origin) relating to this incarnation, inspire themselves with fervour by the contemplation chiefly of Krishna’s childhood and his youth in the society of the herd-maidens of Braj. As the doctrine and object of worship are, so also is the mode of life. The Rämänandis are for the most part men of ascetic and unworldly life, not indeed given to self-torture or needless rigour, but caring nothing for the wealth of the world, and living quietly and soberly in the possession of what they deem the truth. The worshippers of Krishna and his mistress Rädhä, or of the infant Bäl-Gopäl, on the other hand, are no ascetics, but persons of luxurious and often opulent lives; among women especially this form of devotion is widespread. The chief sect of this denomination is the Vallabhächäris, or the following of the Gokulastha Gosaïhs. Their founder was one Vallabha Swâmï, a Brahman from the south, wffio settled at Gokul near Mathurä, probably about the beginning of the 16th century. The best known works of this sect are the Braj-biläs, a description of Krishna’s sports with the maidens of Brindâban, by Brajbäsi-Däs, and the Värttä, a 'collection of legends regarding eighty-four teachers of the following, resembling the Bhaktamälä, which deals chiefly with the other division of Vaishnavas. The popularity of the Brαj- biläs is immense, and it is to be found in a lithographed form for sale in every bazaar. Its contents (as indeed many other productions of the worshippers of Krishna) have been condemned by Europeans as indecent; but although containing much that seems at least outwardly licentious and prurient, it is a work the study of which is indispensable to one who w ould understand the religious temper of the Hindus. The mystic dwelling on the amours of Krishna and the Gοpιt of Braj has been often compared to the mystical interpretation of the Song of Solomon; and in most religions we shall perhaps find at least one phase in which the sensual is curiously mingled with the spiritual, and faith and love towards the heavenly stimulated by thoughts and phrases drawn from earthly scenes of passion. Of the Värttä we shall speak under the next division of our subject.
2. Middle Hindi reaches from about 1570 to 1750. To this age belong the best poets of Hindi literature, Kesav-Däs, Bihäri-Läl, and Tulsi-Däs, whose writings are no less remarkable for skill and subtlety of language than for perfection of metrical form. The labours of their predecessors had wrought the language of western Hindustan into a medium worthy of being put to the highest poetic use; and we accordingly find in the poets of this period large borrowings from Braj, even where (as with Tulsi-Däs) that idiom is not the dialect of their own region. From their day onward Braj-bhäkhä has been esteemed (in the words of Lallü-Läl) “the standard language of sentiment (mahärasa-mül), and equal to the speech of the gods” (ie., Sanskrit).
Kesav-Däs was a Brahman who lived under Jahangir and Shähjahän. He was the author of a poem on Räma, entitled the Rämachandrikä, written in 1602; the Kavi-priya, written in the same year, a treatise on the poetic art of much celebrity; the Rasik-prvyα, on rhetoric, written in 1592: the Bhakta-lllämmta, an exposition of the doctrine of Rämänandi Vaishnavism; and several other works. Kesav-Däs’s compositions are widely popular, and have been frequently lithographed in Northern India.
Bihäri-Läl is renowned as the author of the Sat-sai, a collection of 700 distichs, which is perhaps the most celebrated 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 Rädhä and the other Gopns and their lover. The author was a native of Goäliyär, 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 Musalmän,—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-Däs, though perhaps inferior in poetic skill to the two last mentioned, is undoubtedly the most popular Hindi poet. His Rämäyan (originally named by the author Räm- charit-manas, or “the Lake of Räma’s deeds ”) is perhaps better 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 Rämäyan was commenced at Ayodhyä 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 Räma, called the Räm-gitävali, the Dohävali, thè Kabit-sambandh, the Binay-patrikä, the Pad- Rämäyan, and the Ghhandavali. Seven other minor works are attributed to him, but their authenticity is doubtful.
Tulsi’s Rämäyan is a rehandling of the great theme of Välmiki, 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 Bäl-känd and Ayodhyä-känd, make up more than half the work, and relates the birth and boyhood of Räma and his brethren, his marriage with Sitä, their dwelling together in the forest, her abduction by Rävan, the expedition to Lankä and the overthrow of the ravisher, and the life at Ayodhyä after the return of the reunited pair. It is written chiefly in dohäs, sorathäs, and chaupäns, with here and there a clihand interspersed; the style is very even and well sustained, and the language, while fundamentally the Old Pürbi of eastern Hindustan, borrows largely from Braj. The most admired portion of the work is the second book, Ayodhyä, which tells of the mischief wrought by Kaikeyι, one of the queens of Dasaratb, Räma’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 Räma and Sitä 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 brother Lachhman to the southern wilderness. The sorrow of Dasarath, the sweet filial piety and perfect manhood of the divine Räma, the valour and prompt affection of Lachhman, the sincerity and humility of Bharat, the purity and wifely obedience of Sitä, 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 find 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 Rämäyan have been admirably rendered into English prose by Mr F. S. Growse (Allahabad, 1877-78).
