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HINDOSTANT LITERATURE

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Originally appearing in Volume V13, Page 491 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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HINDOSTANT LITERATURE . The writings dealt with in this See also:

article are those composed in the See also:vernacular of that See also:part of See also:India which is properly called Hindustan,—that is, the valleys of the See also:Jumna and See also:Ganges See also:rivers as far See also:east as the See also:river Kos, and the See also:tract to the See also:south including See also:Rajputana, Central India (See also:Bundelkhand and Baghelkhatid), the Narmada (See also:Nerbudda) valley as far See also:west as See also:Khandwa, and the See also:northern See also:half of the Central Provinces. It does not include the See also:Punjab proper (though the See also:town See also:population there speak Hindustani), nor does it extend to See also:Lower See also:Bengal. In this region several different dialects prevail. The See also:people of the towns everywhere use chiefly the See also:form of the See also:language called Urdl or Rekhta,= stocked with See also:Persian words and phrases, and ordinarily written in a modification of the Persian See also:character. The See also:country folk (who form the immense See also:majority) speak different varieties of See also:Hindi, of which the word-stock derives from the Prakrits and See also:literary See also:Sanskrit, and which are written in the Devanagari or Kaithi character. Of these the most important from a literary point of view, proceeding from west to east, are Marwari and Jaipuri (the See also:languages of Rajputana), Brajbhasha (the language of the country about Mathura and See also:Agra), Kanauji (the language of the lower Ganges-Jumna See also:Doab and western See also:Rohilkhand), Eastern Hindi, also called Awadhi and Baiswari (the language of Eastern Rohilkhand, Oudh and the See also:Benares See also:division of the See also:United Provinces) and See also:Bihari (the language of Bihar or See also:Mithila, comprising several distinct dialect8)4 What is called High Hindi is a See also:modern development, for literary purposes, of the See also:dialect of Western Hindi spoken in the See also:neighbour-See also:hood of See also:Delhi and thence northwards to the See also:Himalaya, which has formed the vernacular basis of See also:Urdu; the Persian words in the latter have been eliminated and replaced by words of Sanskritic origin, and the See also:order of words in the See also:sentence which is proper to = Urdu is a See also:Turkish word meaning a See also:camp or See also:army with its followers, and is the origin of the See also:European word See also:horde. Rekhta means " scattered, strewn," referring to the way in which Persian words are intermixed with those of See also:Indian origin; it is used chiefly for the literary form of Urdu. Sing. Plur. 1. Jul See also:hat 2. See also:hai ho 3. hai hat The derivation of ha, See also:hit, See also:hail, and aheu is uncertain.

They are usually derived from the Skr. asmi, I am; but this presents many difficulties. An old form of the third See also:

person singular is hwai, and this points to the Pr. havai, he is, See also:equivalent to the Skr. bhavati, he becomes. On the other See also:hand this does not See also:account for the initial a of aheu. This last word is in the form of a past tense, and it may be a secondary formation from asmi. The P. si is not a feminine of Al, as usually stated, but is a survival of the Skr. asit, Pr. asi, was. As in the See also:Prakrit form, si is employed for both genders, both See also:numbers and all persons. Sa is a secondary formation from this, on the See also:analogy of the H. that', which is from the Skr. sthitas, Pr. thin, stood, and is a participial form like cala; thus, woh tha. he was; woh See also:tin, she was. The Br. hau is a modern past of haft, while hutau is probably by origin a See also:present participle of the Skr. bhu, become, Pr. huntad. The E.H. baleu, is the Skr. varte, Ap. vattau. Raheu is the past tense of the See also:root rah, remain. The future participle passive is everywhere freely used as an See also:infinitive or verbal noun; thus, H. ca.1na, E.H. calab, the See also:act of going, to go. There is a whole See also:series of derivative verbal forms, A abhrathsa.

See also:

Panjabi. See also:Hindostani. Braj Eastern p Bhasha. Hindi. Old Present cattail calla calu calall calall Singular I. callass, calla See also:tale calai See also:calas „ 2. callahi calla tale calai calai Plural 1. callai calliye tale calat calat „ 2. callahil calld calo calau calau „ 3. callahu callau tale See also:calm calm Present Participle callanti, callda calla calatu See also:mica Past Part. Passive callaht callia cala calyau cala Future Part. Passive . callanta-u callna calna calnau calab callia-u .. caliwau” callania-u calliavva-u the indigenous speech is more strictly adhered to than in Urdu, than 400 years after Chand's See also:death, with his See also:patron Prithwi-Raj, which under the See also:influence of Persian constructions has admitted in 1193. 'There is, therefore, considerable See also:reason to doubt many inversions. whether we have in it much of Chand's See also:composition in its See also:original As in many other countries, nearly all the See also:early vernacular shape; and the nature of the incidents described enhances this literature of Hindustan is in See also:verse, and See also:works in See also:prose are a doubt. The detailed See also:dates contained in the See also:Chronicle have been modern growth.' Both Hindi and Urdu are, in their application shown by Kabiraj Syamal Das 3 to be in every See also:case about to literary purposes, at first intruders upon the ground already ninety years astray. It tells of repeated conflicts between the occupied by the learned languages Sanskrit and Persian, the See also:hero Prithwi-Raj and See also:Sultan Shihabuddin, of See also:Ghor (Muhammad former representing See also:Hindu and the latter Musalman culture. Ghori), in which the latter always, except in the last See also:great See also:battle, But there is this difference between them, that, whereas Hindi comes off the worst, is taken prisoner and is released on pay-has been raised to the dignity of a literary speech chiefly by ment of a See also:ransom; these seem to be entirely unhistorical, our impulses of revolt against the See also:monopoly of the Brahmans, contemporary Persian authorities knowing of only one encounter Urdu has been cultivated with See also:goodwill by authors who have (that of Tirauri (Tirawari) near Thenesar, fought in 1191) in themselves highly valued and dexterously used the polished which the Sultan was defeated, and even then he escaped un-Persian.

Both Sanskrit and Persian continue to be employed captured to See also:

Lahore. The See also:Mongols (See also:Book XV.) are brought on occasionally for composition by Indian writers, though much the See also:stage more than See also:thirty years before they actually set See also:foot in fallen from their former See also:estate; but for popular purposes it India, and are related to have been vanquished by the See also:redoubt-may be said that their vernacular rivals are now almost in See also:sole able Prithwi-Raj. It is evident that such a See also:record cannot See also:possession of the See also:field. possibly be, in its entirety, a contemporary chronicle; but The subject may be conveniently divided as follows:— nevertheless it appears to contain a considerable See also:element which, 1. Early Hindi, of the See also:period during which the language was being from its language, may belong to Chand's own See also:age, and represents fashioned as a literary See also:medium out of the See also:ancient Prakrits, represented the earliest surviving document in Hindi. " Though we may not by the old heroic poems of Rajputana and the literature of the early the actual See also:text of Chand, we have certain' in his writings Bhagals or Vaishnava reformers, and extending from about A.D. 1100 possess certainly to 1550; some of the See also:oldest known specimens of Gaudian literature, 2. See also:Middle Hindi, representing the best age of Hindi See also:poetry, and abounding in pure Apabhramsa Sauraseni Prakrit forms " reaching from about 1550 to the end of the 18th See also:century; (Grierson). 3. The rise and development of literary Urdu, beginning about the It is very difficult now to form a just estimate of the poem as end of the 16th century, and reaching its height during the 18th; literature. The language, essentially transitional in character, See also:con- 4. The modern period, marked by the growth of a prose literature sists largely of words which have See also:long since died out of the vernacular in both dialects, and dating from the beginning of the 19th century, speech. Even the most learned See also:Hindus of the present See also:day are 1.

