XY1 
INTRODUCTION. 
After each chapter are given addenda in small type, showing 
particulars of the minor poets belonging to the period or to the 
group dealt with. For most of the information contained in these 
addenda I am indebted to the Sib Siygh Saroj . 
(c.) A Brief Account of the Vernacular Literature of Hindustan. 
As far as my information goes, the earliest vernacular literature 
of Hindustan is the bardic chronicles of Raj’putana. The first bard 
of whom we have any certain information was the well-known Chand 
Bar’dal, who celebrated, towards the end of the twelfth century, 
the fortunes of Prithwi Raj, the Chauhan, of Dilll, in the famous 
Prithi Raj Rdy’sd. Contemporary with him was the bard Jag’nayak, 
who attended the court of Prithwi Raj’s great rival, Paramardi of 
Mahoba, and who was probably the author of the Alha Khand, a work 
equally famous in Hindustan with the Prithi Rdj Rdy’sd, but which 
has had the misfortune of being preserved by oral tradition instead of 
in manuscript. 
To continue the history of these bardic chronicles, we may men¬ 
tion Qarqgadhara, or Saraijg Dhar, who sung, in the middle of 
the fourteenth century, the prowess of the heroic Hammlr of 
Ran’thambhor (fl. 1300). Passing over Keh’rl (fl. 1580) of Bur’- 
han’pur, we come to two brilliant groups of bards who adorned the 
courts of Mewar and Mar’war in the 17th century. To these may be 
added names like that of Lai (fl. 1650), who wrote a valuable history 
of Bundel’khand, and those of other minor poets. After the 17th 
century the Raj’put bards lost their distinctive character, and while 
the greater number became merged in the sea of the other vernacular 
poets of India, the few that remained degenerated into mere compilers 
of facts derived from older records. 
It is hardly necessary to do what Tod has already done in such 
glowing language, and to point out how completely these Raj’put 
bards wash away the reproach so often levelled against Indian liter¬ 
ature, that it contains no historical works. The value of these bardic 
chronicles, some of which are derived from older works dating as far 
back as the 9th century A.D., can hardly be over-estimated. It is 
true that they contain many legends which are of doubtful authen¬ 
ticity ; but what contemporary European chronicle does not contain 
the same ? They also embody the history of Raj’putana during the 
whole of the struggles between India and its Musalman invaders, 
written by a series of contemporary authors extending over at least 
