the indigenous speech is more strictly adhered to than in Urdū, which under the influence of Persian constructions has admitted many inversions.
As in many other countries, nearly all the early vernacular literature of Hindōstān is in verse, and works in prose are a modern growth.[1] Both Hindī and Urdū are, in their application to literary purposes, at first intruders upon the ground already occupied by the learned languages Sanskrit and Persian, the former representing Hindū and the latter Musalmān culture. But there is this difference between them, that, whereas Hindī has been raised to the dignity of a literary speech chiefly by impulses of revolt against the monopoly of the Brahmans, Urdū has been cultivated with goodwill by authors who have themselves highly valued and dexterously used the polished Persian. Both Sanskrit and Persian continue to be employed occasionally for composition by Indian writers, though much fallen from their former estate; but for popular purposes it may be said that their vernacular rivals are now almost in sole possession of the field.
The subject may be conveniently divided as follows:—
1. Early Hindī, of the period during which the language was being fashioned as a literary medium out of the ancient Prākrits, represented by the old heroic poems of Rajpūtānā and the literature of the early Bhagats or Vaishnava reformers, and extending from about A.D. 1100 to 1550;
2. Middle Hindī, representing the best age of Hindī poetry, and reaching from about 1550 to the end of the 18th century;
3. The rise and development of literary Urdū, beginning about the end of the 16th century, and reaching its height during the 18th;
4. The modern period, marked by the growth of a prose literature in both dialects, and dating from the beginning of the 19th century.
1. Early Hindī.—Our knowledge of the ancient metrical chronicles of Rajpūtānā is still very imperfect, and is chiefly derived from the monumental work of Colonel James Tod, called The Annals and Antiquities of Rājāsthān (published in 1829–1832), which is founded on them. It is in the nature of compositions of this character to be subjected to perpetual revision and recasting; they are the production of the family bards of the dynasties whose fortunes they record, and from generation to generation they are added to, and their language constantly modified to make it intelligible to the people of the time. Round an original nucleus of historical fact a rich growth of legend accumulates; later redactors endeavour to systematize and to assign dates, but the result is not often such as to inspire confidence; and the mass has more the character of ballad literature than of serious history. The materials used by Tod are nearly all still unprinted; his manuscripts are now deposited in the library of the Royal Asiatic Society in London; and one of the tasks which, on linguistic and historical grounds, should first be undertaken by the investigator of early Hindī literature is the examination and sifting, and the publication in their original form, of these important texts.
Omitting a few fragments of more ancient bards given by compilers of accounts of Hindī literature, the earliest author of whom any portion has as yet been published in the original text is Chand Bardāī, the court bard of Prithwī-Rāj, the last Hindū sovereign of Delhi. His poem, entitled Prithī-Rāj Rāsau (or Rāysā), is a vast chronicle in 69 books or cantos, comprising a general history of the period when he wrote. Of this a small portion has been printed, partly under the editorship of the late Mr John Beames and partly under that of Dr Rudolf Hoernle, by the Asiatic Society of Bengal; but the excessively difficult nature of the task prevented both scholars from making much progress.[2] Chand, who came of a family of bards, was a native of Lahore, which had for nearly 170 years (since 1023) been under Muslim rule when he flourished, and the language of the poem exhibits a considerable leaven of Persian words. In its present form the work is a redaction made by Amar Singh of Mēwār, about the beginning of the 17th century, and therefore more than 400 years after Chand’s death, with his patron Prithwī-Rāj, in 1193. There is, therefore, considerable reason to doubt whether we have in it much of Chand’s composition in its original shape; and the nature of the incidents described enhances this doubt. The detailed dates contained in the Chronicle have been shown by Kabirāj Syāmal Dās[3] to be in every case about ninety years astray. It tells of repeated conflicts between the hero Prithwī-Rāj and Sultān Shihābuddin, of Ghōr (Muhammad Ghori), in which the latter always, except in the last great battle, comes off the worst, is taken prisoner and is released on payment of a ransom; these seem to be entirely unhistorical, our contemporary Persian authorities knowing of only one encounter (that of Tiraurī (Tirawari) near Thēnēsar, fought in 1191) in which the Sultān was defeated, and even then he escaped uncaptured to Lahore. The Mongols (Book XV.) are brought on the stage more than thirty years before they actually set foot in India, and are related to have been vanquished by the redoubtable Prithwī-Rāj. It is evident that such a record cannot possibly be, in its entirety, a contemporary chronicle; but nevertheless it appears to contain a considerable element which, from its language, may belong to Chand’s own age, and represents the earliest surviving document in Hindī. “Though we may not possess the actual text of Chand, we have certainly in his writings some of the oldest known specimens of Gaudian literature, abounding in pure Apabhramśa Śaurasēnī Prākrit forms” (Grierson).