Early Hindi.—Our knowledge of the ancient metrical unable to interpret it with confidence; and the meaning of the verses See also:

chronicles of Rajputana is still very imperfect, and is chiefly must be sought by investigating the processes by which Sanskrit derived from the monumental See also:work of See also:Colonel See also:James See also:Tod called and Prakrit forms have been transfigured in their progress into Hindi The See also:Annals and Antiquities o Ra'asthan (published in 182 Chand appears, on the whole, to exhibit the merits and defects of of J (P 9– ballad chroniclers in See also:general. There is much that is lively and 1832), which is founded on them. It is in the nature of See also:corn- spirited in his descriptions of fight or See also:council; and the characters of positions of this character to be subjected to perpetual revision the See also:Rajput warriors who surround his hero are often sketched in their and recasting; they are the See also:production of the See also:family bards of the utterances with skill and animation. The See also:sound, however, frequently dynasties whose fortunes the and from See also:generation to predominates over the sense; the narrative is carried on with the Y record, g wearisome iteration and tedious unfolding of See also:familiar themes and generation they are added to, and their language constantly images which characterize all such poetry in India; and his value, modified to make it intelligible to the people of the See also:time. See also:Round for us at least, is linguistic rather than literary. an original See also:nucleus of See also:historical fact a See also:rich growth of See also:legend Chand may be taken as the representative of a long See also:line of accumulates; later redactors endeavour to systematize and to successors, continued even to the present day in the Rajput assign dates, but the result is not often such as to inspire con- states. Many of their compositions are still widely popular fidence; and the See also:mass has more the character of ballad literature as ballad literature, but are known only in oral versions sung than of serious See also:history. The materials used by Tod are nearly in Hindustan by professional singers. One of the most famous all still unprinted; his See also:manuscripts are now deposited in the of these is the See also:Alba-kh¢nd, reputed to be the work of a con-library of the Royal See also:Asiatic Society in See also:London; and one of the temporary of Chand called Jagnik or Jagnayak, of See also:Mahoba tasks which, on linguistic and historical grounds, should first be in Bundelkhand, who sang the praises of See also:Raja-See also:Parma', a ruler undertaken by the investigator of early Hindi literature is the whose See also:wars with Prithwi-Raj are recorded in the Mahoba-Khand examination and sifting, and the publication in their original of Chand's work. Alha and See also:Udal, the heroes of the poem, are form, of these important texts. famous warriors in popular legend, and the stories connected Omitting a few fragments of more ancient bards given by with them exist in an eastern recension, current in Bihar, as compilers of accounts of Hindi literature, the earliest author of well as in the Bundelkhaneli or western form which is best whom any portion has as yet been published in the original text known, Two versions of the latter have been printed, having is Chand Bardai, the See also:court See also:bard of Prithwi-Raj, the last Hindu been taken down as recited by illiterate professional rhapsodists. See also:sovereign of Delhi. His poem, entitled Prithi-Raj Rasau (or Another celebrated bard was Sarangdhar of Rantambhor, who Rayaa), is a vast chronicle in 69 books or cantos, comprising a flourished in 1363, and sang the praises of Hammir Deo (Hamir general history of the period when he wrote. Of this a small Deo), the Chauhan See also:chief of Rantambhor who See also:fell in a heroic portion has been printed, partly under the editorship of the See also:late struggle against Sultan `See also:Ala'uddin Khilji in 1300.

He wrote Mr See also:

John Beames and partly under that of Dr See also:Rudolf Hoernle, by the Hammir Kavya and Hammir Rasau, of which an account the Asiatic Society of Bengal; but the excessively difficult is given by Tod; 4 he was also a poet in Sanskrit, in which nature of the task prevented both scholars from making much language he compiled, in 1363, the See also:anthology called Sarngadharaprogress.' Chand, who came of a family of bards, was a native Paddhati. Another work which may be mentioned (though. of Lahore, which had for nearly 170 years (since 1023) been under much more modern) is the long chronicle entitled Chhattra-Muslim See also:rule when he flourished, and the language of the poem Prakas, or the history of Raja Chhatarsal, the Bundela raja of exhibits a considerable See also:leaven of Persian words. In its present Parma, who was killed, fighting on behalf of See also:Prince Dara-Shuk6h, form the work is a redaction made by Amar Singh of Mewar, in the battle of See also:Dholpur won by See also:Aurangzeb in 1658. The about the beginning of the 17th century, and therefore more author, Lal Kabi, has given in this work a history of the valiant ' The only known exceptions are a work in Hindi called the Bundela nation which was rendered into See also:English by See also:Captain Chaurasi Varta (mentioned below) and a few commentaries on poems; W. R. Pogson in 1828, and printed at See also:Calcutta. the latter can scarcely be called literature. 2 A fresh See also:critical edition of the text by Pandit Mohan Lai See also:Vishnu Before passing on to the more important See also:branch of early Lal Pancdia at Benares, under the auspices of the N4gari Prachtrini 3 See J.A.S.B. (1886), pp. ..6 sqq. Sabha, had reached See also:canto See also:xxiv. in 1907. 4 Annals and Antiquities, ii. 452 n. and 472 n.

are pre-eminently those' in which it is most fitting that he should be worshipped. Both of these incarnations had for many centuries3 attracted popular veneration, and their histories had been celebrated` by poets in epics and by weavers of religious myths in Puninds or " old stories"; but it was apparently Ramanuja's teaching which secured for them, and especially for Ramachandra, their exclusive See also:

place as the See also:objects of bhakti—ardent faith and See also:personal devotion addressed to the Supreme. The adherents of Ramanuja were, however, all Brahmans, and observed very strict rules in respect of See also:food, bathing and See also:dress; the new See also:doctrine had not yet penetrated to the people. Whether Ramanuja himself gave the preference to Rama against See also:Krishna as the form of Vishnu most worthy of See also:worship is uncertain. He dealt mainly with philosophic conceptions of the Divine Nature, and probably busied himself little with mythological legend. His mantra, or See also:formula of See also:initiation, if Wilson2 was correctly informed, implies devotion to Rama; but Vasudeva (Krishna) is also mentioned as a See also:principal See also:object of See also:adoration, and Rfimanuja himself dwelt for several years in See also:Mysore, at a See also:temple erected by the raja at Yadavagiri in See also:honour of Krishna in his form See also:Rau.chhoi.5 It is stated that in his worship of Krishna he joined 'with that See also:god as his Sakti, or See also:Energy, his wife Rukmini; while the later varieties of Krishna-worship prefer to ' honour his See also:mistress Radha. The great difference, in See also:temper and influence upon See also:life, between these two forms of Vaishnava faith appears to be a development subsequent to Ramanuja; but by the time of Jaideo (about 1250) it is clear that the theme of Krishna and Radha, and the use of passionate language See also:drawn from the relations of the sexes to See also:express the longings of the soul for God, had become fully established; and from that time onwards the two types of Vaishnava religious emotion diverged more and more from one another. Hindi liteiature,' the works of the Bhagats, mention may be made hereof a remarkable composition; a poem entitled the Padmcituat, the materials of which' are derived from the heroic legends of Rajputarla, but which is not the work of a bard nor even of a Hindu. The author, Malik Muhammad of ja'is, in Oudh, was a venerated Muslim devotee; to whom the Hindu raja of Amethi was greatly attached. Malik Muhammad wrote the Padmawat in 1540, the See also:year in which Sher Shah Stir ousted Humayan from the See also:throne of Delhi. 'The poem is composed in the purest vernacular Awadhi, with no admixture of traditional Hindu learning, and is generally to be found written in the Persian character, though the metres and language are thoroughly Indian. It professes to tell the tale of Padmawati or Padmini, a princess celebrated for her beauty who was the wife of the Chauhan raja of Chitor in Mewar.

The historical Padminl's See also:

husband was named Bhim Singh, but Malik Muhammad calls him Ratan Sen; and the See also:story turns upon the attempts of 'AIa'uddin Khilji, the sovereign of Delhi, to gain possession of her person. The tale of the See also:siege of Chitor in 1303 by 'Alauddin, the heroic stand made by its defenders, who perished to the last See also:man in fight with the Sultan's army, and the self-immolation of Padmini and the other See also:women, the wives and daughters of the warriors, by the fiery death called jjhar, will be found related in Tod's Rdjcisthan, i. 262 sqq. Malik Muhammad takes great liberties with "the history, and explains at the end of the poem that all is an See also:allegory, and that the personages represent the human soul, Divine See also:wisdom, Satan, delusion and other mystical characters. Both on account of its See also:interest as a true vernacular work, and as the composition of a Musalman who has taken the incidents of his morality from the legends of his country and not from an See also:exotic source, the poem is: memorable. has often been lithographed, and is very popular; a See also:translation has even been made into Sanskrit. A critical edition has been prepared by Dr G. A. Grierson ancl,PaTit Stidhakar Dwivedi. The other class of composition which is characteristic of the period of early Hindi, the literature of the Bhagats, or Vaishnava See also:saints, who propagated the doctrine of Mali, or faith in Vishnu, as the popular See also:religion of Hindustan, has exercised a much more powerful influence both upon the See also:national speech and upon the themes chosen for poetic treatment. It is also, as a See also:body of literature, of high See also:intrinsic interest for its form and content. Nearly the whole of subsequent poetical composition in Hindi is impressed with one or other type of Vaishnava doctrine, which, like See also:Buddhism many, centuries before, was essentially a reaction against Brahmanical influence and the chains of See also:caste, a claim for the rights of humanity in See also:face of the monopoly which the " twice-See also:born " asserted of learning, of worship, of righteousness. A large proportion of the writers were non-Brahmans, and many of them of the lowest castes.

