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trānukramaņikā, no. 67, continues to the present day the work of Sankara who went from his native Mithila to describe the Tirthas of Kurukşetra in his Kuru-kṣetraratnākara (Mm. Haraprasad Shastri, op. cit., p. xlviii). Nos. 166, 167 A-G., 168-70 etc., give some of the other important Tirthas in the present collection.

18. MISCELLANEOUS.

Under this category may be mentioned Mss. mostly modern, published often anonymously, dealing with present-day irregularities (cf. no. 4), minor local deities (cf. nos. 314, 450) etc., and refutation of heresies (cf. nos. 254-6).

CHARACTER OF THE MSS.

From the above rough description of the Mss. in the present volume, it may be claimed that Mithila though creditably represented in every branch of the Smrti literature, is specially remarkable for her Nibandhas or Digests. Another striking feature is the uninterrupted continuity of the growth and development of Smrti in Mithila. It had its evil effect in one direction. While during the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, the whole of Northern India was convulsed by religious and social upheavals, e. g. with Nanak in the Punjab, and Chaitanya in Bengal, Mithila remained unaffected, deeply engrossed in the details of the Karmakāṇḍa. In the 19th and the 20th centuries, it has, to a certain extent, hampered the growth of that critical and liberal education which obtains elsewhere in India as a result of a knowledge of the West. But it has been compensated for by conferring on Mithila her unique position as the only surviving centre in the whole of Northern India where the whole of Smrti may be studied in all its successive stages from the earliest times to the present day.

The Society and the Editors are thankful to the Hon'ble Sir Rameshwr Singh, G. C. I. E., Mahārājādhirāja of Darbhanga, for kindly meeting the cost of publication.

The Editors commend the services of Pandit Vishnu Lal Sastri, the Search Pandit of the Bihar & Orissa Research Society.

The entire cost of making the Search is borne by Government (Local), and they are still continuing the grants with

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which the search is being carried on both in Tirhut and Orissa. The work from the beginning was placed under the Society which executes it as an honorary agent. The learned world in general and the Province in particular must feel grateful to the local Government for their interest in and expenditure for this, a cause of culture of the land they have in their charge. This is one of those good deeds which will be never lost.

PATNA, October, 1927.

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K. P. J.

A. B-S.

month of Bhado. Here and there in some places offerings are made to such Hindu deities as Bhairo, Mahabir and Khetrapal. But in most places, obviously under Muhammadan influence, these deities have ceased to receive homage. The Chuhṛas bury their dead, though now-a-days cremation is occasionally practised. In a Chuhṛā village, about six miles from the railway station of Kot Radha Kishen in the Lahore district, I came across the use of the bull-roarer as a children's toy. It is known in these parts as the ghunkas. In an article in the last March number of the Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society I have given an account of this and other bull-roarers that I have seen in India.

KIRTTILAT A BY VIDYAPATI.-Edited by Mahāmahopadhyāya Hara Prasad Sastri, published in the "Hrishikesa Series by Nalin Chandra Pal, B.A., at the Oriental Press, Calcutta, 1331 Bengali year.

This little book has great merits and has fittingly found Mahamahopadhyaya Dr. Hara Prasad Sastri as its editor. This is a poem of the famous Vidyapati. It has been edited from a manuscript of the Nepal State Library, copied under King Śrī Śrī Jaya Jagajjyotir Malla in the Nepal Samvat 747 (page 40 and facsimile). The manuscript being fairly old (1627 A.c.), and on the internal evidence of the language itself, we have here a reliable text. Probably this is the best vernacular text of Vidyapati we have in point of original form.

It is a short poem of about 800 lines mainly in Hindi metres doha, chaupai and chhanda, some obsolete metres (e.g., Boli), rhymed Hindi prose, and a few Sanskrit verses. The poem is divided in four pallavas. The language supplies a link between the so-called Apabhramsa language brought to light by Mr. Hira Lal mentioned in the former review published here and Jāyasî. Jayasî wrote (1540) about hundred years later than Vidyapati. Vidyapati describes here contemporary events dated by a certain landmark, the second actor in the poem, Ibrahim Shah of Jaunpur (1401-1440).

जन

Vidyapati has done his poem in desila vaana (which in the time of Jayasî would have been written as bayanā). Vidyāpati says that desila va or vernacular is sweet to everyone. èfan awaı 8a na fazi, Kîrtti, page 3). His vernacular, however, tends to be archaic, evidently under the influence of old literary language of vernacular poetry or even Apabhramsa which he especially mentions as avahatṭha, (page 3). He has occasional forms like Vijjāva fata - Didyapati (page 2). He discloses an advanced language in existence at the same

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