1854.] On the Ballads and Legends oftlie Punjab. 59 



period to which Major Cunningham assigns these inscriptions is left 

 blank in Prinsep's comparative alphabet. 



The second "s" of " yasas" has also a rather peculiar form, and 

 the back stroke in the centre of the upright line of the initial " a," 

 in " drama" appears to be the distinguishing mark whereby it is 

 made a long vowel. 



For the drawings by hand I am indebted to Lieuts, Crofton and 

 Dyas of the engineers who accompanied me on my visit. 



I may add in conclusion, that I have in vain sought for any further 

 traces of antiquity in the immediate neighbourhood of the inscrip- 

 tions. 



On the Ballads and Legends of the Punjab. — By Major J. Abbott. 



In the eye of the Antiquary or the Lover of the picturesque, 

 there attaches to old ballads and legends, an interest such as haunts 

 the ruined edifices, sculptures and coins of a race long since extinct. 

 In India these Legends and Ballads are confined to the mountain, 

 the forest and the desert, or to the tracts adjoining either. In the 

 more speedily subdued and cultivated plain, they seem to have been 

 effaced with nature. Those of the Hindoo are often of a high order 

 of moral beauty. But they have been neglected, and will soon be 

 irretrievably lost. A few of these ballads and legends my very 

 scanty leisure has enabled me to preserve. 



Until the ideas of a nation have been matured and elaborated by 

 the formation of a distinct class of literary mechanics, the most 

 vigorous of its effusions will generally be found in the form of bal- 

 lads handed down with their music orally from generation to genera- 

 tion : and forming the delight of the unoccupied gentry, who can 

 neither read nor write, and who are indebted to their Bards for the 

 murder of that heavy time, which can be spent neither at the board 

 nor in field sports. Ballads therefore have an importance which is 

 not to be weighed by their rude measure and occasionally childish 

 fancies. They are the first effusions of the poetic fire, ere the Devil 



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