February, 1910.] Annual Address. 



xliii 



There is only one other topic to which 1 would briefly 

 invite your attention this evening before I bring my address 

 to a close. For several years past, we have had at oin dis- 

 posal the 3um granted by the Government for the search of the 

 Bardic chronicles of the Rajputs. We have hitherto found it 

 impossible to make any satisfactory arrangement even for a 

 preliminary survey of the work to be undertaken. Fortunate- 

 ly, Mahamahopadhyaya Hara Prasad Sastri, on his retirement 

 from the Principalship of the Sanskrit College, found it possible 

 to devote his time to an enquiry into this fascinating subject, 

 and the offer of his services was gladly accepted by the Society! 

 He travelled in Gujrat and Rajputana for two mouths [ad year, 

 and the information collected by him fumislu t tolerably 

 accurate idea of the nature and extent of the work to be accom- 

 plished. It is beyond dispute that many of these chronicles 

 have, from time to time, been reduced to writing, but many 

 more still exist only in the form of ballads and songs in the 

 memory of professional and hereditary Bards, scattered through- 

 out the various Rajput States. What is required, therefore [g 

 not merely to collect manuscripts, more or less accurate, of tin 

 chronicles, but to take down and reduce to writing the ballads 

 handed down by word of mouth from generation to generation. 

 Work of this description has been undertaken and accomplished 

 in other civilized countries, notably in England, Scotland, and 

 Denmark. In Denmark, as is well-known the distinguished 

 scholar Grundtvig was enabled to make a collection of ancient 

 popular ballads, fairly complete and representative of th 

 national character, only by means of national help. All 

 Denmark combined to help him in his labours, and school- 

 masters and clergymen in retired nooks where tradition longest 

 lingers, actively engaged themselves in taking down ballad- from 

 the mouths of the people. If, therefore, we are to undertake 

 a complete collection of the Bardic chronicles of Rajputana, we 

 must have a systematic organisation for reducing to writing 

 the ballads as they are recited by the Bards, and obviously 

 this can be accomplished successfully only with the active co- 

 operation of the Rajput Chiefs themselves. If this work is 

 accomplished, as I trust it may, we shall have collected fii-t- 

 hand materials for a proper appreciation of the history and an- 

 tiquities of one of the most important and interesting branch* 

 of the Indian race. It must not be overlooked, however, that 

 the study of the materials when collected, must prove to be a 

 task not wholly free from linguistic difficulties, as the 

 chronicles, whether reduced to writing or recited from mouth 

 to mouth, are not composed in one uniform dialect. This, 

 however, is a matter which ought not to stand in the way of 

 an early and a systematic effort to coll- t and presen the 

 materials which may otherwise disappear, and become irre- 

 coverable before the lapse of many ^ears. 



