Page:A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India Vol 1.djvu/117

 INTRODUCTION. 95 some extent. I am informed by Babu Rajendralal Mittra, a very high authority in such matters, that the printed editions of the Chaitanya Charanâmrita, and similar early Bengali works now to be procured in Calcutta, have been so altered and modernized as no longer to present any trustworthy picture of the genuine language of the poem. I also notice that in some extracts from a pseudo-Chand printed recently in the Bengal Asiatic Society's Journal, the language is very much more modern than that of the authentic MSS. of the poem which I have seen. Thus, as an example, it may be noted that some twenty or thirty lines end with the word "is." The real Chand never uses; it had apparently not come into existence in his time. With him the substantive verb is almost always left to be inferred, and when expressed is generally indicated by the old Prakrit form from afa, whereas is merely an inversion off from f, through a form ; whence also the Marathi. But the mischief is not confined to the substitution of modern synonyms for archaic words; often the archaic word not being understood, a current word of nearly similar sound has been substituted for it, thus altering the whole meaning of the sentence. Still, in spite of these draw- backs, there is much to be learnt from these rustic songs and plays, and good service has been done by the Rev. J. Robson, of Ajmer, in lithographing four or five of the Khiyâls or plays which are frequently performed in Marwar. The Marwari dialect is faithfully represented in these interesting works, in which many a word of Chand is retained which it would perhaps be impossible to find elsewhere. This rapid and imperfect sketch of the present available literature of our seven languages will show that religious poetry constituted the bulk, if not the whole, of it till the influence ¹ I have not read all through Chand, but I believe I have read as much as, or more of his poem than any living Englishman, and in all that I have read I have never yet come across