Tulsi, though essentially a Hindu and a Brahman in religious feeling, yet belongs to the class of Vaishnavas who count among them Rämänand and Kabir. He has little or nothing of the sensual passion of the devotees of Krishna and Rädhä; and in the commentary on the Bhaktamälä it is related that, when in his old age he paid a visit to Brindäban, the centre of the Krishna-cult, he refused to render homage to any other form of the god than Räma. According to the legend, he was beguiled into a temple of Krishna, and bidden there to worship Räma; 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 Ayodhyä; hearing his speech, the image-of the god, standing till then as Krishna with the flute lfBansidhaf), suddenly changed to the similitude of Räma with the bow.
The Bhaktamälä, or “Roll of the Bhagatsf is a celebrated work of this period, and is ascribed to Näbhäji, a Vaishnava of the despised caste called Doms or Dompäs, who lived during the reign of Jahängir, and was a contemporary of Tulsi-Däs. The Bhaktamälä, in the form in which it is commonly met with, consists of a mül, or original text, ascribed to Näbhäji, and a ffkä, or commentary, of which there are two, due respectively to Krishna Däs and Priya-Däs, both stated to have been written in 1713, in verse, and many more in prose. The mül is a short stanza (chhappαι) 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 Näbhäji was amplified and added to by Näräyan-Däs, who lived during the reign of Shähjahän. Mr Growse justly says of it:—“The style (of the mül) might be described as of unparalleled obscurity, were it not that each separate portion of the text is followed by a fikä, 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 Bhaktamälä 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 Räma; 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 bolds a similar place in the superstitions 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 Rädhä, is represented by a work similar in character to the Bhaktamälä, called the Värttä, or Chauräsi Värttä, 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 Bhägavata Puräna, rendered into Braj-bhäkhä by Chaturbhuj Misr, and into modern Hindi in 1804-10 by Lallü Läl, they are nevertheless the inspirera of the greater part of the popular worship throughout the whole of Northern India. The universality of the cult of the infant Krishna may be judged by the enormous number of Hindu proper names which end in Lal, meaning “child,” all of which embody some reference to this deity in his youthful form. In Bengal especially the sect is extremely numerous, having there arisen out of the teaching of Chaitanya, who is said to have married a daughter of Vallabhächärya, and is believed by his followers to have been himself an incarnation of Krishna.
Such, in the briefest outline, is the character of Hindi literature during the period when it grew and flourished through its own original forces. Founded by a popular impulse in many respects similar to that which gave rise to Buddhism nearly 2000 years before, and cultivated chiefly (though by no means exclusively) by authors not belonging to the Brahmanical order, it was the legitimate descendant in spirit, as Hindi is the legitimate descendant in speech, of the Prakrit literature which preceded it. Entirely in verse, it adopted and elaborated the Prakrit metrical forms, and carried them to a pitch of perfection which is too often overlooked by those who concern themselves rather with the substance than with the form of the works they study. The language of these.compositions strikes us often as rude, abrupt, and ambiguous; undoubtedly in its earlier specimens it is wanting in clearness and definiteness of grammatical form ∙, but the shackles of metre are frequently the explanation of uncouth forms of speech, and the necessity of filling out a metrical scheme led in too many cases to irregularities and amplifications which had perhaps no representatives in the uncompelled utterances of the vernacular tongue. Interesting when regarded in the mass, its attractions in detail are few. As in all Oriental literature, repetition and shallowness of idea overcome it, and render an extensive course of reading intolerable to a European. Conventional images, platitudes exhausted to the utmost degree of tenuity, barren philosophical and theological themes which in their wideness entirely overlook the study of detail,—such are, with few exceptions, its leading features; and one who has read two or three books has in truth made himself master of the whole secret of original Hindi literature.
3. The origines of Urdu as a literary language are extremely obscure. The popular account refers its rise to the time of Timur (1398). Some authors even claim for it a higher antiquity, asserting that a diwan, or collection of poems, was composed in Rekhtαh by Mas'üd, son of Sa*d, in the last half of the 11th and beginning of the 12th century, and that Sa'di of Shiraz and his friend Amir Khusrau of Dehli likewise made verses in that dialect before the end of the 13th century. This, however, is very questionable; and the better opinion appears to be that these ancient compositions, if they existed at all, were written in Hindi according to the metrical forms of that language, rather than in what is properly called Urdu. That Muhammadans composed in Hindi, and used that language as their vernacular, is certain; and in many passages of Kabir, which are nevertheless pure Hindi compositions, Persian words are used almost as freely as in the modern dialect. Much of the confusion which besets the subject is due to the want of a clear definition of what Urdû, as opposed to Hindi, really is.
Urdü, as a literary language, differs from Hindi rather in its form than in its substance. The really vital point of difference, that in which Hindi and Urdu are incommensurable, is the prosody. Hardly one of the metres taken over by Urdu poets from Persian agrees with those used in Hindi; in the latter language, it is the rule to give the short a inherent in every consonant or group of consonants its full value in scansion, except occasionally at the metrical pause: in Urdu this is never done, the only somewhat analogous rule providing for the enunciation of a short a (the nτm-fathaK) after a nexus of consonants which would otherwise be pronounced without it; the great majority of Hindi metres are counted by the number of syllabic instants or mäträs (the value in time of a short syllable): in Urdu the metres follow a special order of longs and shorts.
