Vol. X, No. 10.] Bardic and Histl. Survey of Rajputana. 375 

 [N.S.] 



and means to be adopted. These conclusions have not only 

 a certain interest for themselves, but actually form the basis 

 of the present Scheme and contain the reasons for all techni- 

 cal points and items in it. I therefore think it necessary 

 briefly to explain them, before entering into the discussion 

 of the plan of the work. 



It is well known that there are two languages used by the 

 bards of Rajputana in their poetical compositions, and they 

 are called pingala and Pingala. These are no mere ■ ' style of 

 poetry" as held by Mahamahopadhyaya Hara PrasadaSastrl, 

 but two distinct languages, the former being the local bhasa 

 of Rajputana, and the latter the Braja bhasa, more or less 

 vitiated under the influence of the former. Sir George 

 Grierson in his Linguistic Survey of India, Vol. IX, Part II 

 (1908), p. 19, has given the following clear definition: 

 " Marwarl has an old literature about which hardly anything 

 is known. The writers sometimes composed in Marwarl 

 and sometimes in Braj Bhakha. In the former case the 

 language was called Dinged and in the latter Pingal", a 

 definition which would have given the Sastrl a good clue if 

 he had not overlooked it. Leaving aside Pingala, on which 

 it would be superfluous here to make any remarks in 

 addition to the statement made above, I will confine myself 

 to a few considerations in regard to pingala, which I think 

 necessary in order to eliminate the prejudice current in Raj- 

 putana that Dingala is an artificial language invented by 

 the bards , and to show its real nature and relationship to the 

 other languages of India, 



In my " Notes on the Grammar of the Old Western Raja- 

 sthani with special reference to Apabhramsa and to modern 

 Gujaratl and Marwarl ' ' , which are being published in the 

 Indian Antiquary, I have tried to prove the common deriva- 

 tion of the vernaculars of Rajputana and Gujarat from a unique 

 stock, which I have termed "Old Western Rajasthani ", and 

 have explained as the immediate offspring of the Saurasena 

 Apabhramsa. This language had been explained as simply 

 Old Gujaratl, but from the fact that it contains many 

 peculiarities which nowadays are not found in modern Guja- 

 ratl, whilst they are common in modern Marwarl, and also 

 that it seems to have been in use over an area including a 

 great part, if not most, of Rajputana, it is clear that it is to be 

 considered as the parent of Marwarl not less than Gujaratl. 

 I have fixed a.d. 1200 and a.d. 1600 as the approximate 

 limits of the Old Western Rajasthani, and shown that the 

 differentiation of this single language into Gujaratl and Mar- 

 warl began long before the sixteenth century. I have also 

 shown that in the later stage of the Old Western Rajasthani 

 the differentiation is so marked that it is always possible to 

 say whether a work is written under the influence of the 



