Page:The Indian Antiquary, Vol. 4-1875.djvu/173

 160 THE DTD-IAN AKTIQUAEY. were a ' ran 'rjeared wituj"«H-juice spit i'rom tho mouth, and a flirty p Talib-ul-Iui. Track BB*a ] r •.. -; ; ■ -i -.1 •■ -:.—- A Havd-BOOR ". (i^uio, liin pp.) Calcutta :Tluu It A Co. A BA50-BOOK for Vinton to DSBXI and its ur-i;rkboiir- K. H. i; Km ik'. (ISmo, 79 pp.) Calcutta : JWker, These little 1' revised editions of the • r's Guide-books, already pretty well known to visitors to tlie old royal cities of Upper India. In his preface to the first the anthor modestly a that although he "has used his best en- deavours to render his information accurate by verifying it from the best and most original sources, yefc ho has abstained from controversy, and does not desire to be regarded as an antiqua- rian authority." Mr. KeeUe intersperses his in- toresting notes with extracts from the architec- tural remarks of Fergusson, tho eloquent descrip- tions of Bayard Taylor, tin- .'counts of Jiernior, Finch, and De Lfiet, and with quotations from whatever almost has been written north quoting in reference to the objects he describes, illy correcting them wherever they have i into even a trifling inaccuracy. And his intimate acquaintance with what he describe.-, and entiontu to inscriptions, enables him to add interesting items to our know- ledge. Thus, for example, the Mosque at Agra, which has hem attributed fco Akbar, he notii having, "from the obvious evidence of the inacrip- tion over the main archway," been " built by Shah n in the year L063 IT. (a.i>. 1644), and to have bakes live yearn to complete." The Boland Dar- or great gate to the Mosque at F a fc h c p u r 6 i Ic ri, ho notes was built as *a triumphal arch' n good many years after tho Dargah or sacred quadrangle, and bears an inscription beginning thus : " His Majesty, king of kings, Heaven of tho Court, shaduwof God, .hilul uddin Muhammad Khiin the Emperor. He conquered the kingdom of the south, mid Da n des, which was formerly called Khan il ■■ s . in the divine 46th, corre- sponding to the Hijirah year 1010. Having reach- .chepur he proceeded to Agra." The Mosque bears the date Hijirah 971 D. 1571. To the Agra Hand-book the author lias added a brief history of the Mughul Empire from a.d. and an appendix on Hindustani Architec- ture, which will be read with interest. To the 1 tebjj one, » ' Note' on the Slave and Khilji dynas- ties, and others on the Elephant Statues, Firnz Lat, Ac. Mr. Keene has a passion for spelling Oriental names in 1»b own way— which is an attempt to render what may be called the vulgar system more uniform; but we much doubt if Fuzl, TJkbur, TIdhum Khan. Taj Muhul. Vi- krumadit, tie. will supplant the better known and more accurate Abnl Fuzl, Akbar, Adham K && These Hind-books ore just wlmt the visitor requires: they point out all that is really worth seeing in andall around the two cities, and do the buildings in brief compass, with intelligence, thorough appreciation, and rare aceuracyj Ohikin of the Di i(i;.i Pr.u. by Pruh'.na Cluinilni ( H B.A. «>7 pp. 12mo.) Calcutta, This paper, originally published in the B Patriot, was scarcely worth reprinting. Aa to the ' Origin' of the Dnrga festival the writer says at the outset — " When it was first established the memory of man, it seems, runneth not to."' i nsf ead of carefully collecting and arranging the materials that exist in Hiudu literature bearing upon the subject in hand, this very excursive writer Hies off to theories and gene ralizations. "Toanati<-n," be says, n to which language was cosmos, to which beauty was better expressed in words than in the objects described, to which the flower was lovelier when it was clothed with the tints of the imagina- tion than when it appeared in its pristine shape, grammar was the basis of knowledge and religion. Words consequently exercised greater influence upon the Hindu mind than the works of nature or of man," Words have evidently a greater in- nnance with this author than his subject, w he affirms that " the Durga Puja of to-day is an evolution of many mutations," and that " in the early day3 when the Aryans lived somewhere near the plateau of tho Belnr Tugh, its vernal form the Vasauti Puja. was in vogue." He concludes that Durgfi " is a grand develop- ment of a primeval Vedic idea, produced in un- questioned and unquestionable Words, whiv their turn have been transformed into various forms and attributes by the authors of the Ttmlrtu and Purdncu, and at last imbedded in the present system of worship." The teaching of this little book, if it teaches anything, is pantheistic ; but the author's hold of facts, as of theories, is very indefinite, and hazily hid in grandiloquent verbiage. It is a pity to find young Hindus with abilities and learning like the writer of this pamphlet taking so little care to edu- cate themselves hi habits of closer thought andmorc industrious research, and so rushing into print with tho most baseless day-dreams, mistaking them for the results of scientific research. Yet this is not the case with Hindus only : some Euro- peans have set them examples they have not yet rivalled, nor are likely soon to do, in the bulk ami pretentiousness of their publications, and the of any foundation in fact for their theories.