The question, then, is not—When did Persian first become intermixed with Hindi in the literary speech ?—for this process began with the first entry of Muslim conquerors into India, and continued for centuries before a line of Urdu was composed;—nor, When was the Persian character first employed to write Hindi 1— for the written form is but a subordinate matter. We must ask—When was the first verse composed in Hindi, whether with or without foreign admixture, according to the forms of Persian prosody and not in those of the indigenous metrical system? Then, and not till then, did Urdu come into being. If, then, it is really the case that poems were so composed as early as the 11th or the 13th century, the origin of Urdu literature must be carried back to that period. But Hindi itself was at that date, and for many decades later (as we see from Chand and our other earliest specimens of the language), in an unsettled and transition stage. Neither in its caseinflexions nor in its verbal forms did it resemble the language which we know as Urdü. It abounded in short vowels and hiatuses, which could not accommodate themselves either to the Persian character (without the free use of vowel-signs and hαmzαh, which were seldom employed) or to Persian prosody; and its syntactical order was loose and unsettled» Urdü, as we know it, is the Hindi of the end of the 16th century enriched from Persian, not the Hindi of Chand and the early Bhagats.
The whole of Urdu poetry follows Persian models of composition; its themes are those which had already been worked (some might say, worked out) by writers in that language; and neither in form nor substance do we find the faintest flavour of originality from its commencement to the present day.
The paucity of themes and want of originality in Urdu verse has led to a most elaborate development of the system of rhetoric. Where the substance of what a poet has to say is identical with that which has been said by hundreds, nay thousands, of poets before him, it is of the highest importance that the way of saying it shall if possible be peculiar to himself. Rhetoric, accordingly, rather than poetic feeling, is the distinguishing feature of composition in Urdu. Pleasing hyperbole, ingenious comparison, antithesis, alliteration, carefully arranged gradation of noun and epithet, are the means employed to obtain variety; and few of the most eloquent passages of Urdu verse admit of translation into any other language without losing that which in the original makes their whole charm. Even in the masηavis, or narrative poems, the story is usually quite a subordinate matter; it has in most cases been handled time after time, and is familiar to the reader in its minutest detail. Even when the names chosen for the actors are new, the intrigue is old, and the mode in which it is unfolded is the only thing which distinguishes one poem from another. The descriptions thus, confined within a narrow circle of incident and epithet, repeat each other with a monotony which to a European is inexpressibly fatiguing, but which in the East is deemed rather a merit than a defect. Differences of school, which are made much of by native critics, are to us hardly perceptible; they consist in the use of one or other range of metaphor and comparison, classed, according as they repeat the well-worn poetical stock-in-trade of the Persians or seek a slightly fresher and more Indian field of sentiment, as the old or the new style of composition.
These being the nature and features of Urdu poetry, it will be manifest that such an account of it as can be given here must be little more than a list of names and dates. 1
The earliest Urdü authors lived and wrote in the Dakkhan, at the courts and under the patronage of the Muhammadan dynasties of Golkonda and Bîjâpur, shortly before these dynasties were overthrown by the campaigns of Aurangzeb in the south. Shujâ'uddïn Nüri, a native of Gujarat, a friend of Faizi and contemporary of Akbar, is mentioned by the native biographers as the most ancient Urdü poet after Amir Khusrau. He was tutor of the son of the wazir of Sultan Abu-l-Hasan Qutb Shall of Golkonda, and several ghazals by him are said to survive. Qulι Qutb Shäh of Golkonda, who reigned from 1581 to 1586, and his successor'Abdullah Qutb Shah, who came to the throne in 1611, have both left collections of verse, including ghazals, rubais, masnavis and qaξidahs. And during the reign of the latter lbn Nishäti wrote two works which are still famous as models of composition in Dakhni; they are masnavis entitled the Tüti-nämah, or “Tales of a Parrot,” and the Phül-ban. The first, written in 1639, is an adaptation of a Persian work by Nakhshabi, but derives ultimately from a Sanskrit original entitled the suka-saptati ; this collection has been frequently rehandled in Urdu, both in verse and prose, and is the original of the Totâ- Kahdni,one of the first works in Urdü prose, composed in 1801 by Muhammad Haidar-bakhsh Haidari of the Fort William College. The Phûl-ban is a love tale named from its heroine, said to be translated from a Persian work entitled the Basâtïn. Another famous work which probably belongs to the same place and time is the Story of Kämrup and Kalä by Tahsιnuddιn, a masnavi which has been published (1836) by Μ. Garcin de Tassy; what makes this poem remarkable is that, though the work of a Musalmän, its personages are Hindu. Kämrüp, the hero, is son of the king of Oudh, and the heroine, Kalä, daughter of the king of Ceylon; the incidents somewhat resemble those of the tale of es-Sindibäd in the Thousand and One Nights ; the hero and heroine dream one of the other, and the former sets forth to find his beloved; his wanderings take him to many strange countries and through many wonderful adventures, ending in a happy marriage.
The court of Bîjâpur was no less distinguished in literature. Ibrâhîm , Adil Shah (1579 -1626) was the author of a work in verse on music entitled the Nau-ras or “Nine Savours,” which, however, appears to have been in Hindi rather than Urdü; the three prefaces (fibajahs} to this poem were rendered into Persian prose by Mania Zuhüri, and, under the name of the Sih nasr-i Zuhuri, are well-known models of style. A successor of this prince, ’ Ali ’ Adil Shah, had as his court poet a Brahman known poetically as Nus-rati, who in 1657 composed a masnavi of some repute entitled the Gulshan-i 'Islιq, or “Rose-garden of Love,” a romance relating the history of Prince Manohar and Madmâlatï,—like the Kämrup, an Indian theme. The same poet is author of an extremely long mas· navi entitled the 'Ali-namah, celebrating the monarch under whom he lived.