As See also:

Siva was the popular deity of the Brahmans, so was Vishnu of the people; and while the literature of the Saivas and Saktas" is almost entirely in. Sanskrit, and exercised little or no influence on the popular mind in northern India, that of the Vaishnavas is largely 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 Ka-manilla, a See also:Brahman who was born about the end of the 1 tth century, at Perambur in the neighbourhood of the modern See also:Madras, and spent his life in See also:southern India. His works, which are in Sanskrit and consist of commentaries on the Vedanta Sutras, are devoted to establishing " the personal existence of a Supreme Deity, possessing every gracious attribute, full of love and pity for the sinful beings who adore him, and granting the released soul a See also:home of eternal See also:bliss near him—a home where each soul never loses its identity, and whose See also:state is one of perfect See also:peace." 2 In the Deity's See also:infinite love and pity he has on several occasions become incarnate for the salvation of mankind, and of these incarnations two, Ramachandra, the prince of AyOdhya, and Krishna, the chief of the Yftdava See also:clan and son of Vasudeva, ' Worshippers of the energic See also:power—Sakti—of Siva, represented by his See also:consort Ptirvati or Bhawanf. 2 Quoted from G. A. Grierson, See also:chapter on " Literature," in the India Gazetteer (ed. 1907). The cult of Rama is founded on family life, and the relation of the worshipper to the Deity is that of a See also:child to a See also:lathe's The morality it inculcates springs from the sacred See also:sources of human piety which in all religions have wrought most in favour of pureness of life, of fraternal helpfulness and of humble devotion to a loving and See also:tender See also:Parent, who desires the See also:good of mankind, His See also:children, and hates violence and wrong. That of Krishna, on the other hand, had for its basis the legendary career of a less estimable human hero, whose exploits are marked by a See also:kind of elvish and fantastic wantonness; it has more and more spent its energy in developing that See also:side of devotion which is perilously near to sensual thought, and has allowed the See also:imagination and ingenuity of poets to dwell on things unmect for verse or even for speech. It is claimed for those who first opened this way to faith that their See also:hearts were pure and theii thoughts See also:innocent, and that the language of erotic See also:passion which they use as the vehicle of their religious emotion is merely mystical and allegorical. Thig is probable; but that these beginnings were followed by corruption in the multitude, and that the fervent impulses of adoration made way in later times for those of lust and lasciviousness, seems beyond dispute.

The worship of Krishna, especially in his See also:

infant and youthful form (which appeals chiefly to women), is widely popular in the neighbourhood of Mathurd, the See also:capital of that See also:land of Braj where as a boy he lived. Its literature is mainly composed in the dialect of this region, called Brajbhasha. That of Rama, 2 The worship of Krishna is as old as Megasthenes (about 30o B.c.), who calls him Herakles, and was then, as now, located at Mathura on the Jumna river, That of Rama is probably still more ancient; the name occurs in stories of the See also:Buddha. 4 Religious Sects of the Hindus, p. 40. 2This name of Krishna, which means " He who quits the battle," is connected with the story of the See also:transfer of the Yadava clan from Mathura to the new capital on the See also:coast of the See also:peninsula of Kathiawai, the See also:city of See also:Dwaraka. This See also:migration was the result of an invasion of Braj by Jarasandha, See also:king of See also:Magadha, before whom Krishna resolved to See also:retreat. As his path southwards took him through Rajputana and See also:Gujarat, it is in these regions that his form Ranchhor is most generally venerated as a See also:symbol of the shifting of the centre of divine life from Gangetic to southern India. though general throughout Hindustan, has since the time of Tulsi Das adopted for poetic use the language of Oudh, called Awadhi or Baiswari, a form of Eastern Hindi easily understood throughout the whole of the Gangetic valley. Thus these two dialects came to be, what they are to this day, the See also:standard vehicles of poetic expression. Subsequently to Ramanuja his doctrine appears to have been set forth, about 1250, in the vernacular of the people by Jaideo, a Brahman born at Kinduvilva, the modern Kenduli, in the See also:Birbhum See also:district of Bengal, author of the Sanskrit Gila GOvinda, and by Namdeeo or Nama, a tailor' of Maharashtra, of both of whom verses in the popular speech are preserved in the Adi See also:Granth of the Sikhs. But it was not until the beginning of the 15th century that the Brahman Ramanand, a prominent GOsaiii of the See also:sect of Ramanuja, having had a dispute with the members of his order in regard to the stringent rules observed by them, See also:left the community, migrated to northern India (where he is said to have made his headquarters Galta in Rajputana), and addressed himself to those outside the Brahman caste, thus initiating the teaching of Vaishnavism as the popular faith of Hindustan.

Among his twelve disciples or apostles were a Rajput, a Jat, a See also:

leather-worker, a See also:barber and a Musalman See also:weaver; the last-mentioned was the celebrated See also:KABIR (see See also:separate article). One See also:short Hindi poem by Ramanand is contained in the Adi Granth, and Dr Grierson has collected See also:hymns (bhajans) attributed to him and still current in Mithila or See also:Tirhut. Both Ramanand and Kabir were adherents of the form of Vaishnavism where devotion is specially addressed to Rama, who is regarded not only as an incarnation, but as himself identical with the Deity. A contemporary of Ramanand, Bidyapati Thakur, is celebrated as the author of numerous lyrics in the Maithili dialect of Bihar, expressive of the other side of Vaishnavism, the passionate adoration of the Deity in the person of Krishna, the aspirations of the worshipper being mystically conveyed in the character of Radha, the cowherdess of Braj and the beloved of the son of Vasudeva. These stanzas of Bidyapati (who was a Brahman and author of several works in Sanskrit) afterwards inspired the Vaishnava literature of Bengal,whose most celebrated exponent was Chaitanya (b. 1484). Another famous adherent of the same cult was Mira Bai, " the one great poetess of northern India " (Grierson). This See also:lady, daughter of Raja Ratiya Rana, Rathor, of l\/Ierta in Rajputana, must have been born about the beginning of the 15th century; she was married in r413 to Raja Kumbhkaran of Mewar, who was killed by his son Uday Rana in 1469. She was devoted to Krishna in the form of Ranchhor, and her songs have a wide currency in northern India. An important compilation of the utterances of the early Vaishnava saints or Bhagats is contained in the sacred book, or Adi Granth, of the See also:Sikh Gurus. Nanak, the founder of this sect (1469–1538), though a native of the Punjab (born at Talvandi on the See also:Ravi near Lahore), took his doctrine from the Bhagats (see KAsix) ; and each of the thirty-one rags, forming the body of the Granth, is followed by a compilation of texts from the utterances of Vaishnava saints, chiefly of Kabir, in See also:confirmation of the teaching of the Gurus, while the whole book is closed by a bhog or conclusion, containing more verses by the same authors, as well as by a celebrated Indian Sufi, Shekh See also:Farid of Pakpattan. The body of the Granth (q.v.), being in old Panjabi, falls outside the See also:scope of this article; but the extracts included in it from the early writers of old Hindi are a See also:precious See also:store of specimens of authors some of whom have left no other record in the surviving literature.

The Adi Granth, which was put together about 1600 by Arjun, the fifth Guru of the Sikhs, sets forth the creed of the sect in its original pietistic form, before it assumed the militant character which afterwards distinguished it under the five Gurus who succeeded him. 2. Middle Hindi.—The second period, that of middle Hindi, begins with the reign of the See also:

Emperor See also:Akbar (1556-1605); and it is not improbable that the broad and liberal views of this great monarch, his active sympathy with his Hindu subjects, the interest which he took in their religion and literature, and the peace which his organization of the See also:empire secured for Hindo- ' In the Granth Namdeo is called a See also:calico-printer, Chhipi. The See also:Marathi tradition is that he was a tailor, Shimpi; it is probable that the latter word, being unknown in northern India, has been wrongly rendered by the former. stan, had an important effect on the great development of Hindi poetry which now set in? Akbar's court was itself a centre of poetical composition. The court musician Tan See also:San (who was also a poet) is still renowned, and many verses composed by him in the Emperor's name live to this day in the memory of the people. Akbar's favourite See also:minister and See also:companion, Raja Birbal (who fell in battle on the See also:north-western frontier in 1583), was a musician and a poet as well as a politician, and held the See also:title, conferred by the Emperor, of Kabi-See also:Ray, or poet See also:laureate; his verses and witty sayings are still extremely popular in northern India, though no See also:complete work by him is known to exist. Other nobles of the court were also poets, among them the See also:Khan-khanan `Abdur-Rahim, son of See also:Bairam Khan, whose Hindi dohas and kabittas are still held in high estimation, and Fa4i, See also:brother of the celebrated Abul-Fail, the Emperor's annalist. By this time the worship of Krishna as the See also:lover of Radha (Radha-ballabh) had been systematized, and a See also:local habitation found for it at Gokul, opposite Mathura on the Jumna, some 3o m. upstream from Agra, Akbar's capital, by Vallabhacharya, a Tailinga Brahman from Madras. Born in 1478, in 1497 he See also:chose the land of Braj as his headquarters, thence making missionary See also:tours throughout India. He wrote chiefly, if not entirely, in Sanskrit; but among his immediate followers, and those of his son Bitthalnath (who succeeded his See also:father on the latter's death in 1530), were some of the most eminent poets in Hindi.

