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PREFACE. 
1 have been the more willing to exclude these last from our 
present consideration as they have been already exhaustively 
dealt with by Garcin de Tassy. J may add that by Hindustan 
I mean Kaj’putana and the valleys of the Jamuna and of 
the Ganges as far east as the river KosT, and that I do not 
include under that term either the Pahjab or Lower Bangal. 
The vernacular languages dealt with may roughly be 
considered as three in number, Mar’war!, Hindi, and Bihar!, 
each with its various dialects and sub-dialects. One omission 
must be mentioned with regret. I have refrained from 
including the large number of anonymous folk-epics and of 
folk-songs (such as kafris , ja£sd?*s, and the like) current 
throughout Northern India. These can only be collected 
on the spot from the mouths of the people, and, so far as 
I am aware, that has only been systematically done in the 
province of Bihar. I have therefore, after some hesitation, 
determined to exclude all mention of them from the work, 
as any attempt to describe them as a whole could only have 
been incomplete and misleading. 
The introduction will explain the principle of arrange¬ 
ment adopted in this work. Many of the entries are mere 
names of authors and nothing more, which I have included to 
make the book as complete as possible. When any infor¬ 
mation was available, I have entered it against the author’s 
name referred to; and in some cases I have, I believe, been 
able to present information which has not hitherto been 
placed at the disposal of European scholars. As examples 
of this, I would refer the reader to the articles on Sur Das 
(No. 37) and on Tul’sl Das (No. 128). I do not pretend to 
have read all or even a considerable portion of the large 