These early authors, however, were but pioneers and feelers of the way; the first generally accepted standard of form, a standard which has suffered little change in two centuries, was established by Wall of Aurangabad (about 1680-1720) and his contemporary and fellow-townsman Siräj. The former of these is commonly called “the Father of Rekhtah”— Bäbä-e Rekhtah ; and all accounts agree that the immense development attained by Urdu poetry in Northern India during the 18th century was due to his example and initiative. Very little is known of Wall’s life; he is believed to have visited Dehli towards the end of the reign of Aurangzeb, and is said to have there received instruction from Shâh Gulshanin the art of clothing in a vernacular dress the ideas of the Persian poets. His Kulliyät or complete works have been published by Μ. Garcin de Tassy, with notes and a translation of selected passages (Paris, 1834-36), and may be commended to readers desirous of consulting in the original a favourable specimen of Urdu poetical composition.
The first of the Dehli school of poets was Zuhüruddîn Hätim, who was born in 1699 and died in 1792. In the second year of Muhammad Shah (1719), the diwan of Wall reached Dehli, and excited the emulation of scholars there. Hätim was the first to imitate it in the Urdu of the north, and was followed by his friends Nâjî, Mazmûn, and Äbrii. Two diwäns by him survive. He became the founder of a school, and one of his pupils was Rafi'us-Saudâ, the most distinguished poet of Northern India. Khân Arzü (1689-1756) was another of the fathers of Urdû poetry in the north. This author is chiefly renowned as a Persian scholar, in which language he not only composed much poetry, but one of the best of Persian lexicons, the Siräju-l-lughät ; but his compositions in Urdu are also highly esteemed. He was the master of Mir Taqi, who ranks next to Saudä as the most eminent Urdu poet. Ärzü died at Lakhnau (Lucknow), whither he betook himself after the devastation of Dehli by Nadir Shâh (1739). Another of the early Dehli poets who is considered to have surpassed his fellows was In'ämulläh Khân Yaqin, who died during the reign of Ahmad Shâh (1748-54), aged only twenty-five. Another was Mir Dard, pupil of the same Shâh Gulshan who is said to have instructed Wall; his diwan is not long, but extremely popular, and especially esteemed for the skill with which it develops the themes of spiritualism. In his old age he became a darwesh of the Naqshbandi following, and died in 1793.
Saudä and Mir Taqi are beyond question the most distinguished Urdu poets. The former was born at Dehli about the beginning of the 18th century, and studied under Hätim. He left Dehli after its devastation, and settled at Lakhnau, where the Nawäb Äsafud-daulah gave him njägir of Rs. 6000 a year, and where he died in 1780. His poems are very numerous, and cover all the styles of Urdû poetry; but it is to his satires that his fame is chiefly due, and in these he is considered to have surpassed all other Indian poets. Mir Taqi was born at Agra, but early removed to Dehli, where he studied under Arzü; he was still living there at the time of Saudä’s death, but in 1782 repaired to Lakhnau, where he likewise received a pension; he died at a very advanced age in 1810. His works are very voluminous, including no less than six diwäns. Mir is counted the superior of Saudä in the ghazal and masnavi, while the latter excelled him in the satire and qaξidah. Sayyid Ahmad, an excellent contemporary authority, and himself one of the best of modern authors in Urdu, says of him in his Asäru-s-Sanädid :—“Mir’s language is so pure, and the expressions which he employs so suitable and natural, that to this day all are unanimous in his praise. Although the language of Saudä is also excellent, and he is superior to Mir in the point of his allusions, he is nevertheless inferior to him in style.”
