1889.] Address. 61 



Sindhu " is written by a Muharnrnadan, Mir Musharraf Husain, in stand- 

 ard Bengali, — a form of Bengali which Musalnian writers but rarely em- 

 ploy, their works being generally written in what is called Musalmani 

 Bengali, written from the right to the left, and containing a large ad- 

 mixture of Persian words, phrases and idioms. It is a sort of historical 

 novel, introducing the principal events from the death of Muhammad 

 to the release of Zainu-l-'Abidiu. The other novel that I may note is 

 the " Abahibala," by Satya Charan Mitra ; it tells the story of a Hindu 

 wife engaged in the search of her lost husband. The republication of 

 the works of the followers of Chaitanya, by Rama Navayana Vidyaratna, 

 and of Hindu philosophical works by Mahesha Chandra Pala, which 

 were noticed in the last Annual Address, is making satisfactory progress. 

 The progress of two other serial works, the " Barat Kosh," or " Indian 

 Encyclopaedia," by Raj Krishna Ray and Sarat Chandra Deb, and the 

 " Biswa Kosh," or " Universal Encyclopaedia," by Rangalal Mukharji 

 and P. N. Mukharji, also deserves mention. An edition of the Samaveda 

 Saiphita, with a Bengali translation, by Pandit Satyavrata Samasrami, 

 shows the growing popular interest in the most ancient literature of 

 India. The Uriya and Assamese works entered in the Bengal catalogue 

 are mostly either works designed for educational purposes, or works in 

 connection with local forms of Krishna myths. Of Hindu works pub- 

 lished in Bihar, I would draw your attention to the publication of the 

 collected works of the celebrated modern Hindi poet Harischandra, by 

 Ram Din Singh. It is printed in the Kadga Vilas Press in serial parts. 

 The same editor is also now publishing a very careful edition of the 

 famous Tutsi Rarnayan from old MSS. in the possession of Mr. Gr. A. 

 Grierson. Ray Kashi Parshad is publishing an excellent edition of the 

 same text with a very fine commentary. It will take some years before 

 this great work is finished. 



North-Western Provinces and Oudh. — I regret that I have only been 

 able to obtain the official catalogue of the second quarter of 1888. In it 

 there are 5 publications in English, 135 in Urdu, 52 in Hindi, 4 in Sanskrit, 

 9 in Arabic, 23 in Persian, 64 polyglot, and 18 periodicals. The average 

 number of publications in the united Provinces is about 1,000. Of 

 original works in Hindi the following deserve notice : the " Bichitro- 

 pades" an anthology of humorously didactic verses, collected from the 

 works of numerous mediaeval and modern poets, by Pandit Nak'chhedi 

 Tiwari ; the " Sangit Mala," a collection of folk-songs in the popular 

 dialects, by LalaKanta Parsad ; the " Badm&sh Darpan," of Teg Ali, which 

 describes the habits and customs of the rabble of Benares city in their 

 own Bhojpuri dialect; and tho " Mori Janma-bhumi jatra " by Pandit 

 Damodra S'astri. Specially meritorious work is boing done in the edit- 



