ANANDA COOMARASWAMY.
Britford, December, 1914.
[1] What is here given is mainly derived from: G. A. Grierson, 'The Vernacular Literature of Hindustan,' and Dinesh Chandra Sen, 'History of Bengali Literature.'
[2] The Tarjuman al-Ashwāq, 1911 p. 7.
[3] I do not here refer to the details of concrete symbolism (for which see Purnendu Narayan Sinha, 'The Bhāgavata Purāna, a Study,' Benares, 1901), but to the common language of mysticism.
[4] Translated by Henry Newbolt from the French of Wenceslas.
[5] Thus the Hindūs hold that it is better to be the foe of God, or to use His name in vain, than to live without knowledge of Him and without speaking His name.
[6] Prema Sāgara, Ch. xxx.
[7] loc. cit. p. 302.
[8] We have already mentioned the 'Gītā Govinda.' It needs scarcely to be said that Indian lyrical poetry is of still older ancestry. The reader of Kalidāsa's 'Shakuntalā' for example, will find there innumerable parallels both to Vidyāpati's combined tenderness and wisdom, and his quaint conceits. These parallels are so many that we have made no attempt to mention them in the 'Notes' The same spirit, too, is already recognizable in the lyrical passages of the 'Rāmāyana.' All this is no more than to say that Vidyāpati is essentially and typically Indian.