1887.] Address. 65 



Panjdb. — The issues registered in the Panjab average about 1800 per 

 annum chiefly in Urdu, Panjabi, Hindi, Persian, and Arabic. In the first 

 quarter of 1886, there were 645 entries, of which 97 represented periodi- 

 cals. Of the remainder, 116 were educational works, and 433 non-educa- 

 tional, comprising 7 English works, 43 Arabic, 31 Persian, 206 Urdu, 

 141 Panjabi, 65 Hindi, 2 Pashto, 9 Sanskrit, 1 Sindhi, and 42 bi- and 

 trilingual works. The Arabic issues were chiefly confined to parts of 

 the Koran and the Persian to reprints and religious works. The 

 large Urdu series contains in addition much purely literary work, such 

 as dramas, histories, poetry, essays, and novels, besides papers on medi- 

 cine, the arts, and on social subjects. The Hindi issues comprise reli- 

 gious works, dramas, stories, poetry, and essays on philological and 

 social subjects. The Panjabi publications appear in the Gurumukhi, 

 l^agari, Arabic, and Persian characters, and include a large proportion of 

 works on the Sikh religion, and on the exploits of Musalman saints, 

 besides stories, poetry, reprints of Sufi works, and practical treatises on 

 medicine, cattle-disease, law, and agriculture. Taken as a whole, the 

 record indicates a healthy tone in the Province, and, though there are 

 not many original works of importance, the presence of such a large 

 proportion of lighter literature shows a capacity to receive and enjoy it 

 for which one was not prepared. 



N.-W. P. and Oudh. — The yearly issues in the N.-W. Provinces 

 and Oudh average about 1,450, chiefly in Urdu, Hindi, Persian, and 

 Sanskrit, of which about 100 represent periodicals and about one- 

 fifth of the whole is devoted to educational purposes. During the 

 first quarter of 1886, the entries show : 3 English ; 78 Urdu ; 120 

 Hindi ; 9 Sanskrit ; 3 Arabic ; 15 Persian, and 50 polyglot pub- 

 lications besides periodicals. The Urdu series comprises original works 

 in biography, the drama, fiction, history, poetry, law, medicine, and 

 philology, besides translations from English, Persian, and Arabic. 

 The Hindi publications are remarkable for their collections of popu- 

 lar poetry and songs of the people, and, with the aid of the numerous 

 commentators on the first and second books of selections from the Hindi, 

 afford valuable material for a critical examination of the literary lan- 

 guage. The bdrah-vidsi, or songs of the twelve months, are particularly 

 curious and occur in several recensions and apparently by different 

 authors. The drama not only finds subjects from those inexhaustible 

 repertoires, the Mahabharata and Ramayana, but are the vehicle also for 

 critcising many social foibles, and generally exhibit a healthy tone. 

 There is not much to record from the Central Provinces, Assam, or 

 Burma, and, in the two last, the major portion of what exists is entirely 

 due to foreign aid. 