Four disciples of Vallabhacharya and four of Bitthalnath, who flourished between 1550 and 1570, are known as the As/4 Chhap, or" Eight See also:

Seals," and are the acknowledged masters of the literature of Braj-bhasha, in which dialect they all wrote. Their names are Krishna-Das Pay-ahari, Sur Das (the Bhat), Parmanand Das, Kumbhan Das, Chaturbhuj Das, Chhit Swami, Nand Das and Gobind Das. Of these much the most celebrated, and the only one whose verses are still popular, is Stir Das. The son of Baba See also:Ram Das, who was a'See also:singer at Akbar's court, Sur Das was descended, according to his own statement, from the bard of Prithwi-Raj, Chand Bardai. A tradition gives the date of his See also:birth as 1483, and that of his death as 1573; but both seem to be placed too early, and in Abul-Fazl's See also:Ain-i Akbari he is mentioned as living when that work was completed (1596/7). He was See also:blind, and entirely devoted to the worship of Krishna, to whose address he composed a great number of hymns (bhajans), which have been collected in a compilation entitled the Sur See also:Sagar, said to contain 6o,000 verses; this work is very highly esteemed as the high-See also:water See also:mark of Braj devotional poetry, and has been repeatedly printed in India. Other compositions by him were a translation in verse of the Bhagavata Purana, and a poem dealing with the famous story of Nala and Damayanti; of the latter no copies are now known to exist. The great See also:glory of this age is Tulsi ads (q.v.). He and Stir Das between them are held to have exhausted the possibilities of the poetic See also:art: It is somewhat remarkable that the time of their See also:appearance coincided with the Elizabethan age of English literature. To these great masters succeeded a period of artifice and reflection, when many works were composed dealing with the rules of poetry and the See also:analysis and the appropriate language of sentiment. Of their writers the most famous is Kesab Das, a Brahman of Bundelkhand, who flourished during the latter part of Akbar's reign and the beginning of that of See also:Jahangir. His works are the Rasik-priya, on composition (1591), the Kavi-priya, on the See also:laws of poetry (16o1), a highly esteemed poem dedicated to Parbin Rai Paturi, a celebrated courtesan of See also:Orchha in Bundejkhand, the Ramachandrika, dealing with the history of Rama, (161o), and the Vigyan-gita (i6io).

The See also:

fruit of this elaboration of the poetic art reached its highest perfection in BIHARI LAL, whose Sal-sai, or " seven centuries " (1662), is the most remark-able example in Hindi of the rhetorical See also:style in poetry (see separate article). 2 It will be remembered that Akbar's reign was remarkable for the translation into Persian of a large number of Sanskrit works of religion and See also:philosophy, most of the versions being made by, or in the names of, members of his court. Side by side with this cultivation of the literary use of the themes of Rama and Krishna, there See also:grew up a class of compositions dealing, in a devotional spirit, with the lives and doings of the See also:holy men from whose utterances and example the development of the popular religion proceeded. The most famous of these is the Bhakta-See also:mold, or " See also:Roll of the Bhagats," by Narayan Das, otherwise called See also:Nabha Das, or Nabhaji. This author, who belonged to the despised caste of Doms and was a native of the See also:Deccan, had in his youth seen Tulsi Das at Mathura, and himself flourished in the first half of the 17th century. His work consists of io8 stanzas in chhappoi See also:metre, each setting forth the characteristics of some holy personage, and expressed in a style which is extremely brief and obscure. Its exact date is unknown, but it falls between 1585 and 1623. The book was furnished with a ilea (supplement or See also:gloss) in the kabitta metre, by Priya Das in 1713, gathering up, in an allusive and disjointed See also:fashion, all the legendary stories related of each See also:saint. This again was See also:expanded about a century later by a modern author named Lachhman into a detailed work of See also:biography, called the Bhaktasindhu. From these nearly all our knowledge (such as it is) of the lives of the Vaishnava authors, both of the Rama and the Krishna cults, is derived, and much of it is of a very legendary and untrustworthy character. Another work, somewhat earlier in date than the Bhakta-mdld, named the Chaurdsi Vdrta, is devoted exclusively to stories of the followers of Vallabhacharya. It is reputed to have been written by Gokulnath, son of Bitthalnath, son of Vallabhacharya, and is dated in 1551.

The See also:

matter of these tales is justly characterized by See also:Professor See also:Wilson' (who gives some translated specimens) as " marvellous and insipid anecdotes "; but the book is remarkable for being in very artless prose, and, though written more than 30o years ago, shows that the current language of Braj was then almost precisely identical with that now spoken in that region. A specimen of the text will be found at p. 296 of Mr F. S. Growse's Mathura, a District Memoir (3rd ed., 1883). It would be tedious to enumerate the many authors who succeeded the great period of See also:Hind poetical composition which extended through the reigns of Akbar, Jahangir and Shahjahan. None of them attained to the fame of Sur Das, Tuls Das or Bihari I.al. Their themes exhibit no novelty, and they repeat with a wearisome monotony the sentiments of their predecessors. The See also:list of Hindi authors drawn up by Dr G. A. Grierson, and printed in the See also:Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1889, may be consulted for the names and works of these See also:epigoni. The courts of Chhatarsal, raja of See also:Parana in Bundelkhand, who was killed in battle with Aurangzeb in 1658, and of several rajas of Bandho (now called Riwan or Rewah) in Baghelkhand, were famous for their patronage of poets; and the See also:Mogul court itself kept up the See also:office of Kabi-Ray or poet laureate even during the fanatical reign of Aurangzeb.

Such, in the briefest outline, is the character of Hind literature during the period when it grew and flourished through its own original forces. Founded by a popular and religious impulse in many respects comparable to that which, nearly 1600 years before, had produced the doctrine and literature, in the vernacular See also:

tongue, of Jainism and Buddhism, and cultivated largely (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 See also:pitch of perfection too often overlooked by those who concern themselves rather with the substance than the form of the works they read. It covers a wide range of style, and expresses, in the works of its greatest masters, a rich variety of human feeling. Little studied by Europeans in the past, it deserves much more See also:attention than it has received. The few who have explored it speak of it as an " enchanted See also:garden " (Grierson), abounding in beauties of thought and phrase. Above all it is to be remembered that it is genuinely popular, and has reached strata of society scarcely touched by literature in See also:Europe. The See also:ballads of Rajput prowess, the aphorisms of Kabir, Tulsi Das's Ramayan, and the bhajans of ', Religious, Sects, p. 132.Sur Das are to this day carried about everywhere by wandering minstrels, and have found their way, throughout the great plains of northern India and the uplands of the See also:Vindhya See also:plateau, to the hearts of the people. There is no surer See also:key to unlock the confidence of the villager than an See also:apt See also:quotation from one of these inspired singers. 3. Literary Urdu.—The origins of Urdu as a literary language are somewhat obscure.

The popular account refers its rise to the time of Timur's invasion (1398). Some authors even claim for it a higher antiquity, asserting that a diwdn, or collection of poems, was composed in Rekhta by Mas'ud, son of Sa'd, in the last half of the See also:

lath or beginning of the lath century, and that Sa'di of See also:Shiraz and his friend See also:Amir Khusrau2 of Delhi likewise made verses in that dialect before the end of the 13th century. This, however, is very improbable. It has already been seen that during the early centuries of Muslim rule in India adherents of that faith used the language and metrical forms of the country for their compositions. Persian words early made their way into the popular speech; they are See also:common in Chand, and in Kabir's verses (which are nevertheless unquestionable Hindi) they are in many places used as freely as in the modern dialect. Much of the confusion which besets the subject is due to the want of a clear understanding of what Urdu, as opposed to Hindi, really is. Urdu, as a literary language, differs from Hindi rather in its form than in its substance. The See also:grammar, and to a large extent the vocabulary, of both are the same. The really vital point of difference, that in which Hindi and Urdu are incommensurable, is the See also: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 nexus of consonants its full value in scansion (though in prose it is no longer heard), except occasionally at the metrical pause; in Urdu this is never done, the words being scanned generally as pronounced in prose, with a few exceptions which need not be mentioned here. The great majority of Hindi metres are scanned by the number of ma-frets or syllabic instants—the value in time of a short syllable—of which the lines consist; in Urdu, as in Persian, the metre follows a See also:special order of long and short syllables.

