1850.] or Chronicles of Tripurd. 535 



nical art, yet like the Chinese emperors they provided for a record of 

 the history of their empire by employing a bard in their Court, and 

 though he bestowed lavish encomiums on the characters of the reigning 

 monarch, yet he affords us information occasionally on various interest- 

 ing points. Thus for instance the women exhibit a very different cha- 

 racter from those of Bengal generally, and in daring and moral prowess 

 remind one of the females in Rajputana or the M&hratta country, 

 though we have no account of any equalling Ahalya Bai in benevolence. 



The Rajmala or history of Tripura comes in opportunely at the 

 present time, when such an anxiety is shewn by Savans to throw light 

 on the manners, religion and history of India previous to the Moham- 

 madan invasion, and also from the country described in the poem pre- 

 senting various points of interest, whether we look at its position, having 

 the Buddhist kingdoms to the South, the Chinese empire in the East, 

 the ancient kingdom of Kiimrup in Assam to the North, or the abori- 

 ginal tribes of its frontiers. Its mountain fastnesses and lonely jungles 

 enabled its chieftains, like the Welsh of former times, or the Hugonots 

 of the Cevennes, to maintain a spirit of resistance to intruders, and to 

 preserve down to the last century Hindu manners and customs unin- 

 fluenced by the control of Moslem propagandism. Its rulers pride 

 themselves on being of the lunar race, and in their descent from the 

 chivalrous Kshetryas of Rajputana* whose lofty bearing and prowess 

 have been immortalised by the pen of Todd and Chand. While in 

 Bengal the tide of foreign invasion has swept away almost all the 

 ancient Hindu royal lines, the families of Vishnupur and Tripura 

 have alone remained, though now " in the sere and yellow leaf." 



The baleful influence of the Musalmans on Hindu nationality has 

 in no instance been more destructively exercised than in its having 

 prevented during the Moslem sway all Hindu efforts for the formation 

 of a vernacular literature. Animated by the same recklessness and 

 disregard of consequences which prompted the Norman conqueror to 

 aim at the extirpation of the English language, the Moslem con- 

 querers discouraged the use of every tongue but their favourite 

 Arabic or Persian. This added to the proud disregard in which 

 the Prdkrita, the dialect of women and Rakshasas, was held by the 



* Todd in his " Rajputaaa" states, that Tripura was one of the 84 mercantile 

 tribes of Rajputana. 



3 z 2 



