1887.] Address. 63 



lar authors, India also has an audience capable of enjoying poetry, 

 the drama, and fiction, to an extent not generally accepted. I would 

 therefore commend these apparently dry lists to your notice in the belief 

 that they are capable of affording much of practical interest and value in 

 connection with almost all the linguistic, historical, religious, social, and 

 political questions of the day. 



Bengal. — Taking up the Bengal register, I find that in the year* 

 1885-86 there are 2,572 entries, of which 762 refer to educational works 

 and 1,810 to non-educational works. During the first quarter of the year 

 1886, there were 523 entries, of which quite sixty per cent, were partly or 

 wholly in Bengali, the other principal languages being English, Sanskrit, 

 Uriya, and Hindi. Amongst them were 83 issues of periodicals and 1-A5 

 publications devoted to educational purposes, which include school-books, 

 anthologies for the local vernacular examinations, and treatises on law 

 and medicine. In Bengal, as indeed in all India, literary effort, apart 

 from educational work, is more occupied with religion than with any 

 other subject. This tendency is clearly exhibited in the record before 

 us, not only in a sustained attempt at a revival of Hinduism itself, but 

 in a strong reaction against the rationalistic spirit and European influ- 

 ence observable in the vernacular literature of late years. 



Though many of these works comprise merely reprints of stories 

 from the Mahabharata, or the Ramayana, which, quaintly enough, the 

 recorder remarks are intended for the ' ill-educated or orthodox,' others 

 are original works of value, amongst which mention may be made of the 

 Krishna Charitrd of Bankim Chandra Chatarji, in which the Krishna 

 myths are criticised. In the part just published, the author shows that 

 the conception of Krishna in the Mahabharata is that of the perfect man, 

 of the ideal humanity in its widest sense. R. C. Datta, in his ' Sansdr,' 

 gives us a faithful picture of middle-class Bengali life, and Sasadhar 

 Tarkachuramani, in his * JDharma Vydkhhya,' an attempt at a scientific 

 exposition of the rites and doctrines of Hinduism. Rajanikanta Gupta 

 has issued part of his history of the Sepoy War ; T. N. Mukharji, part 

 of his encyclopaedia ; Shyam Lai Goswami, a mythological dictionary ; 

 and Rama JSTarayana Vidyaratna, the continuations of several Sanskrit 

 works with Bengali translations, chiefly relating to Vaishnava literature. 

 In Hindi, Damodar Sastri has given an account of his travels in 

 southern India, and, in Uriya, Fakir Mohan Senapati, the well-known 

 poet, continues his versified translation of the Mahabharata. Fic- 

 tion, poetry, the drama, and essays, social and political, form an im- 

 portant section and represent all schools of thought, conservative, pro- 

 gressive, liberal, radical, and almost revolutional. There is hardly a 



* From July 1885, to the end of June 1886 is usually intended. 



