22 Nagendra Nath Gupta— Vidyfipati Thalcur. [Extra No. 
“ Understanding this treatment Hari turned his face and went 
away. What will Kavi-kanthahar now sing ? ” 
sGfaihJPC invariably occurs by itself and is never coupled with the 
poet’s name :— 
“ Saith the Crown of poets,—Seeing her wondrous beauty King 
Nasarad Shah fell in love with the lotus-faced one.” 
is found in a spirited account of a battle between S'iva 
Sir na and the Mahomedan army :— 
^<5 
^ i 
srj *tt^[ pr 
ftrefaV mi 
jjsr^r f'lHi'T i 
* c The good poet, New Jayadeva, saith,—The son King of Deva 
Simha, the uprooter of the dynasties of hostile kings, the essence of all 
virtues, the lion-like Raja S'iva Simha defended and preserved his own 
faith like Rama, and in charity rivalled Dadhici.” 
All these extracts are from poems not yet published. 
It is impossible to state with any degree of accuracy the precise 
number of poems and songs composed by Vidyapati. I have collected 
between six and seven hundred poems of which over three hundred 
have been collected in Mithila by Pandit Chunda Jha, the best 
authority living on Yidyapati. Each one of these poems has been 
submitted to a careful test to ascertain its genuineness, and every 
poem of doubtful authorship has been rejected. These poems are 
being put together for publication. When published they will not 
merely establish Vidyapati’s position, which is not disputed even now, 
as the greatest poet of Mithila, but also as one of the master-singers 
of the world, with a width of range and sweep of song worthy of 
a poet of the first rank. The poet lived not only to a very great 
age, but displayed incessant and extraordinary literary activity. He 
was appointed Raj Pandit in an age of Pandits. In a book called 
Bag Tarahgim and composed in Mithila about two huudred years 