The question, then, is not When did Persian first become intermixed with Hindi in the literary speech?—for this See also:

process began with the first entry of Muslim conquerors into India, and continued for centuries before a line of Urdu verse was composed; nor When was the Persian character first employed to write Hindi?—for the written form is but a subordinate matter; as already mentioned, the See also:MSS. of Malik Muhammad's purely Hindi poem, the Padmawat, are ordinarily found to be written in the Persian character; and copies lithographed in Devanagari of the popular compositions of the Urdu poet Nazir are commonly procurable in the bazars. We must ask When was the first verse composed in Hindi, whether with or without See also:foreign admixture, according to the forms of Persian prosody, and not in those of the indigenous metrical See also:system? Then, and not till then, did Urdu poetry come into being. This appears to have happened, as already mentioned, about the end of the 16th century. Meantime the vernacular speech had been gradually permeated with Persian words and phrases. The impulse which Akbar's interest in his Hindu subjects had given to the translation of Sanskrit works into Persian had brought the indigenous and the foreign literatures into contact. The current language of the neighbourhood of the capital, the Hindi spoken about Delhi and thence northwards to the Himalaya, was naturally the form of the vernacular which was most subject to foreign influences; and with the See also:extension of Mogul 2 Amir Khusrau is credited with the authorship of many still popular rhymes, See also:riddles or punning verses (called palielis and mukuris); but these, though often containing Persian words, are in Hindi and scanned according to the prosody of that language; they are, therefore, like Malik Mubammad's Padmawat, not Urdu or Rekhta verse (see Professor Azad'sAbi-Hayat, pp. 72-76). A late Dakkhani poet who used the takkallus of Sa'di is said by Azad (p. 79) to have been confused by Mirza Rafi'us-Sauda in his Tazkira with Sa'di of Shiraz. territory by the conquests in the south of Akbar and his successors, this See also:idiom was carried abroad by their armies, and was adopted by the Musalman kingdoms of the Deccan as their court language some time before their overthrow by the See also:campaigns of Aurangzeb. It is not a little remarkable that, as happened with the Vaishnava See also:reformation initiated by Ramanuja and Ramanand, and with the Vallabhacharya cult of Krishna established at Mathura, the first impulse to literary composition in Urdu should have been given, not at the headquarters of the empire in the north, but at the Muhammadan courts of Golkonda and See also:Bijapur in the south, the former situated amid an indigenous population speaking See also:Telugu, and the latter among one whose speech was See also:Kanarese, both See also:Dravidian languages having nothing in common with the See also:Aryan See also:tongues of the north.

This fact of itself defines the nature of. the literature thus inaugurated. It had nothing to do with the idiom or ideas of the people among whom it was born, but was from the beginning an See also:

imitation of Persian See also:models. It adopted the See also:standards of form and content current among the poets of Era's. The gasida or laudatory See also:ode, the ghazal or love-See also:sonnet, usually of mystical import, the mariiya or See also:dirge, the masnavi or narrative poem with coupled rhymes, the hija or See also:satire, the ruba'i or See also:epigram—these were the types which Urdu took over ready-made. And with the forms were appropriated also all the conventions of poetic diction, The Persians, having for centuries treated the same themes with a fecundity which most Europeans find extremely wearisome, had elaborated a system of See also:rhetoric and a stock of poetic images which, in the exhaustion of original matter, made the success of the poet depend chiefly upon dexterity of artifice and cleverness of conceit. Pleasing See also:hyperbole, ingenious comparison, See also:antithesis, See also:alliteration, carefully arranged gradation of noun and epithet, are the means employed to obtain variety; and few of the most eloquent passages of later Persian verse admit of translation into any other language without losing that which in the original makes their whole See also:charm. What is true of Persian is likewise true of Urdu poetry. Until quite modern times, there is scarcely anything in it which can be called original.' See also: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 See also:metaphor or comparison, classed, according as they repeat the well-worn poetical stock-in-See also:trade of the Persians, or seek a slightly fresher and more Indian field of sentiment, as the old or the new style of composition. Shuja'uddin Nuri, a native of Gujarat, a, friend of Fai*i and con-temporary of Akbar, is mentioned by the native biographers as the most ancient Urdu poet after Amir Khusrau. He was See also:tutor of the son of the See also:wazir of Sultan See also:Abu-l-See also:Hasan Kutb Shah of Golkonda, and several ghazals by him are said to survive. Kull Kutb Shah of Golkonda, who reigned from 1581, and his successor 'Abdullah Kutb Shah, who came to the throne in 1611, have both left collections of verse, including ghazals, ruba'is, nzasnavzs and qas-zdas. And during the reign of the latter See also:Ibn Nishati wrote two works which are still famous as models of composition in Dakhni; they are masnavzs entitled the See also:Tuff-nama, or " Tales of a See also:Parrot," and the Phul-See also:ban.

The first, written in 1639, is an See also:

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 Tota-Kahani, one of the first works in Urdu prose, composed in 18oi by Muhammad Haidar-bakhsh Haidari of the Fort See also:William See also:College. The Phul-ban is a love tale named from its heroine, said to be translated from a Persian work entitled the Basaln. Another famous work which probably belongs to the same place and time is the Story of See also:Kamrup and Kald by Tabsinuddin, a masnavi which has been published 0836) by M. Garcin de Tassy; what makes this poem remarkable is that, though the work of a Musalman, its personages are Hindu. Kamrup, the hero, is son of the king of Oudh, and the heroine, Kahl, daughter of the king of See also:Ceylon; the incidents some-what resemble those of the tale of as-Sindibad in the Thousand and One Nights; the hero and heroine See also:dream one of the other, and the former sets forth to find his beloved; his wanderings take him to i An exception may be made to this general statement in favour of the genre pictures of city and country life contained in the ma;inavis of Sauda and See also:Nadir. These are often satires (in the vein of See also:Horace rather than See also:Juvenal), and are full of interest as pictures of society. In Sauda, however, the conventional language used in description is often Persian rather than Indian.many See also:strange countries and through many wonderful adventures, ending in a happy See also:marriage. The court of Bijapur was no less distinguished in literature. See also:Ibrahim 'Adil Shah (1979–1626) was the author of a work in verse on See also:music entitled the Nau-See also:ras or " Nine Savours," which, however, appears to have been in Hindi rather than Urdu; the three prefaces (dibajas) to this poem were rendered into Persian prose by See also:Mania Zuhuri, and, under the name of the Sih nasr-i Zuhuri, are well-known models of style. A successor of this prince, 'See also:Ali `Adil Shah, had as his court poet a Brahman known poetically as Nusrati, who in 1657 composed a ma.inavi of some repute entitled the Gulshan-i 'Ishq, or " See also:Rose-garden of Love," a See also:romance See also:relating the history of Prince Mannar and Madmalati,—like the Kamrup, an Indan theme. The same poet is author of an extremely long masnavi entitled the 'Ali-narna, celebrating the monarch under whom he lived. These early authors, however, were but pioneers; the first generally accepted standard of form, a standard which suffered little See also:change in two centuries, was established by See also:Wall of See also:Aurangabad (about 168o–172o) and his contemporary and See also:fellow-townsman Siraj.

The former of these is commonly called " the Father of Rekhtah "—Baba-se Rekhta; 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 Delhi towards the end of the reign of Aurangzeb, and is said to have there received instruction from Shah Gulshan in the art of clothing in a vernacular dress the ideas of the Persian poets. His Kulliyat or complete works have been published by M. Garcin de Tassy, with notes and a translation of selected passages (See also:

Paris, 1834–1836), and may be commended to readers desirous of consulting in the original a favourable specimen of Urdu poetical composition. The first of the Delhi school of poets was Zuhuruddin Hatim, who was born in 1699 and died in 1792. In the second year of Muhammad Shah (1719), the diwdn of Wall reached Delhi, and excited the emulation of scholars there. Hatim was the first to imitate it in the Urdu of the north, and was followed by his See also:friends See also:Nail, Mazmun and Abru. Two diwdns by him survive. He became the founder of a school, and one of his pupils was Rafi us-Sauda, the most distinguished poet of northern India. Khan Arzu (1689–1756) was another of the fathers of Urdu poetry in the north. This author is chiefly renowned as a Persian See also:scholar, in which language he not only composed much poetry, but one of the best of Persian lexicons, the Siraju-l-lughat; but his compositions in Urdu are also highly esteemed. He was the See also:master of Mir Taqi, who ranks next to Sauda as the most eminent Urdu poet.

See also:

Area died at See also:Lucknow, whither he betook himself after the devastation of Delhi by Nadir Shah (1739). Another of the early Delhi poets who is considered to have surpassed his See also:fellows was In'amullah Khan Yaqin, who died during the reign of Ahmad Shah (1748–1754), aged only twenty-five. Another was Mir Dard, See also:pupil of the same Shah Gulshan who is said to have instructed Wali; his diwdn is not long, but extremely popular, and especially esteemed for the skill with which it develops the themes of See also:spiritualism. In his old,age he became a darwesh of the Nagshbandi following, and died in 1793. Sauda and Mir Taqi are beyond question the most distinguished Urdu poets. The former was born at Delhi about the beginning of the 18th century, and studied under Hatim. He left Delhi after ite devastation, and settled at Lucknow, where the See also:Nawab Asafuddaulah gave him a jagir of Rs. 6000 a year, and where he died in 1780. His poems are very numerous, and See also:cover all the styles of Urdu 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 Delhi, where he studied under Area; he was still living there at the time of Sauda's death, but in 1782 repaired to Lucknow, where he likewise received a See also:pension; he died at a very advanced age in 1810. His works are very voluminous, including no less than six divans. Mir is counted the See also:superior of Sauda in the ghazal and masnavi, while the latter excelled him in the satire and gasida.

