time, e.g. matangā hajāro, “ thousands of elephants" (page 15), jani pañcha-sara karo pahila pratapa," as if Cupid made his first attempt," p. 14, abhyantara-kari vārtā ko jān (prose), "having known the inside things".

The theme of the poem is an historical event-the regaining of the sub-kingdom of Tirhut or Mithila by Kirttisimha of the Oin-var or Kamesvara dynasty after the murder of Ganeswara, his father, by a malik. This he achieved through the help of the Sharkî King of Jaunpur who held Bihar at the time. Ibrahim Shah, the greatest king of the Sharki dynasty, was ruling and he came down in person with his army to Tirhut. The usurper Muhammadan chief who had killed Ganesvara treacherously was killed in battle by Kirttisimha himself.

The event of the murder of Gaṇeśa or Ganesvara is dated by Vidyapati, in the beginning of chapter II, in the Lakshmana Sena era, 252, Chitra 5 Badi. According to Vidyapati (Kî. I), Ganesvara's father Bhogisvara was a contemporary of Firoj Shah (Tughlak, 1351-1888). This is quite in keeping with the datum that Vidyapati's patron Kirttisimha was a contemporary of Ibrahim Shah. Having the fixed date of Ibrahim (1401-40) before us, L.S. 252 mast fall within that time. We can see whether the accepted date for the beginning of the Lakshmana Sena era (1119 A.C.) is correct. Now L.S. 252 falling within 1401-40, L.S. era's initial year should be some year between 1149 and 1188. But 1149-1188 is much too wide off that mark (1119). This, if the text is correct, discredits the accepted date for the initial year of L.S. era (1119 A.0.).

There is a piece of information in the Kirttiläta (Ch. III) which in comparison with the events related in the history of Jaunpur by Muhammadan historians may help in ascertaining the date of Ibrahim Shah's march to Tirhut. In Chapter II Vidyapati says that the Sultan (Ibrahim Shah) at once ordered a march on hearing the petition of the princes. But the army moved towards the west, insteal of the east, and crossed territorics practically unopposed and then after sometime when the

Tirhut princes began to think that the Sultan had forgotten them, things suddenly changed and Ibrahim marched to Tirhut. This seems to answer Ibrahim Shah's advance on Kalpi and then his sudden retirement, in 1435, without coming to any engagement (Ferishta, Briggs IV, 866). About Vidyapati's date the only thing which is certain is that he wrote about 1450 A.C., a conclusion deducible from the contemporaneity of his patron Kirttisimha with Ibrahim Shah.

Vidyapati's descriptions are vivid and realistic, without any admixture of the marvellous. It is more a piece of history than a kavya. By his description he transports his reader to the Sharki capital in its best days. He depicts his time truthfully, "where Hindus and Turuks live together; one reviling the religion of the other ". There are money-changers, markets for the sale of Hindu slaves, bows and arrows, female slaves, etc., etc. They are purchasing many and many slaves, and when Turuks (Muhammadans) meet Turuks, there are many salāms.' "They are saying abé-bé, drinking wine, uttering Kalimā and living in conversations.” "The Darvesh pronounces his benedictions, if he does not get anything he levels abuses on the devoted heads of the people." "The Khundkar protects his own interest and harms others." Forced labour is described: "when a powerful Muhammadan is undertaking a journey he compels men to serve without payment"; "they fetch a Brahmin boy and place beef on his head; they lick out the caste-mark on his forehead and tear asunder his holy thread and ask him to mount a horse. His praise of Ibrahim Shah is borne out by Muhammadan historians.

The learned editor has taken pains in editing the text and in giving a translation which was a difficult task looking at the archaic nature of the vernacular of Vidyapati. From the linguistic point of view it is as great a work as the editor's Bauddha gana, dohā and dohākosha. Scholars in general and Hindi-speaking men in particular will feel thankful to the Mahamahopadhyaya for this little present of his ever-increasing power of gift, so prominently evidenced in the progress of his monumental catalogues of the Asiatic Society MSS.

K. P. J.

P.S-DATE IN THE KIRTTI-LATA.-The date as found in the Kîrtti-latâ for the murder of King Ganesvara by the malik chief "Aslan" turns out to be correct. But the interpretation of M.M. Dr. Haraprasad Sastri requires modification. The passage in the text is

"when 252 was written of

the era of Lakṣmaṇa Sena."

He takes pakhkha-pañcha-ve=252, and jave='when'.

There are two padas: jare and pakhkha-pakcha-ve: coming after 'lihia' ('written'). I take the whole clause after 'written' to denote the date: (1) Ja-ve + (2) pakhkha-pañch-ve. They give two figures in the same case. Figure (2) represents, as the Mahamahopadhyaya has interpretated, 252. Similarly, (1) Ja (ja-gana 5)-ve (2) represents another figure, namely, 52. Thus the date in LS. is

52 252

304

which on Kielhorn's date for the initial year of the LS. era would yield

1119
304

1423 A.D.

14

This date does fall within the reign-period of Ibrahim Shah (1401-1440 A.D.)

The above interpretation is further supported by the date of the Maha-Bharata manuscript of the reign of HridayaNārāyaṇa (J.B.O.R.S. X. 47-48), LS. 327. Hridaya-Nārāyaṇa was a later contemporary of Vidyapati who wrote his last

Res. J.

book under him (ibid.). LS. 304 for a predecessor of HridayaNārāyaṇa who was a contemporary of Vidyapati seems reasonable.

Ibrahim's march to Tirhut, thus, was in a year subsequent to 1423, probably before 1435.

K. P. J.

CATALOGUE OF SANSKRIT AND PRAKRIT MANUSCRIPTS IN THE CENTRAL PROVINCES AND BERAR.-By Rai Bahadur Hira Lal, B.A. Published by the Government of the Central Provinces and Berar, printed at the Government Press, Nagpur, 1926, pages 808+ Introduction 45, price Rs. 3.

W e are thankful to the Central Provinces Government for having supplied to the world of letters information about 8,185 manscripts in their territory which had been believed to possess none such treasure. That indefatigable scholar of the Central Provinces, Rai Bahadur Hira Lal, has by this volume rendered a service to the manuscript literature of India quite in keeping with the tradition he has established for himself in the field of epigraphy, history, geography and ethnology of his Province. The Jain portion of the catalogue with his valuable Introduction is of great importance, especially on the question of linguistic history. With his usual accuracy the learned Rai Bahadur has ascertained the date of the beginnings of dohā, soraṭhā and chaupāí metres, so well known to us from Tulasi Das' Rama-charita Mânasa and Jayasî's Padmavata. He traces doha to DEVASENA (933 A.C.) who employed it in his Naya-Chakra but owing to adverse criticism of a contemporary critic the work had to be recast in classical (Prakrit) gāthās. But in his evidently later work Savakachāra Devasena stuck to the metre. These 250 verses (dohās) are not only the earliest examples of doha but we may take them as the earliest prototype of archaic Hindi poetry. Mr. Hira Lal groups its language under Apabharmsa of Jain Prakrit. To me it seems that with the employment of metres which had come in vogue in the spoken language. · called "Desa-bhashā" (Nārada, S.B.E., Vol. 33, p. 265) as contradistinguished from "Prākṛita "-the language of the people came into use as opposed to the dead and artificial "Prākṛita."