The tremendous misfortunes which befell Dehli at the hands of Nädir Shäh (1739), Ahmad Shâh Durrani (1756), and the Maräthäs (1759), and the rapid decay of the Mughal empire underthese repeated shocks, transferred the centre of the cultivation of literature from that city to Lakhnau, the capital of the newly founded and flourishing state of Oudh. It has been mentioned how Arzü, Saudä, and Mir betook themselves to this refuge and ended their daysthere; they were followed in their new residence by a school of poets hardly inferior to those who had made Dehli illustrious in the first half of the century. Here they were joined by Mir Hasan (died 1786), Mir Soz (died 1800), and Qalandar-bakbsh Jur’at (died 1810), also like themselves refugees from Dehli, and illustrious poets. Mir Hasan was a friend and collaborator of Mir Dard, and first established himself at Faizäbäd and subsequently at Lakhnau; he excelled in the ghazal, rubä'i, masnavi, and marsiyah, and is counted the third, with Saudä and Mir Taqi, among the most eminent of Urdü poets. His fame chiefly rests upon a much admired masnavi entitled the Sihru-l- bayân, or “Magic of Eloquence,” a romance relating the loves of Prince Be-nazir and the Princess Badr-i Munir; his masnavi called the Galzâr-i Iram (“Rose-garden of Irani,” the legendary 'Adite paradise in Southern Arabia), in praise of Faizäbäd, is likewise highly esteemed. Mir Muhammadi Soz was an elegant poet, remarkable for the success with which he composed in the dialect of the harem called Rekhti, but somewhat licentious in his verse; he became a darwesh and renounced the world in his later years. Jur’at was also a prolific poet, but, like Soz, his ghazals and masnavis are licentious and full of double meanings. He imitated Saudä in satire with much success; he also cultivated Hindi poetry, and composed dohräs and kabitts. Miskin was another Lakhnau poet of the same period, whose rnarsiyahs are especially admired; one of them, that on the death of Muslim and his two sons, is considered a masterpiece of this style of composition. The school of Lakhnau, so founded and maintained during the early years of the century, continued to flourish till the dethronement of the last king, Wäjid'Ali, in 1856. Ätash and Näsikh (who died respectively in 1847 and 1841) are the best among the modern poets of the school in the ghazal ; Mir Anis, a grandson of Mir Hasan, and his contemporary Dabir, the former of whom died in December 1875 and the latter a few months later, excelled in the marsiyah. Rajab Ali Beg Surür, who died in 1869, was the author of a much-admired romance in rhyming prose entitled the Fasänah-e'Ajäib or “Tale of Marvels,” besides a diwän. The dethroned prince Wajid 'Ali himself, poetically styled Akhtar, is no mean poet; he has published three diwwns, among them a quantity of poetry in the rustic dialect of Oudh which is philologically of much interest.
Though Dehli was thus deserted by its brightest lights of literature, it did not altogether cease to cultivate the poetic art. Among the last Mughals several princes were themselves creditable poets. Shâh Âlam II. (1761-1806) wrote under the name of Äftäb, and was the author of a romance entitled Manzii,m∙i Aqdas, besides a diwan. His son Sulaimän-shikoh, brother of Akbar Shâh II., who had at first, like his brother authors, repaired to Lakhnau, returned to Dehli in 1815, and died in 1838; he also has left a diwän. Lastly, his nephew Bahädur Shâh II., the last titular emperor of 1 The late Μ. Garcin de Tassy’s Histoire de la Littérature Hindouie et Hindoustanie, and his annual summaries of the progress made from 1850 to 1877, afford all the materials which can be desired on this subject by one who does not care to refer to the original vernacular works; the peculiarities of the latter can be learned only from long-continued study and familiarity with Oriental modes of thought.
Dehli (died 1862), wrote under the name of Zafar, and was a pupil in poetry of Shaikh Ibrâhîm Zauq, a distinguished writer; he has left a voluminous dlwän, which has been printed at Dehli. Mashafi (Ghulâm-i Hamdânï), who died about 1814, was one of the most distinguished of the revived poetic school of Dehli, and was himself one of its founders. Originally of Lakhnau, he left that city for Dehli in 1777, and held conferences of poets, at which several authors who afterwards acquired repute formed their style; he has left five diwans, a Tazkirah or biography of Urdu poets, and a Shäh-nämah or account of the kings of Dehli down to Shäh 'Alam. Qâim (Qiyâmuddïn'Alï) was one of his society, and died in 1792; he has left several works of merit. Ghalib, otherwise Mirzâ Asadullâh Khân Naushäh, laureate of the last Mughal, who died in 1869, is undoubtedly the most eminent of the modern Dehli poets. He wrote chiefly in Persian, of which language, especially in the form cultivated by Firdausi, free from intermixture of Arabic words, he was a master; but his Urdû diwän, though short, is excellent in its way, and his reputation was spread far and wide. To this school, though he lived and died at Agra, may be attached Mir Wall Muhammad Nazir (recently dead in 1832); his masnavis entitled Jogi-nämah, Kauri-nämah, Banjäre-nämah, and Burhäpe-närnah, as well as his dlwän, have been frequently reprinted, and are extremely popular. His language is less artificial than that of the generality of Urdû poets, and some of his poems have been printed in Nägari, and are as well known and as much esteemed by Hindus as by Muhammadans.
4. While such, in outline, is the history of the poetic schools of the Dakkhan, Dehli, and Lakhnau, a fourth, that of the Fort William College at Calcutta, was being formed, and was destined to give no less an impulse to the cultivation of Urdu prose than had a hundred years before been given to that of poetry by Wall. At the commencement of the present century Dr John Gilchrist was the head of this institution, and his efforts were directed towards getting together a body of literature suitable as text-books for the study of the Urdu language by the European officers of the administration. To his exertions we owe the elaboration of the vernacular as an official speech, and the possibility of substituting it for the previously current Persian as the language of the courts and the government. He gathered together at Calcutta the most eminent vernacular scholars of the time, and their works, due to his initiative, are still unsurpassed as specimens of elegant and serviceable prose composition, not only in Urdu, but also in Hindi. The chief authors of this school are Haidari (Sayyid Muhammad Haidar-bakhsh), Husaini (Mir Bahadur ‘Ali), Mir Amman Lutf, Hafizuddin Ahmad, Sher 'All Afsos, Nihâl Chand of Lahore, Käzim ‘Ali Jawän, Lallü Läl Kavi, Mazhar ’ Ali Wilä, and Ikräm 'Ali.