Sayyid Ahmad, an excellent authority, and himself one of the best of modern authors in Urdu, says of him in his Asaru-.g- 'anadid: " Mir's language is so pure, and the expressions which he employs so suit-able and natural, that to this day all are unanimous in his praise. Although the language of Sauda 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 Delhi at the hands of Nadir Shah (1739), Ahmad Shah Durrani (1756), and the Marathas (1759), and the rapid decay of the Mogul empire under these repeated shocks, transferred the centre of the cultivation of literature from that city to Lucknow, the capital of the newly founded and flourishing state of Oudh. It has been mentioned how Arzu, Sauda and Mir betook themselves to this See also:

refuge and ended their days there; they were followed in their new See also:residence by a school of poets hardly inferior to those who had made Delhi illustrious in the first half of the century. Here they were joined by Mir Hasan (d. 1786), Mir Soz (d. 1800) and Qalandar-bakhsh See also:Jur'at (d. 181o), also like them-selves refugees from Delhi, and illustrious poets. Mir Hasan was a friend and collaborator of Mir Dard, and first established himself at Faizhbad and subsequently at Lucknow; he excelled in the ghazal, ruba'i, masnavi and marsiya, and is counted the third, with Sauda and Mir Taqi, among the most eminent of Urdu poets. His fame chiefly rests upon a much admired masnavi entitled the Sikru-lbayan, or " Magic of Eloquence," a romance relating the loves of Prince Be-nazir and the Princess Badr-i Munir; his masnavt called the Gulzar-i Iram (" Rose-garden of Iram," the legendary 'Adite See also:paradise in southern See also:Arabia), in praise of See also:Faizabad, is likewise highly esteemed. Mir Mubammadi Soz was an elegant poet, remarkable for the success with which he composed in the dialect of the See also:harem called Rekhti, but somewhat licentious in his verse; he became a darwesh and renounced the See also:world in his later years. Jur'at was also a prolific poet, but, like S6z, his ghazals and masnavis are licentious and full of See also:double meanings. He imitated Sauda in satire with much success; he also cultivated Hindi poetry, and composed dohas and kabittas.

Miskin was another Lucknow poet of the same period, whose marsiyas 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 Lucknow, so founded and maintained during the early years of the century, continued to flourish till the dethronement of the last king, Wajid 'Ali, in 1856. Atash and Nasikh (who died respectively in 1847 and 1841) are the best among the modern poets of the school in the ghazal; MirAnis,a See also:

grandson of Mir Hasan, and his contemporary Dabir, the former of whom died in See also:December 1875 and the latter a few months later, excelled in the marsiyah. Rajab All Beg Surur, who died in 1869, was the author of a much-admired romance in rhyming prose entitled the Fisanah-e 'Ajaib or " Tale of Marvels," besides a diwan. The dethroned prince Wajid 'Ali himself, poetically styled Akhtar, was also a poet; he published three diwans, among them a quantity of poetry in the rustic dialect of Oudh which is philologically of much interest. Though Delhi was thus deserted by its brightest See also:lights of literature, it did not altogether cease to cultivate the poetic art. Among the last Moguls several princes were themselves creditable poets. Shah Alam II. (1761-1806) wrote under the name of Aftab, and was the author of a romance entitled Manzum-i Aqdas, besides a diwan. His son Sulaiman-shukoh, brother of Akbar Shah II., who had at first, like his brother authors, repaired to Lucknow, returned to Delhi in 1815, and died in 1838; he also has left a diwan. Lastly, his See also:nephew Bahadur Shah II., the last titular emperor of Delhi (d. 1862), wrote under the name of Zafar, and was a pupil in poetry of Shaikh Ibrahim Zauq, a distinguished writer; he has left a voluminous diwan, which has been printed at Delhi.

Masbafi (Ghulam-i See also:

Ham-tidal), who died about 1814, was one of the most distinguished of the revived poetic school of Delhi, and was himself one of its founders. Originally of Lucknow, he left that city for Delhi in 1777, and held conferences of poets, at which several authors who afterwards acquired repute formed their style; he has left five diwans, a Tazkira or biography of Urdu poets, and a Shah-Hama or account of the See also:kings of Delhi down to Shah 'Alam. Qaim (Qiyamuddin 'Ali) was one of his society, and died in 1792; he has left several works of merit. Ghalib, otherwise Mirza Asadullah Khan Naushah, laureate of the last Mogul, who died in 1869, was undoubtedly the most eminent of the modern Delhi poets. He wrote chiefly in Persian, of which language, especially in the form cultivated by Firdausi, See also:free from intermixture of Arabic words, he was a master; but his Urdu diwan, though short, is excellent in its way, and his reputation spread far and wide. To this school, though he lived and died at Agra, may be attached Mir Wall Muhammad Nadir (who died in the year 1832) ; his masnavis entitled Jogi-nama, Kauri-nama, Banjarenama, and Burhdpe-nama, as well as his diwan, have been frequently reprinted, and are extremely popular. His language is less artificial than that of the generality of Urdu poets, and some of his poems have been printed in Nagari, and are as well known and as much esteemed by Hindus as by Mahommedans. His verse is defaced by much See also:obscenity. 4. Modern Period.—While such, in outline, is the history of the literary See also:schools of the Deccan, Delhi and Lucknow, a See also: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 See also:hundred years before been given to that of poetry by Wall. At the commencement of the loth century Dr John Gilchrist was the See also: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 See also:officers of the See also:administration. To his exertions we owe the elaboration of the vernacular as an See also:official speech, and the possibility of substituting it for the previously current Persian as the language of the courts and the See also:government.

He gathered together at Calcutta the most eminent vernacular scholars of the time, and their works, due to his initiative, are still notable 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 See also:

Amman Lutf, Iiafizuddin Ahmad, Sher 'All Afsos, Nihal Chand of Lahore, Kazim Jawan, Lallu Lal Kavi, Mazhar 'Ali See also:Wild and Ikram 'Ali. Haidari died in 1828. He composed the Tota-Kahani (18oi), a prose redaction of the Tuti-namah which has been already mentioned ; a romance named Araish-i Makfil (" See also:Ornament of the See also:Assembly "), detailing the adventures of the famous Arab chief Ijiltim-i Tai; the Gul-i Maghfirat or Dah Majlis, an account of the holy persons of the Muhammadan faith; the Gulzar-i Danish, a translation of the Bahar-i Danish, a Persian work containing stories descriptive of the See also:craft and faithlessness of women; and the Tarikh-i Nadiri, a translation of a Persian history of Nadir Shah. Uusaini is the author of an imitation in prose of Mir Hasar 's Sikru-l-bayan, 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 Akhlaq-i Hindi, or " Indian Morals," both composed in 1802. The Akhlaq-i Hindi is an adaptation of a Persian work called the Mufarrihu-l-qulub (" the Delighter of Hearts "), itself a version of the Hitopadesa. Mir Amman was a native of Delhi, which he left in the time of Ahmad Shah Durrani for See also:Patna, and in i8oi repaired to Calcutta. To him we owe the Bagh o Bahar (1801-1802), an adaptation of Amir Khusrau's famous Persian romance entitled the Chahar Darwesh, 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 Etawa, called the Nau-tarz-i Murassa'. The style of this composition is much admired by natives of India, and See also:editions of it are very numerous. Amman also composed an imitation of Husain Wa'iz Kashifi's Akhlaq-i Muksini under the name of the Ganj-i Khubi (" Treasure of Virtue "), produced in 1802. Hafizuddin Ahmad was a professor at the Fort William College; in 1803 he completed a translation of Abu-l-Fazl's 'Iyar-i Danish, under the name of the Khirad-afroz (" Enlightener of the Understanding "). The 'Iyar-i Danish (" Touchstone of Wisdom ") is one of the numerous imitations of the originally Sanskrit collection of apologues known in Persian as the Fables of See also:Bidpai, or Kalilah and Dimna.

