February, 1911.] Presidential Address. XXXij 
pronounced this work to be a forgery. But the Benares 
editors defended the work as genuine. While Mahamaho- 
padhyaya Hara Prasida Shastri was at Jodhpur he inquired if 
any descendants of Chand Kavi were still living, and he met 
with Pandit Nanu Rim Brahmabhat, who is lineally descended 
from Cand Kavi and still lives on the income of the lands 
granted to the Kavi at Nagore by Prithwiraj himself. Nanu 
Ram’s version is that the original Prithwiraj-rasa extended to 
only 5,000 verses but that Chand’s descendants went on adding 
to the work till it reached the enormous extent in which it is 
now found. All those portions of the poem in which Chand’s 
wife is introduced were added by his sons, and the additions 
continued till Akbar’s time. Nanu Ram was very anxious to 
come to Calcutta and show the manuscript of the original 
to the Asiatic Society. But his appointment by the Jodhpur 
State as one of the travelling pandits engaged in the search 
of Bardic songs prevented his coming. He has however given 
the Shastri copies of 4 or 5 of the Samayas of the original 
which fully bear out his statements. Efforts will be m 
procure copies of the rest of the original manuscript. 
—— <>—— 
Mr. Justice Mookerjee read an address drawn up by the 
retiring President, Mr. T. H. D. LaTouche. 
Presidential Address, 1911. 
It has been the custom of late years for the retiring Presi- 
dent of this Society to prepare and read before you at the 
Annual Meeting a review of the work that has been done dur- 
ing his year of office; and under ordinary circumstances I 
your President, and the difficulty under which I labour of 
obtaining the materials necessary for the compilation of a com- 
plete account of the work accomplished by the Society during 
the past year, lead me now to crave your indulgence if I allude 
to these matters in a cursory manner only ; and on the present 
occasion, for reasons that I shall presently put forward, deal 
rather with the future, directing your attention to those lines 
along which, as I humbly conceive it, the Society should ad- 
vance, in order that the purpose for which it came into being 
may be accomplished in accordance with the lofty aspirations 
of its Founder. : 
