Page:Classical Poets Of Gujarat.pdf/87

 in Bombay, because the voice of the poets is still constantly ringing in the ears of their worshippers, while at Bombay the poet is hardly known to the Bhattyas who speak a dialect in which no poet ever sung a song. If anywhere the Maháráj is found to be erring, the absence or weakness of the poet's voice and ideal will also be at once detected in the place. Nor are we to forget that this is only one of the many religions in Gujarat, and that the laws of competition compel the heads of each sect to consult its safety by avoiding disintegration, and that safety is lost where they insult the moral sense of the people. And for the pre- servation of the moral sense the country is indebted to the competition of religions, as also to those many poets who sang in the stoic ways of Akho and the Bhaktas and yet invested asceticism of the heart with the gentle charms of poetry such as was sung in the Arjuna Gitá and the like, teaching frail man "to stick to the world and yet to always keep the mind in the holy presence of the Lord." 75 These poets have helped society in other ways also. They have supplied it with intellectual recreation, reli- gious consolation, and moral strength, during a century of political and moral disasters. When village was sever- ed from village by wars and plunders, and when indus- try and intercommunication were destroyed, the village poet was lighted like a lamp in a gloom of night and Digitized by Google Original from UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN