XXXVi Annual Address. [February, 1915, 
Government of India. I am not now concerned with the ques- 
tion of the value of the preliminary report submitted by the 
Sastri. It seems to me that the question which really inter- 
ests scholars as well as the educated public is the value and 
significance of the great work about to be undertaken, and on 
this aspect of the matter I shall, with your permission, make a 
brief reference in the course of this address. 
The Bardic and Historical Survey of Rajputana is a work 
which has a two-fold importance, historical and literary ; it 
has also a political importance, which cannot be altogether 
ignored, though it may not weigh with the theoretical investi- 
gator. The double importance of the survey is shown by its 
object, which is to rescue from oblivion and save from prob- 
able destruction. an entire literature of an almost exclusively 
historical cltaracter, and, at the same time, in the particular 
case of Bardic poems, of the highest literary value. As the 
whole of this literature exists only in manuscript and is 
scattered all over Rajputana, it has always been impossible to 
period covered by this literature extends from about the four- 
teenth century A.D. to the present day, five or six centuries 
in all; but, in scattered couplets first preserved in the oral 
tradition and only in comparatively recent times committed to 
writing, we have records which date back to a still greater 
antiquity. 
The most characteristic feature of this literature is that it 
is the literature of a particular caste, the Rajputs. It 
seems to have arisen under the aegis of the Rajput political 
power, not long before the first Muhammadan invasions, ani 
confined to a description of the life and history of the Rajputs, 
does not diminish its importance nor impair its universal char- 
acter, as during the times in question, the Rajputs were the 
principal ruling race and the only makers of history. 
This vast literature falls naturally into two sections: 
Bardic poems and prose chronicles. The former, which are 
older in origin and more extensive, are the products of the 
