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must belong cannot be.ascertained, but it is -clear-from intrinsic evidence ‘that they belong to the 18th and 19th centuries. This is of course very rough outline. .. I- exclude the whole: of unpublished poetry as also the present generation of writers of poetry from this paper. I treat only of those whose names and poems have sufficiently outlived their local andcontemporary fameand whose writings: are now looked: upon as classical. The comparative figures are above given to show that. poetry here knows of no sex or caste. There is no part of India where caste-distinctions are so sharp and subtle asin Gujarat. And yet even here the distinctions. vanish when we move in the regions of poetry and religion. In these two matters the people are prepared to honour and love all castes and to receive their gifts: from all hands promiscuously. If a lady in Gujarat sings with the divine powers of a poet, the proudest man has only to forget that she is one of the sex over whom he is accustomed to rule and he has simply to think that she is his mother. If it is a Banya or Kunbi who subdues the heart of the proud Brahman with his poetry, the Brahman has only to think that caste- distinctions are confined to matters of food and drink, and that the human soul is never contaminated by the body being that of an inferior caste.
Knowledge and religion and poetry were exclusive and endogenous in India in early days when neither the