Haidari died in 1828. He composed the Tolä-Kahäni (1801), a prose redaction of the Tüti-nämah which has been already mentioned; a romance named. Äräish-i Mahfil (“Ornament of the Assembly ”), detailing the adventures of the famous Arab chief Hâtim-i Tai; the Gul-i Maghfirat or Bah Majlis, an account of the holy persons of the Muhammadan faith; the Gulzâr-i Banish, a translation of the Bahär-i Banish, a Persian work containing stories descriptive of the craft and faithlessness of women; and the Tdrlkh∙i Nädiri, a translation of a Persian history of Nadir Shah. Husaini is the author of an imitation in prose of Mir Hasan’s Sihru-1-bayän, under the name of Nasr-i Benazir (“the Incomparable Prose,” or “the Prose of Benazir,” the latter being the name of the hero), and of a work named Akhläq-i Hindi, or “Indian Morals,” both composed in 1802. The Akhläq-i Hindi is an adaptation of a Persian work called the Mufarrihzι-l-qulub (“the Delighter of Hearts”), itself a version of the Hitopade6a. Mir Amman was a native of Dehli, which he left in the time of Ahmad Shah Durrani for Patna, and in 1801 repaired to Calcutta. To him we owe the Bägh o Bahar (1801-2), an adaptation of Amir Khusrau’s famous Persian romance entitled the Chahär Barwesh, or “Story of the Four Dervishes.” Amman’s work is not itself directly modelled on the Persian, but is a rehandling of an almost contemporary rendering by Tahsin of Etäwä, called the Nazι-tarz-i Murassd. The style of this composition is much admired by natives of India, and editions of it are very numerous. Amman also composed an imitation of Husain Wâ'iz Kâshifï’s Akhläq-i Muhsini under the name of the Ganj-iKhubiC i Treasure of Virtue”), produced in 1802. Hafizuddin Ahmad was a professor at the Fort William College; in 1803 he completed a translation of Abu-1- Fazl’s 'lyär-i Bänish, under the name of the Khirad-afroz (“Enlightener of the Understanding”). The 'lyär-i Bänish (“Touchstone of Wisdom”) is one of the numerous imitations of the originally Sanskrit collection of apologues known in Persian as the Fables of Bidpäi, or Kalilah and Bamnah. Afsos was one of the most illustrious of the Fort William school; originally of Dehli, he left that city at the age of eleven, and entered the service of Qâsirn 'Ali Khân, Nawâb of Bengal; he afterwards repaired to Haidarâbâd in the Dakhhan, and thence to Lakhnau, where he was the pupil of Mir Hasan, Mir Soz, and Mir Haidar * Ali Hairän. He joined the Fort William College in 1800, and died in 1809. He is the author of a much esteemed diwän ; but his chief reputation is founded on two prose works of great excellence, the Äräish-i Mahfil (1805), an account of India adapted from the introduction of the Persian Khuläsatu-t-tazvärikh of Sujän Räe, and the Bägh-i Urdu (1808), a translation of Sadi’s Gzilistän. Nihâl Chand translated into Urdu a masnavi, entitled the Gul-i Bakäwali, under the name of Mazhab-i'Ishq (“Religion of Love”); this work is in prose intermingled with verse, was composed in 1804, and has been frequently reproduced. Jawän, like most of his collaborators, was originally of Dehli and afterwards of Lakhnau; he joined the College in 1800. He is the author of a version in Urdü of the well-known story of Sakuntalâ, under the name of Sakuntalä Nätak; the Urdù was rendered from a previous Braj-bhäkhä version by Nawäz Kabishwar made in 1716, and was printed in 1802. He also composed a BäraUmäsä, or poetical description of the twelve months (a very popular and often-handled form of composition), with accounts of the various Hindu and Muhammadan festivals, entitled the Bastur-i Hind (“Usages of India”), printed in 1812. Ikrâm'Ali translated, under the name of the Ikhwänu-s-safä, or “Brothers of Purity” (1810), a chapter of a famous Arabian collection of treatises on science and philosophy entitled Rasäilu Ikhwäni-s-safä, and composed in the 10th century. The complete collection, due to different writers who dwelt at Basrah, has recently been made known to European readers by the translation of Dr F. Dieterici (1858-1879); the chapter selected by lkram 'Ali is the third, which records an allegorical strife for the mastery between men and animals before the king of the Jinn. The translation is written in excellent Urdfl, and is one of the best of the Fort William productions.
Sri Lallü Läl was a Brahman, whose family, originally of Gujarat, had long been settled in Northern India. What was done by the other Fort William authors for Urdu prose was done by Lallü Läl almost alone for Hindi. His Prem Sägar and Räjniti, the former a version in pure Hindi of the 10th chapter of the Bhägavata Pziräna, detailing the history of Krishna, and founded on a previous Braj-bhâkhâ version by Chaturbhuj Misr, and the latter an adaptation in Braj-bhâkhâ prose of the Hitopadesa and part of the Pancha-tantra, are unquestionably the most important works in Hindi prose. The Prem Sägar was begun in 1804 and ended in 1810; it enjoys immense popularity in Northern India, has been frequently reproduced in a lithographed form, and has several times been printed. The Räjniti was composed in 1809; it is much admired for its sententious brevity and the purity of its language. Besides these two works, Lallü Läl was the author of a collection of a hundred anecdotes in Hindi and Urdü entitled Lapj,if-i Hindi, an anthology of Hindi verse called the Sabhä-biläs, a Sat-sal in the style of Bihäri-Läl called Sapta-Satika, and several other works. He and Jawän worked together at the Singhäsan Battisi (1801), a redaction in mixed Urdü and Hindi (Devanâgarî character) of a famous collection of legends relating the prowess of King Vikramäditya; and he also aided the latter author in the production of the Sakzzntalä Nätak. Mazhar 'Ali Wilä was his collaborator in the Baitäl Pachisi, a collection of stories similar in many respects to the Singhäsan Battisi, and also in mixed Urdü-Hindi; and he aided Wilä in the preparation in Urdü of the Story of Mädhunal, a romance originally composed in Braj-bhäkhä by Moti Räm.
