VOLUME XIII SLICE IV Hero to Hindu Chronology (continued 10)

Almost all the orders of birds are well represented, and the marvellous variety of forms found in the eastern Himalaya is only rivalled in Central and South America. Eagles, vultures and other birds of prey are seen soaring high over the highest of the forest-clad ranges. Owls are numerous, and a small species, Glaucidium, is conspicuous, breaking the stillness of the night by its monotonous though musical cry of two notes. Several kinds of swifts and nightjars are found, and gorgeously-coloured trogons, bee-eaters, rollers, and beautiful kingfishers and barbets are common. Several large hornbills inhabit the highest trees in the forest. The parrots are restricted to parrakeets, of which there are several species, and a single small lory. The number of woodpeckers is very great and the variety of plumage remarkable, and the voice of the cuckoo, of which there are numerous species, resounds in the spring as in Europe. The number of passerine birds is immense. Amongst them the sun-birds resemble in appearance and almost rival in beauty the humming-birds of the New Continent. Creepers, nuthatches, shrikes, and their allied forms, flycatchers and swallows, thrushes, dippers and babblers (about fifty species), bulbuls and orioles, peculiar types of redstart, various sylviads, wrens, tits, crows, jays and magpies, weaver-birds, avadavats, sparrows, crossbills and many finches, including the exquisitely coloured rose-finches, may also be mentioned. The pigeons are represented by several wood-pigeons, doves and green pigeons. The gallinaceous birds include the peacock, which everywhere adorns the forest bordering on the plains, jungle fowl and several pheasants; partridges, of which the chikor may be named as most abundant, and snow-pheasants and partridges, found only at the greatest elevations. Waders and waterfowl are far less abundant, and those occurring are nearly all migratory forms which visit the peninsula of India—the only important exception being two kinds of solitary snipe and the red-billed curlew.

Of the reptiles found in these mountains many are peculiar. Some of the snakes of India are to be seen in the hotter regions, including the python and some of the venomous species, the cobra being found as high up as 8000 or 9000 ft., though not common. Lizards are numerous, and as well as frogs are found at all elevations from the plains to the upper Himalayan valleys, and even extend to Tibet.

The fishes found in the rivers of the Himalaya show the same general connexion with the three neighbouring regions, the Palaearctic, the African and the Malayan. Of the principal families, the Acanthopterygii, which are abundant in the hotter parts of India, hardly enter the mountains, two genera only being found, of which one is the peculiar amphibious genus Ophiocephalus. None of these fishes are found in Tibet. The Siluridae, or scaleless fishes, and the Cyprinidae, or carp and loach, form the bulk of the mountain fish, and the genera and species appear to be organized for a mountain-torrent life, being almost all furnished with suckers to enable them to maintain their positions in the rapid streams which they inhabit. A few Siluridae have been found in Tibet, but the carps constitute the larger part of the species. Many of the Himalayan forms are Indian fish which appear to go up to the higher streams to deposit their ova, and the Tibetan species as a rule are confined to the rivers on the table-land or to the streams at the greatest elevations, the characteristics of which are Tibetan rather than Himalayan. The Salmonidae are entirely absent from the waters of the Himalaya proper, of Tibet and of Turkestan east of the Terektag.

The Himalayan butterflies are very numerous and brilliant, for the most part belonging to groups that extend both into the Malayan and European regions, while African forms also appear. There are large and gorgeous species of Papilio, Nymphalidae, Morphidae and Danaidae, and the more favoured localities are described as being only second to South America in the display of this form of beauty and variety in insect life. Moths, also, of strange forms and of great size are common. The cicada’s song resounds among the woods in the autumn; flights of locusts frequently appear after the summer, and they are carried by the prevailing winds even among the glaciers and eternal snows. Ants, bees and wasps of many species, and flies and gnats abound, particularly during the summer rainy season, and at all elevations.

Mountain Scenery.—Much has been written about the impressiveness of Himalayan scenery. It is but lately, however, that any adequate conception of the magnitude and majesty of the most stupendous of the mountain groups which mass themselves about the upper tributaries and reaches of the Indus has been presented to us in the works of Sir F. Younghusband, Sir W. M. Conway, H. C. B. Tanner and D. Freshfield. It is not in comparison with the picturesque beauty of European Alpine scenery that the Himalaya appeals to the imagination, for amongst the hills of the outer Himalaya—the hills which are known to the majority of European residents and visitors—there is often a striking absence of those varied incidents and sharp contrasts which are essential to picturesqueness in mountain landscape. Too often the brown, barren, sun-scorched ridges are obscured in the yellow dust haze which drifts upwards from the plains; too often the whole perspective of hill and vale is blotted out in the grey mists that sweep in soft, resistless columns against these southern slopes, to be condensed and precipitated in ceaseless, monotonous rainfall. Few Europeans really see the Himalaya; fewer still are capable of translating their impressions into language which is neither exaggerated nor inadequate.

Some idea of the magnitude of Himalayan mountain construction—a magnitude which the eye totally fails to appreciate—may, however, be gathered from the following table of comparison of the absolute height of some peaks above sea-level with the actual amount of their slopes exposed to view:—

Relative Extent of Snow Slopes Visible.