Afsos was one of the most illustrious of the Fort William school; originally of Delhi, he left that city at the age of eleven, and entered the service of Qasim 'Ali Khan, Nawab of Bengal; he afterwards repaired to See also:

Hyderabad in the Deccan, and thence to Lucknow, where he was the pupil of Mir Hasan, Mir Soz and Mir Haidar 'Ali Hairan. He joined the Fort William College in i800, and died in 1809. He is the author of a much esteemed diwan; but his chief reputation is founded on two prose works of great excellence, the Araish-i Mahfil (1805), an account of India adapted from the introduction of the Persian Khulasatu-ttawarikh of Sujan See also:Rae, and the Bagh-i Urdu (,8o8), a translation of Sa'di's Gulistan. Nihal Chand translated into Urdu a masnavi, entitled the Gul-i Bakawali, 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. Jawan, like most of his collaborators, was originally of Delhi and afterwards of Lucknow; he joined the College in 1800. He is the author of a version in Urdu of the well-known story of Sakuntala, under the name of Sakuntala Natak; the Urdu was rendered from a previousBraj-bhasha version by Nawaz Kabishwar made in 1716, and was printed in 1802. He-also composed a Barah-masts, 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 Dastur-i Hind (" Usages of India "), printed in 1812. Ikram 'Ali translated, under the name of the Ikhwanu-s-safa, or " See also:Brothers of Purity " (181o), a chapter of a famous Arabian collection of See also:treatises on See also:science and philosophy entitled Rasailu Ikhwani-s-safa, and composed in the loth century. The complete collection, due to different writers who dwelt at See also:Basra, has recently been made known to European readers by the translation of Dr F. Dieterici (1858-1879); the chapter selected by Ikram 'Ali is the third, which records an allegorical strife for the mastery between men and animals before the king of the See also:Jinn. The translation is written in excellent Urdu, and is one of the best of the Fort William productions. Sri Lallu Lal 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 Lallu Lal almost alone for Hindi. He may indeed without exaggeration be said to have created " High Hindi " as a literary language. His' Prem Sagar and Rajniti, the former a version in pure Hindi of thLm loth chapter of the Bhagavata Purana, detailing the history of Krishna, and founded on a previous Braj-bhasha version by Chaturbhuj Misr, and the latter an adaptation in Braj-bhasha prose of the Hitopadega and part of the Pancha-tantra, are unquestionably the most important works in Hindi prose. The Prem Sager was begun in 1804 and ended in 181o; it enjoys immense popularity in northern India, has been frequently reproduced in a lithographed form, and has several times been printed. The Rajniti was composed in 1809; it is much admired for its sententious brevity and the purity of its language. Besides these two works, Lallu Lai was the author of a collection of a hundred anecdotes in Hindi and Urdu entitled Lataif-i Hindi, an anthology of Hindi verse called the Sabha-bilds. well suited for alphabets derived from the Sanskrit, were not equally applicable to the flowing and graceful characters of Persian. See also:

Lithography was introduced about 1837, when the first See also:press was set up at Delhi, and immediately gave a powerful stimulus to the multiplication of literature, both original and editions of older works. In 1832 the vernaculars were substituted for Persian as the official language of the courts and the acts of the legislature, and this at once led to the transfer to the former of a mass of technical and forensic terms which had previously been only to a limited extent in popular use. Thirdly, the spread of See also:education in subjects of Western learning, for which text-books (many of them See also:translations from English) were required, not only greatly enlarged the vocabulary of the common speech, but led by degrees to the use of a simpler and more See also:direct style, and the See also:abandonment wholesale of the florid and artificial ornament which was the See also:legacy of the Persian literature upon which Urdu prose had at first modelled itself. Lastly, the See also:establishment of a vernacular newspaper press, which lithography had rendered possible, placed within the reach of a continually widening public the means of becoming acquainted with new ideas in every See also:department of culture, and practised the writers who contributed to it in the art of wielding their See also:mother-tongue with effect in its application to European themes. All these revolutionary agencies were at work, though in a tentative and limited fashion, when the great change, following on the See also:Mutiny of 1887, of the transfer of the government of India from the See also:Company to the See also:Crown inaugurated a new era.

Since 186o their operation has become extremely rapid and far-reaching. The use of lithography both for Urdfl and Hindi annually gives birth to hundreds of works. The extension of education through both public and private agency has created an immense mass of school-books, and the spread of instruction in English and the activity of translators have filled the vernaculars with a multitude of new words drawn from that language. The newspaper press, in Urdu and Hindi, now See also:

counts over two hundred See also:journals, the majority issued in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh and in the Punjab, but a few at Madras, Hyderabad, See also:Bangalore, Bombay and Calcutta. Of this great body of literary production it is possible to speak only in general terms. Style and vocabulary are still in a somewhat fluid and unsettled See also:condition, and the subjects treated are almost as various as they are in European literatures. Much, indeed, of the work produced has scarcely any claim to literary excellence, and in the See also:crowd of writers we may content ourselves with mentioning only a few whose influence and authority make it probable that they will hereafter be known as leaders in the new culture. One of the first effects of the new literary See also:inspiration seemed to be the extinction of poetical composition as previously practised. With the deaths of Zauq (1834) and Ghalib (1869) of the Delhi school, and those of Anis (1875) and Dabir (1876) of Lucknow, the end of Urdu poetry appeared to have come. The new age was intensely See also:practical and eager to engage in the See also:race for material and See also:political See also:advancement, and had no time for sentiment, or See also:taste for mystical conceits. Moreover, poetical composition in India, as in other Eastern countries, has always owed much to the patronage of courts and princes. The thrones of Delhi and Lucknow had passed away, and the new rulers showed little interest in this form of achievement.

Only at Hyderabad in the Deccan, under the patron-age of the See also:

Nizam, were laureates still honoured; the last of these, Mirth Khan D-agh (1831–1905), enjoyed a wide reputation as a graceful and eloquent master of the poetic art. But prose and material prosperity did not succeed in monopolizing the See also:genius of the people. The great See also:movement of reform and liberalism in See also:Islam led by See also:Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817–1898) found its bard in Sayyid Alt;af Husain of See also:Panipat, poetically styled Hali—an ambiguous nom-de-plume now generally taken in the sense of " modern," or " up-to-date." Hali in his youth was a pupil of the famous Ghalib, whose life he has written and of whose writings he has published an able See also:criticism. At the age of See also:forty he came under the influence of Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, and from that time devoted his great poetic gifts to the service of his co-religionists. He has published much verse, of which an interesting specimen will be found in the edition of his Ruba'is or quatrains (ioi in number), with an English translation, by Mr G. E. See also:Ward (See also:Oxford, 1904) ; in this is included a famous poem addressed to his muse, setting forth his ideals in poetry—simplicity, avoidance of exaggeration and unreality, direct and emotional See also:appeal to the See also:heart, and above all sincerity. There can be no doubt that he has succeeded in becoming the See also:leader of a new poetic school, which shows much vigour and promise. Perhaps the most memorable of all Hali's compositions is his long rem in six-line stanzas (called musaddas) on " the flow and ebb of Islam " (1879), which has had an extraordinary influence in stimu- lating See also:enthusiasm in the cause of progress among the Musalmans of the north of India. In it he draws, in See also:simple and direct but searching and eloquent language, a rapid See also:sketch of the glories of Islam in the past, its principles and precepts, and the sources of its strength; and then turns to contrast with this picture the degradation and decay into which it had, when he wrote, fallen in Hindustan. Never have the vices and shortcomings of a people i To be carefully distinguished from the reformer of the same been lashed by one of themselves with more vigorous denunciation, or with more earnestness of moral purpose. In his See also:preface he a Sat-sal in the style of Bihari-Lal called Sapta-satika and several other works.

He and Jawan worked together at the Singhasan Battisi (18oi), a redaction in mixed Urdu and Hindi (Devanagari character) of a famous collection of legends relating the prowess of King See also:

Vikramaditya; and he also aided the latter author in the production of the Sakuntald Natak. Maghar 'Ali Wila was his collaborator in the Baital See also:Pachisi, a collection of stories similar in many respects to the Singhasan Battisi, and also in mixed Urdfl-Hindi; and he aided Wila in the preparation in Urdu of the Story of Meidhonal, a romance originally composed in Braj-bhasha by Moti Ram. The works of these authors, though compiled and published under the superintendence of Dr Gilchrist, Captain See also:Abraham Lo. kett, Professor J. W. See also:Taylor, Dr W. See also:Hunter and other European officers of the college of Fort William, and originally intended for the instruction of the Company's officers in the vernacular, are essentially Indian in taste and style, and, until superseded by the more See also:recent developments of literature noticed below, enjoyed a very wide reputation and popularity. They may, indeed, be said to have set the standard of prose composition in Urdu and Hindi, and for the first half of the 19th century their influence in this respect continued almost unchallenged. Side by side with them, among the Musalman population of northern India, another almost contemporaneous impulse did much for the expansion of the Urdu language, and, like the work of the Vaishnava reformers in moulding literary Hindi, gave an impetus to composition which might otherwise have been lacking. This was the reform in Islam led by Sayyid Ahmadi and his followers. In all Eastern countries religion is the first and chief subject of literary production; and the controversies which the new See also:preaching aroused in India at once afforded abundant material for authorship in Urdfl, and interested deeply the people to whom the works were addressed. Sayyid Ahmad was born in 1782, and received his early education at Delhi; his instructors were two learned Muslims, Shah 'Abdu-l-'Aziz, author of a celebrated commentary on the Qur'an (the Tafsir-i 'Aziziyyah), and his brother 'Abdu-1- adir, the writer of the first translation of the holy See also:volume into Urdfl. Under their guidance Sayyid Ahmad embraced the doctrines of the See also:Wahhabis, 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 See also:

Ismail Haji, nephew of 'Abdu-1'Aziz and 'Abdu-l-Qadir, the chief author of the sect. After a course of preaching and apostleship at Delhi, Sayyid Ahmad set out in 182o for Calcutta, attended by numerous adherents. Thence in 1822 he started on a See also:pilgrimage to See also:Mecca, whence he went to See also:Constantinople, and was there received with distinction and gained many disciples. He travelled for nearly six years in See also:Turkey and Arabia, and then returned to Delhi. 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 northern India, reprobating the superstitions which had crept into the faith from contact with Hindus, and preaching a See also:jihad or holy See also:war against the Sikhs. In 1828 he started for See also:Peshawar, attended by, it is said, upwards of 100,000 See also:Indians, and accompanied by his chief followers, Haji Ismail and 'Abdu-l-lIayy. 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 See also: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 Isma'il were slain. His sect is, however, by no means See also:extinct; the Wahhabi doctrines have continued to gain ground in India, and to give rise to much controversial See also:writing, down to our own day. The translation of the Quran by 'Abdu-l-Qadir was finished in 1803, and first published by Sayyid 'Abdullah, a fervent See also:disciple of Sayyid Ahmad, at Hughli in 1829.

