MARCH 1, 1872.]

ORIYA LITERATURE.

Dáild's descendants exist in Bihár to this day. Colonel Dalton speaks of a large fresco in Dáiid nagar representing the battles fought by Dáild,

79

miles west of Gayå. About eight miles lower down the Son from Dáiidnagar, there is a con

siderable village, called Shamshernagar, found ed by Shamsher Khān, a nephew of Dáud Khán, and a very pleasing structure built by him as

especially the conquest of Palámauñ. There is also a series of family portraits taken from life. Dáidnagar is thus mentioned in Thornton's Ga

his tomb. It is now rapidly falling to pieces,

zetteer. “It lies on the banks of the Son, forty

although still in possesion of his descendants.”

THE INDIGENOUS LITERATURE OF ORISSA, By JOHN BEAMES, B.C.S., M.R.A.S., BALASOR,

THERE is a general impression abroad amongst scholars that the modern Indian vernaculars

are mere jargons which suffice for the colloquial needs of imperfectly civilized races, but that they possess nothing which can fairly be called a literature. Even those who are better informed are prone to disparage the mediaeval poems which are to be found in most, if not all of these

languages, though in Panjābi and Sindhi they

On the whole, then, it may be said that this literature is worth preserving. It shows us the people as they are and were, not as the English schoolmaster would have them be-and possesses a value even in its faults, quite above and apart from the spurious unnatural literature composed of works written to order by Fort William pandits and mulavis; such as the Prem Ságar,

Now,

a farrago of nonsense in equal parts of bad Hindi and disguised Gujaráti.

before a judgment is delivered on this class of books, it may fairly be demanded that they be read. I fancy very few European or Indian scholars have any practical acquaintance with

exist in the various languages; secondly, to have them read with a view to finding out which are

worth preserving and printing ; and thirdly, to

the real middle-age literature of the Hindus. In

get scholars to edit such as may be worth the

fact the very names of the books themselves are hardly known. Three characteristics are com mon to them all, and deprive them of much of

trouble.

do not rise above the rank of ballads.

What we want is, first to find out what books

We should then be able to place in the hands of the student real genuine native works from

the interest that would otherwise attach to them.

which he could learn what the language he was

Firstly, they are all of inordinate length ; secondly, they are mere repetitions, more or less

studying really was, instead of, as at present,

embellished, of the old fables of the Brahmanical

religion,-rechauff's of the Purānas and Mahā bhārata; thirdly, they are all in verse. But with all these drawbacks they are often valu

able for the light they throw on the growth of the languages in which they are written. They are in many cases still intensely popular in rural districts, and a study of them will often supply the key to curious and apparently inexplicable

misleading him by trash like the Bagh-o-Bahar or Baital Pachisi, composed in a language which no native ever speaks, and which he can with

difficulty understand. The change which this would cause in, and the impetus it would give to, the study of Indian languages would pro bably be comparable only to the new life which

was imparted to the schools of Europe when Virgil and Cicero first began to supersede, as

peculiarities of native thought and manners.

text books, the crabbed Latin of Cassiodorus and Erigena.

Some few indeed possess higher merits, and may be read with pleasure for the beauty of their

As a contribution to the above objects I here append a list of works known to exist in Oriya,

poetry, their stores of history and geography,

and propose, as opportunity offers, to read the most celebrated, and see what they are worth,

or the purity and loftiness of their morality. Under the first head come such works as Tulsi

and to report my discoveries from time to time

Dás's Rāmāyana, and the Satsai of Bihári Läl, under the second Chand and the other Rajput bards, under the third Kabir, Mamdeva, Tukarām, and occasionally Vidyapati and other writers of the Chaitanya school.

through the medium of the Indian Antiquary. I am aware that Oriya holds a low place in its group of languages, but this is owing chiefly to its obscurity. I consider it in many respects one of the most interesting languages of the

w

• From Mr. T. F. Peppe's Report, Proceedings As. Soc. Bengal, December, 1871, p. 262.