220 G. A. Grierson —Notes on the Nangpur Dialect. [No. 3, 
143. “ He wlio will slay thee, waxeth strong in Gokula. Go forth 
and see him in the house of Nanda, the cow-herd.” 
144. When King Kamsa heard these words, he was pleased, and on the 
sjwt summoned his scouts. 
145. His Prime Minister arose and made reply, u On the ocean at 
Ivalidaha is a friend of thine. On the shores of Kalidaha is the house of 
Unakuti the Naga. 
146. “ He will smite the child upon the breast. Truly a valiant deed.” 
The concluding poem is an interesting account of the twelve seasons. 
It is supposed to be the soliloquy of a woman of the Bedhya caste during 
the absence of her husband on a peddling tour. The Bedhyas here, as in 
other districts, have the reputation of being half gipsies, half thieves. Their 
ostensible means of livelihood is a petty traffic in hamaku (a kind of Rang- 
puri tobacco prepared for chewing), camphor, cloves, and other spices 
■which they sell to women. I have ventured in this case to attempt a 
metrical paraphrase, instead of a literal translation. The original is so 
extremely compressed, and so full of allusions to agricultural life, that it 
would be almost unintelligible without a full commentary. 
The piece partakes more of the nature of a Bhana or dramatic mono¬ 
logue (Cf. Wilson’s Theatre of the Hindus, Yol. II, p. 384), than of any 
other species of Sanskrit composition with which I am acquainted. The 
reciter’s husband, Nila Bedhya, has gone on a voyage down the Ganges to 
the southern regions, where the tide ebbs and flows, and he is absent a whole 
year. She describes each month how she looks forward to his return, in 
simple but feeling language. It is a great relief to come to it after the 
eternal viraher anala of the orthodox book-school, 
In the month of Dauslia , she hints that advances have been made to 
her by some rich neighbour, who offers to make her his dasi; not at all an 
uncommon occurrence in this district, where women are bought and sold 
and stolen like cattle. The arguments used are curious enough, and charac¬ 
teristic. The seducer says, “ You had better come to me. You are alone 
and have no friends. This is the cold month of Dauslia, and you will surely 
die. You will have no one to burn your body, and it will be thrown away 
into the fields to rot. So thick will be the winter mists that even the vul¬ 
tures and the jackals will not see your body to devour it.” 
In Magha and Phalguna, every one who can bear a hand is hard at work 
in the fields. Jute is being cultivated, and the a-us dhan, one of the main 
food staples of the district, is being planted. The very fishermen are hard at 
work, building low embankments round the rapidly drying pools, and subse- 
