﻿220 ON THE SANSCRIT 



treatises of rhetorick have been written to illustrate 

 its beauties. The Prdcrita manorama and Pracrita 

 Pingala are instances of the one, and the Saraswatl 

 Caiit'abharan'a of Bho'jadeva may be named as an 

 examj)le of tlie other, although both Sanscrit, and 

 Pvacrit idioms furnish the examples with which that 

 author elucidates his precepts. For the character of 

 the Prdcrit language I must refer the reader to Sir 

 William Jones's remarks in his preface to the 

 traiislation of the Fatal Ring. 



The Ciunfaciibjas possessed a great empire, the 

 metropolis of which was the ancient city of Cdnya- 

 cuhja or Cauo). Theirs seems to be the language 

 v.'hich forms the ground- work of modern H'indastdn\y 

 and which is known by the appellation or II in dl or 

 Ilindevi. Two dialects of it may be easily distin- 

 guished, one more refined, the otlicr less so. To 

 this last the nan-;e cA' Hindi is sometimes restricted, 

 while the other is oFven confounded with Pi-dcri(. 

 Numero!is poems have been composed in both dia- 

 lects, not only before tfie Hindustdni M'as ingrafted 

 on tlie Hindi hy a large intermiKtuie of Persian, but 

 also in very modeni tiiuis, by Ahtkarnmeddn as well 

 as Hindu poets. Dokrd.s or detached cimpiets, and 

 Cabits or stanzas, in the Ilindevi, may be found 

 among the works of jHu-sleutdn authors ; it will be 

 suihcient to instance those of Melic Muhammed 

 Jaisi', Mu!1A5Imkd Ai'Zkl, and Ami'rkha'n An- 

 ja'm. I\lost poems in this dialect are, however, the 

 exclusive production of Hindu poets *'. .On examin- 

 ing 



* Among the most admired specimens of H'nidi poetry, the seven 

 hundred couplets of Biha'ri'la'l, and the amatory verses of Su'n- 

 DER and of Matira'm, are conspicuous. But their dialect is not 

 pure Hiude'vi ; since they sometimes borrow from the Persian language. 

 Su'nder wrote his poems in the reign of Sha'hjeha'n, and seems to 

 have been patronized by that prince, whom he praises in his preface. 

 Biha'ri'la'l flourished at tlie court oi Ambhery towards the begin- 

 ning of the sixteenth century of the Christian era. His poems were 

 arranged in their present order For the use of the unfortunate prince 