The Tambihu-l-ghafzlin, or " Awakener of the Heedless," a work in Persian by Sayyid Ahmad, was rendered into Urdu by 'Abdullah, and published at the same press in 1830. Haji Isma'il was the author of a See also:

treatise in Urdu entitled Taqwiyatu-l-Iman (" Confirmation of the Faith "), which had great See also: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 Targhib-i Jihad (" Incitation to Holy War "), Hidliyatu-l-Muminin (" See also:Guide of the Believers "), Muzihul-Kabair wa-l-Bid'ah (" Exposition of Mortal Sins and See also:Heresy "), Naghatu-l-Muslimin (" Admonition to Muslims "), and the Mi'at Masail, or " Hundred Questions." See also:Printing was first used for vernacular works by the College Press at Fort William, at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, and all the compositions prepared for Dr Gilchrist and his successors which have been mentioned were thus given to the public. But the expense of this method of See also:reproduction long precluded its extensive use in India, and movable types, though name who flourished half a century later. explains how the poem came to be written—after a youth spent in heedlessness and unsettlement, at the instigation of Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, and in the cause of that great reformer. The poem is still recited and imitated by Muslims in the Punjab and United Provinces, though the picture which it presents of Indian Musalmans is no longer wholly applicable to the community. Mali has recently completed a life of Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan in two volumes, entitled Ijayat-i Javid (".eternal life "), a work of great merit. Another writer whose work, though chiefly in prose, deals with poetry and poetic style, is Maulavi Muhammad Husain Azad, lately professor of Arabic at the Government College, Lahore. He has not himself composed much verse; but his, See also:biographies of Urdu poets, with criticisms of their works, entitled his. A biographies Hayat (" Water of Life," Lahore, 1883), is by far the best book dealing with the subject. His prose style is much admired. As See also:Hall was the pupil of Ghalib, so was Azad that of Zauq, of whose poems he has published a revised and annotated edition.

His other works in prose are Qi.Fa.-i Hind, episodes of Indian history arranged for schools; Nairang-i Khayal, an allegory dealing with human life; and Darbar-i Akbari, an account of the reign of Akbar. Sir Sayyid Abmad Khan's life and work are dealt with elsewhere. Among his literary achievements may be mentioned the Asarus-Sanadid (" Vestiges of Princes "), an excellent account of Delhi and its monuments, which has passed through several editions since it was first lithographed in 1847. His essays and occasional papers, published in the See also:

Aligarh See also:Institute See also:Gazette (started in 1864), and afterwards (from 187o onwards) in a periodical entitled Tahzibul-Akhlaq (or " Muhammadan Social Reformer "), handle all the problems of religious, social and educational advancement among Indian Musalmans—the cause with which his life was identified. His great Commentary on the Qur'an, in seven volumes, the last finished only a few days before his death in 1898, is carried to the end of Sarah xx., a little more than half the book. In him Urdu prose found its most powerful wielder for the See also:diffusion of modern Ideas, and the movement which he set on foot has been the See also:spring of the best literature in the language during recent years. Another excellent writer of Urdu is Shamsul-'Ulama Maulavi Nair Abmad of Delhi, who is the author of a series of novels de-scribing domestic life, of a somewhat didactic character, which have had a wide popularity, and from their admirable moral See also:tone have been specially serviceable in the education of Indian women. These are entitled the Mir'atul-'Arus (or " Brides' See also:Mirror ") ; Taubatun-Nasujz (" the Repentance of Nasuh "), Banatun-Na'sh (" the Seven Stars of the Great See also:Bear "), Ibnul-Waqt (" Son of the Age "), and Ayamd (" Widows "). But Nagir Ahmad is a man of many sides; before he took to novel-writing he was the principal translator into Urdu of the Indian Penal See also:Code (1861), which is reckoned a masterpiece in the exact rendering of European legal ideas; and more lately he gave to the world the hest Urdu version of the Quran. He has been a popular lecturer on social subjects, displaying a rich vein of See also:humour, and in his old age even ventured upon verse. During the latter portion of his life he was most closely associated with Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan. The novel is one of the most noteworthy features of recent literary composition in Urdu.

India has from time immemorial been rich in stories and romances of See also:

adventure; but the description of actual life and character in See also:action, as the modern novel is under-stood in Europe, is quite a new development. The most admired production of this kind in Urdu is a work entitled Fisana-e Azad, by Pandit Ratan-nath Sarshar of Lucknow. The story, which is very long, is remarkable for the faithful and vivid pictures of Lucknow society which it presents, and its exact and lifelike delineation of character; it appeared originally as a See also:feuilleton of the Awadh A khbar, of which See also:paper the author was at the time editor. Another good writer in the same branch of literature is Maulavi 'Abdul-Halim Sharar, also a native of the neighbourhood of Lucknow, but settled at Hyderabad. He was editor of a monthly periodical called the Dil-gudaz (" melter of hearts "), which contained essays and papers in European style, and in it his novels, which are all of an historical character, in the style of Sir See also:Walter See also:Scott, originally appeared. The best are 'Aziz and Virgina, a tale of the See also:Crusades, and Mansur and MOhina, a story of which the See also:scene is laid in India at the time of the invasions of Sultan Mahmud of See also:Ghazni. Although Urdu chiefly represents Musalman culture, its use is by no means confined to adherents of that faith. It has just been mentioned that the most popular Urdu novelist is a Hindu (a Brahman from See also:Kashmir) ; and the See also:statistics of the vernacular press show that this form of the language is widely used by Hindus as well as Musalmans. Thus, of eighty See also:periodicals in Urdu published in the United Provinces, twenty-nine are conducted by Hindus; similarly, in the Punjab, of forty-eight Urdu journals, twenty are edited by Hindus. " High Hindi " has scarcely adapted itself to modern requirements with the thoroughness displayed by Urdu. It is taught in the schools where the population is mainly Hindu, and books of science have been written in it with a terminology borrowed from Sanskrit, in place of the Persian terms used in the other dialect. But Sanskrit is far removed from the daily life of the people, and the majority of works in this style are read only by Pandits, the great bulk of them dealingwith religion, philosophy and the ancient literature.

There are thirty-seven Hindi and four Hindi-Urdu journals in the United Provinces; but many of them are exclusively religious in their character, and several, though written in Devanagari, employ a mixed language which admits Persian words freely. The old dialects of literature, Awadhi and Braj-bhasha, are now only used for poetry; High Hindi has been a complete failure for this' purpose. The most noticeable authors in Hindi since the middle of the 19th century have been Baba Harishchandra and Raja Siva Prasad, both of Benares. The former, during his short life (1850–1885), was an enthusiastic See also:

cultivator of the old poetic art, using the dialects just mentioned. He published in the Sundari Tilak an anthology of the best Hindi poetry, and in the Kabi-bachan-Sudha (" See also:ambrosia of the words of poets ") and the See also:magazine called Harishchandrika a quantity of old texts, with much added matter. He also wrote a volume of biographies of famous men, European and Indian, and many critical studies, historical and literary. In history especially he cleared up many problems, and traced the lines for further investigation. In his Kashmir Kusum, or history of Kashmir, a list is given of about a hundred works by him. He was also the real founder of the modern Hindi See also:drama; he wrote plays himself, and inspired others. Raja Siva Prasad (1823–1895) served for many years in the educational department, and published a number of works intended for use in schools, which have greatly contributed to the formation of a sound vernacular form of Hindi, not excessively Sanskritized, and not rejecting current Persian forms. The society at Benares called the Nagari Pracharini Sabha (" Society for promoting the use of the Nagari character ") has, since the death of Harishchandra, been active in procuring the publication of works in Hindi, and has issued many useful books, besides conducting a systematic See also:search for old MSS. For Urdu poets, Professor Azad's Ab-i Ifayat (in Urdu) is the most trustworthy record.

For the new school of Urdu literature reference may be made to a series of lectures (in English) by Shaikh 'Abdul-Qadir of Lahore, printed in 1898. The catalogues by Professor Blumhardt of Hindustani and Hindi books in the See also:

libraries of the See also:British Museum and the India Office will give a good See also:idea of the volume of the recent productions of the press in those languages. (C. J.

End of Article: HINDOSTANT LITERATURE

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