It is very difficult now to form a just estimate of the poem as literature. The language, essentially transitional in character, consists largely of words which have long since died out of the vernacular speech. Even the most learned Hindus of the present day are unable to interpret it with confidence; and the meaning of the verses must be sought by investigating the processes by which Sanskrit and Prākrit forms have been transfigured in their progress into Hindī. Chand appears, on the whole, to exhibit the merits and defects of ballad chroniclers in general. There is much that is lively and spirited in his descriptions of fight or council; and the characters of the Rājpūt warriors who surround his hero are often sketched in their utterances with skill and animation. The sound, however, frequently predominates over the sense; the narrative is carried on with the wearisome iteration and tedious unfolding of familiar themes and images which characterize all such poetry in India; and his value, for us at least, is linguistic rather than literary.
Chand may be taken as the representative of a long line of successors, continued even to the present day in the Rājpūt states. Many of their compositions are still widely popular as ballad literature, but are known only in oral versions sung in Hindōstān by professional singers. One of the most famous of these is the Alhā-khaṇḍ, reputed to be the work of a contemporary of Chand called Jagnik or Jagnāyak, of Mahōbā in Bundēlkhaṇḍ, who sang the praises of Rājā-Parmāl, a ruler whose wars with Prithwī-Rāj are recorded in the Mahōbā-Khaṇḍ of Chand’s work. Ālhā and Ūdal, the heroes of the poem, are famous warriors in popular legend, and the stories connected with them exist in an eastern recension, current in Bihār, as well as in the Bundēlkhaṇḍī or western form which is best known. Two versions of the latter have been printed, having been taken down as recited by illiterate professional rhapsodists. Another celebrated bard was Sārangdhar of Rantambhōr, who flourished in 1363, and sang the praises of Hammīr Dēo (Hamir Deo), the Chauhān chief of Rantambhōr who fell in a heroic struggle against Sultān ‘Alā‘uddīn Khiljī in 1300. He wrote the Hammīr Kāvya and Hammīr Rāsau, of which an account is given by Tod;[4] he was also a poet in Sanskrit, in which language he compiled, in 1363, the anthology called Sārngadhara-Paddhati. Another work which may be mentioned (though much more modern) is the long chronicle entitled Chhattra-Prakās, or the history of Rājā Chhatarsāl, the Bundēlā rājā of Pannā, who was killed, fighting on behalf of Prince Dārā-Shukōh, in the battle of Dhōlpur won by Aurangzēb in 1658. The author, Lāl Kabi, has given in this work a history of the valiant Bundēlā nation which was rendered into English by Captain W. R. Pogson in 1828, and printed at Calcutta.
Before passing on to the more important branch of early
- ↑ The only known exceptions are a work in Hindī called the Chaurāsī Vārtā (mentioned below) and a few commentaries on poems; the latter can scarcely be called literature.
- ↑ A fresh critical edition of the text by Paṇḍit Mōhan Lāl Vishnu Lāl Paṇḍia at Benares, under the auspices of the Nāgarī Prachārinī Sabhā, had reached canto xxiv. in 1907.
- ↑ See J.A.S.B. (1886), pp. 6 sqq.
- ↑ Annals and Antiquities, ii. 452 n. and 472 n.
