1839.] 



Essay on Telvgu Literature. 



381 



In this short abstract of the tale, it has been necessary to omit the 

 romantic incidents, various conversations, moral precepts, and poetical 

 descriptions which every where adorn the pleasing original. It must 

 be acknowledged that all the popular 11 novelists" are of tedious length, 

 but their minuteness of description furnishes the student wi'h an am- 

 ple stock of phrases, and as is elsewhere noticed spares him the necessi- 

 ty of following the native fashion in committing versified vocabularies 

 to memory. 



The nest extract is borrowed from the Lila (Prabhu Linga Lila), or 

 History op Allama some details regarding which may perhaps be 

 given in another essay. It is an allegorical poem much in the style of 

 the Faery Queene. The metre is dwipada, and another author has in 

 modern times put the same story, nearly word for word, into the stanza 

 metre. That version is in point of eloquence far inferior to the more 

 ancient poem. 



In the present canto the poet describes the birth of Maia (Phantasy 

 or Cybele), the goddess of delusion : that is, Nature : who in this allego- 

 ry is supposed to be born in human form, for the purpose of trying her 

 temptations upon Allama, or " the virtuous man" (the Hercules of 

 Prodicus which Lowth and Shenstone have versified) : she is ultimately 

 enamoured of him, and dies of hopeless love, on his vanishing from her 

 grasp. Allama, a human appearance of Siva (or Saturn-Osiris) is 

 described as the god of beauty and wisdom (Apollo-Adonis), and in the 

 fable regarding Maia we may trace an analogy to that regarding Venus 

 and Adonis. 



Lila — or Prabhu Linga'Lila — Canto III. 



There is a country named Belagoli lying on the south of Meru] king 

 of hills. All who dwell in that land are worshippers of the Lord of 

 all: all of them are veracious. All the heroes that dwell there are 

 steadfast in the ways of uprightness ; all are noble, all are virtuous : 

 their virtue proceeds in due course nor does any sinner ever tread its 

 streets, In the midst of this land is a city bright as the sun ; can we 

 call it the abode of the goddess earth : or shall we call it her face ? Its 

 name is Banavasi.* 



To narrate its splendour is beyound the powers of Bramha ! Its groves 

 are filled with blossoming mango trees and areca trees ; with budding 

 lemon trees and plaintains; with the fruiting artocarpus (jaca) and 

 citron. Also the charming asoca and (maliira) oak trees with the 

 (sarja) pine tree and the date ; the golden champaca : the (vacula) mi- 



* In the Soonda country, on the south west coast of the Peninsula. 



