232 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [N.S., XIII, 



difference between Old and Later Dingala. One of these, and 

 certainly the most evident of all, is the hiatus in the vocalic 

 groups a'i, ail, which is preserved in Old Dingala, much as it is 

 in Old Western RajasthanI, whereas in Later Dingala the two 

 groups are contracted into e, o. Another peculiarity of the Old 

 Dingala is the preservation of the original i in the termination 

 of the instrumental and locative singular, and of the conjunctive 

 participle. It is obvious that no serious attempt at critically 

 editing an Old Dingala text can be made, unless the editor first 

 of all proposes to himself the task of restituting into their 

 original archaic form all those words which have been modern- 

 ized by the later bards and amanuenses. This is what I have 

 tried to do in the songs given below, unmindful of the criticism 



which the bards of Rajputana will raise against me, for daring 

 to violate what they regard 88 the traditional and correct form 

 of their language. 



The first song which is given below, is in honour of rava 

 Vlko, and commemorates his rescue of Pfigaja and Verasala- 

 pura, two BhatI forts, from the hands of the Muhammadan 

 who had captured them. Vlko is compared to Krsna, who 

 lifting the mount Govardhana on one finger, sheltered the 

 goph from the immense deluge of rain, which Indra had sent 

 to test his divinity. In the same way, says the Poet, Vlko 

 sheltered Pugala and Verasalapura, but his action was much 

 more praiseworthy than that of Krsna, because the latter bene- 

 fited his own people, whereas Vlko' benefited people who were 

 strangers to him. 



So far the Poet. We now must trv to integrate the in- 

 formation supplied by him, and find out on which occasion 

 rava Vlko liberated Pugala and Verasalapura from the hands 

 of the Muhammadans. Pugala, at the time of Vlko, w as in the 

 hands of Sekho, a son of Verasala Cacavata the BhatI founder 

 of Verasalapura. From the Khyata of Muhanot X<na Si. 

 we know that Sekho had three brothers: Jaga Mala. Jo-aita. 

 and Tiloka Si. Jaga Mala had inherited Miimana Vahana and a 



portion of the territory of Verasalapura; Jogftita Keharora and 

 the remaining portion of Verasalapura ; and Tiloka Si— though 

 ^ena Si does not state it— had probably inherited Marota. 

 Kava Sekho is well known from the Bikaner chronicles, and his 

 relations with rava Vlko form the subject of different anec- 

 t pi Khyata of Davaja Dasa— a verv recent chronicle 



pt tfikaner. which is locally considered as the best source of 

 information for the old history of the State— states that Sekho. 



wno was a great robber, when returning one day with booty 



nf 0I ?i vr ne,ghbourhoo<l of Multan was overtaken by 400 

 oi tne Multan garrison and made a prisoner. Thereupon, 

 continues the chronicle, Sekho'.s wife went to KaranijI-the 

 wen-known deified Cftranl, who is considered . the tutelar deit> 