The works of these authors, though compiled and published under the superintendence of Dr Gilchrist, Captain Abraham Lockett, Professor J. W. Taylor, Dr W. Hunter, and other European officers of the College, are essentially Indian in taste and style, and owe to this character a popularity and wide reputation which have been gained by no other work (and there have been many) undertaken under British initiative. If not absolutely the first works in Urdü and Hindi prose, they were at any rate the first literary standards in those languages; and almost the whole of recent prose authorship is due either to their influence or to one of two other impulses, the first of which was almost synchronous with the Fort William productions, and the other not many years posterior to them. These were the reform in Islam led by Sayyid Ahmad, and the introduction of lithography and a newspaper press.
Sayyid Ahmad was born in 1782, and received his early education at Dehli; his instructors were two learned Muslims, Shäh Abdu-l- ’ Aziz, author of a celebrated commentary on the Qur’än (the Tafsir-i 'Aziziyyah), and his brother’Abdu-1-Qädir, the writer of the first and best translation of the Holy Volume into Urdü. Under their guidance Sayyid Ahmad embraced the doctrines of the Wahhäbis, a sect whose preaching appears at this time to have first reached India. He gathered round him a large number of fervent disciples, among others Ismail Haji nephew of ’ Abdu-l-Aziz and Abdu-1-Qâdir, the chief author of the sect. After a course of preaching and apostleship at Dehli, Sayyid Ahmad set out in 1820 for Calcutta, attended by numerous adherents. Thence in 1822 he started on a pilgrimage to Mecca, whence he went to Constantinople, and was there received with distinction and gained many disciples. He travelled for nearly six years in Turkey and Arabia, and then returned to Dehli. The religious degradation and coldness which he found in his native country strongly impressed him after his sojourn in lands where the life of Islam is stronger, and he and his disciples established a propaganda throughout N orthern India, reprobating the superstitions which had crept into the faith from contact with Hindus, and preaching a jihäd or holy war against the Sikhs. In 1828 he started for Peshawar, attended by, it is said, upwards of 100,000 Indians, and accompanied by his chief followers, Haji Ismail and 'Abdu-l-Hayy. He was furnished with means by a general subscription in Northern India, and by several Muhammadan princes who had embraced his doctrines. At the beginning of 1829 he declared war against the Sikhs, and in the course of time made himself master of Peshawar. The Afghans, however, with whom he had allied himself in the contest, were soon disgusted by the rigour of his creed, and deserted him and his cause. He fled across the Indus and took refuge in the mountains of Pakhli and Dhamtor, where in 1831 he encountered a detachment of Sikhs under the command of Sher Singh, and in the combat he and Haji Ismail were slain. His sect is, however, by no means extinct; the Wahhabi doctrines have continued to gain ground in India, and to give rise to much controversial writing, down to our own day.
The translation of the Qur’an by Abdu-1-Qâdir was finished in 1803, and first published by Sayyid Abdullâh, a fervent disciple of Sayyid Ahmad, at Hûghli in 1829. The Tambihu-l-ghäfilin, or “Awakener of the Heedless,” a work in Persian by Sayyid Ahmad, was rendered into Urdu by 'Abdullâh, and published at the same press in 1830. Hâji Ismâ'il was the author of a treatise in Urdu entitled Taqwiyatu-l-Imän (“Confirmation of the Faith”), which had great vogue among the following of the Sayyid. Other works by the disciples of the Tariqah-e Muhammadiyyah (as the new preaching was called) are the Targhιb∙i Jihäd (“Incitation to Holy War”), Hidäyatu-l-Mürninin (“Guide of the Believers”), Mûzihu- l-Kabäir wa·l·Bid'ah (“Exposition of Mortal Sins and Heresy”), Nasîhatu-l-Muslimïn (“Admonition to Muslims”), and the Mi'at Masâil, or “Hundred Questions.”
Printing was first used for vernacular works by the College Press at Fort William, and all the compositions prepared for Dr Gilchrist and his successors which have been already mentioned were thus made public; but the expense of this method of reproduction long precluded its extensive use in India, and the ungraceful characters used as types were not appreciated by the natives. In 1837 the first lithographic press was set up at Dehli, and from that date onwards the publications, original or editions of older works, issued in this shape annually may be counted by hundreds. The newspaper press soon followed the introduction of lithography, and there are at present about two hundred journals in Urdu and Hindi printed in India, the majority in the North-Western Provinces, the Panjâb, and Oudh, but a few at Madras, Haidarâbâd, Bangalore, Bombay, and Calcutta. The extension taken by vernacular literature during the last thiι - ty years is enormous, and to describe it adequately would require a volume. The reader is referred for the best account of it to Μ. Garcin de Tassy’s Annual Summaries from 1850 to 1877, where he will also find much interesting information regarding the nature and value of the newspapers now so numerous. Here a few names only can be mentioned which seem the most prominent among the crowd of writers who daily, by the cheap and simple agency of a lithographic stone and bâzâr paper, make their ideas public in Northern India.
Sayyid Ahmad Khan Bahadur, C.S.I. (not to be confounded with the Wahhabi reformer), is perhaps the most eminent and eloquent among contemporary writers of Urdu. He is the author of numerous works, among others of the Âsâru-s-Sanâdïd (“Vestiges of Princes”), an excellent account of Dehli and its monuments, which has passed through three editions (1847, 1854, 1876). His fame, however, chiefly rests upon his persevering efforts to raise the standard of civilization and culture among his co-religionists, for which purpose he has since 1870 issued a most valuable journal entitled the Tahzïbu-l-Akhlâq, or “Muhammadan Social Reformer ’ (which, unlike almost all its competitors, is printed with movable types). The articles in this publication, chiefly of a religious or educational character, are of a high order of excellence, and display most effectively the resources of the Urdû language as a means of expressing modern ideas. Maulavi Nazir Ahmad of Dehli is the author of two excellent stories named Mir'ätu-l-'arüs (“the Bride’s Mirror”) and Taubatu·n·Nasuh (“the Repentance of Nasûh”); and Pandit Kâshinâth of Agra has written a good treatise on ethics, founded on Persian compilations on the subject, called Akhläq-i Kâshï. These three works have received rewards from the Government of the North-Western Provinces, and enjoy much popularity. The officers of the educational department have been prolific in schoolbooks of various degrees of excellence. Mr H. S. Reid and his assistants, Qamaruddin Gulâb Khân, Chiranjï Lâl, Pandit Bansïdhar, Sri Lâl, and Mohan Lâl, were at work from 1851 to 1860 in this direction, and several good translations and compilations are due to them. In the Panjâb Zukâullâh Khân of Dehli, and Karimuddin and Pandit Ajodhyâ Parshâd of Lahore, have been no less active; and Northern India is now well supplied with the means of elementary education in the vernacular in literature, history, geography, and mathematics. Science, owing to the difficulties of technical nomenclature, is less efficiently represented, and the controversy regarding the best method of clothing its vocabulary in a vernacular dress is hardly yet solved. Owing to the fortunate circumstance that Urdü is able to draw for its vocabulary upon Persian and Arabic as well as upon its native Indian resources, the attempts which have been made in Egypt, Turkey, and other countries where these languages are in use to provide vernacular equivalents for scientific terminology will, it may be hoped, work not only for the benefit of those countries, but also for that of India, and thus in time provide a satisfactory means of raising vernacular education in science to the level of other branches of culture.
In Hindi also there is much activity, though not so much as in Urdu. The pure or “High” Hindi, which rejects all foreign words, and supplies its vocabulary exclusively from Sanskrit, is a recent creation, and cannot even yet be said to represent the language of any large class of the population. A good specimen of this dialect is Nïlkanth Shâstri Gore’s Shad∙Barslιan Barpan, or “Mirror of the Six (orthodox) Schools (of Hindu philosophy),” a controversial work by a converted Brahman. The genuine Hindi of the old literature, used now exclusively for poetry, is represented by an excellent publication issued weekly at Benares by Bâbù Harish-Chandra, entitled Kabi-bachan-Sudhä, or “Ambrosia of the Words of Poets.” In this will be found much good original work, and a vast quantity of old Hindi poetry now for the first time published. The translations of the Mahäbhärata and Harivansa, made by Pandit Gokulnâth of Benares, and printed at Calcutta in 1829, deserve mention; and one of the most important collections of Hindi poetry, the Rag-Kalpadrum of Krishnânand Vyâsadev Râg-Sägar, was printed at the same place in 1842-45 in an immense volume of 1800 pages.
English education has naturally had a vast influence on modern vernacular literature, though not wholly a beneficial one. More than a half of the new works issued within the last thirty years are translations or adaptations from English; the journals, the great popularizers of new ideas, take their matter chiefly from English newspapers; the courts, where Urdu has since 1832 become the official language, contribute to the spread of the stiff and difficult phraseology of the Acts of the legislature, as different from the natural idiom of the people as can well be imagined. Literature in India has always owed much to the fostering influence of Government. It has been seen how the schools of Dehli and Lakhnau rose and declined with the fortunes of the Mughal empire and the kingdom of Oudh, and how that of Calcutta similarly owed its existence to British initiative. At the present day the patronage of the rulers of India is no less influential in determining the course of literary activity. Poetical composition is little practised, both because of the exhaustion of its themes and the little appreciation which it meets with from Europeans. More solid studies, politics, science, philosophy, morals, history, and especially controversial theology, are the topics now in favour; and, though much that is published is of the slightest possible intrinsic value, the resources of the language are being gradually cultivated and enlarged to meet the needs of the day. There is thus no reason to doubt that Hindostan will in time possess a body of literature worthy of the flexible and expressive speech of its people, and reflecting faithfully the standard of culture which it owes to its Western rulers. (c. j. l.)