Name of Mountain. Place of Observation. Height above sea. Amount of Slope exposed.

Everest Dewanganj 29,002 8,000

Everest Sandakphu ” 12,000

K2 or Godwin-Austen Between Gilgit and Gor, 16,000 ft. 28,250

Pk. XIII. or Makalu Purnea, 200 ft 27,800 8,000

Pk. XIII. or Makalu Sandakphu, 12,000 ft. ” 9,000

Nanga Parbat Gor, 16,000 ft. 26,656 23,000

Tirach Mir Between Gilgit and Chitral, 8000 ft. 25,400 17-18,000

Rakapushi Chaprot (Gilgit), 13,000 ft. 25,560 18,000

Kinchinjunga Darjeeling, 7000 ft. 28,146 16,000

Mont Blanc Above Chamonix, 7000 ft. 15,781 11,500

It will be observed from this table that it is not often that a greater slope of snow-covered mountain side is observable in the Himalaya than that which is afforded by the familiar view of Mont Blanc from Chamonix.

(T. H. H.*)

Authorities.—Drew, Jammu and Kashmir (London, 1875); G. W. Leitner, Dardistan (1887); J. Biddulph, Tribes of the Hindu Kush (Calcutta, 1880); H. H. Godwin-Austen, “Mountain Systems of the Himalaya,” vols. v. and vi. Proc. R. G. S. (1883-1884); C. Ujfalvy, Aus dem westlichen Himalaya (Leipzig, 1884); H. C. B. Tanner, “Our Present Knowledge of the Himalaya,” vol. xiii. Proc. R. G. S. (1891); R. D. Oldham, “The Evolution of Indian Geography,” vol. iii. Jour. R. G. S.; W. Lawrence, Kashmir (Oxford, 1895); Sir W. M. Conway, Climbing and Exploring in the Karakoram (London, 1898); F. Bullock Workman, In the Ice World of Himalaya (1900); F. B. and W. H. Workman, Ice-bound Heights of the Mustagh (1908); D. W. Freshfield, Round Kangchenjunga (1903).

For geology see R. Lydekker, “The Geology of Káshmir,” &c., Mem. Geol. Surv. India, vol. xxii. (1883); C. S. Middlemiss, “Physical Geology of the Sub-Himálaya of Gahrwal and Kumaon,” ibid., vol. xxiv. pt. 2 (1890); C. L. Griesbach, Geology of the Central Himálayas, vol. xxiii. (1891); R. D. Oldham, Manual of the Geology of India, chap. xviii. (2nd ed., 1893). Descriptions of the fossils, with some notes on stratigraphical questions, will be found in several of the volumes of the Palaeontologia Indica, published by the Geological Survey of India, Calcutta.

HIMERA, a city on the north coast of Sicily, on a hill above the east bank of the Himeras Septentrionalis. It was founded in 648 B.C. by the Chalcidian inhabitants of Zancle, in company with many Syracusan exiles. Early in the 5th century the tyrant Terillas, son-in-law of Anaxilas of Rhegium and Zancle, appealed to the Carthaginians, who came to his assistance, but were utterly defeated by Gelon of Syracuse in 480 B.C.—on the same day, it is said, as the battle of Salamis. Thrasydaeus, son of Theron of Agrigentum, seems to have ruled the city oppressively, but an appeal made to Hiero of Syracuse, Gelon’s brother, was betrayed by him to Theron; the latter massacred all his enemies and in the following year resettled the town. In 415 it refused to admit the Athenian fleet and remained an ally of Syracuse. In 408 the Carthaginian invading army under Hannibal, after capturing Selinus, invested and took Himera and razed the city to the ground, founding a new town close to the hot springs (Thermae Himeraeae), 8 m. to the west. The only relic of the ancient town now visible above ground is a small portion (four columns, lower diameter 7 ft.) of a Doric temple, the date of which (whether before or after 480 B.C.) is uncertain.

HIMERIUS (c. A.D. 315-386), Greek sophist and rhetorician, was born at Prusa in Bithynia. He completed his education at Athens, whence he was summoned to Antioch in 362 by the emperor Julian to act as his private secretary. After the death of Julian in the following year Himerius returned to Athens, where he established a school of rhetoric, which he compared with that of Isocrates and the Delphic oracle, owing to the number of those who flocked from all parts of the world to hear him. Amongst his pupils were Gregory of Nazianzus and Basil the Great, bishop of Caesarea. In recognition of his merits, civic rights and the membership of the Areopagus were conferred upon him. The death of his son Rufinus (his lament for whom, called μονῳδία, is extant) and that of a favourite daughter greatly affected his health; in his later years he became blind and he died of epilepsy. Although a heathen, who had been initiated into the mysteries of Mithra by Julian, he shows no prejudice against the Christians. Himerius is a typical representative of the later rhetorical schools. Photius (cod. 165, 243 Bekker) had read 71 speeches by him, of 36 of which he has given an epitome; 24 have come down to us complete and fragments of 10 or 12 others. They consist of epideictic or “display” speeches after the style of Aristides, the majority of them having been delivered on special occasions, such as the arrival of a new governor, visits to different cities (Thessalonica, Constantinople), or the death of friends or well-known personages. The Polemarchicus, like the Menexenus of Plato and the Epitaphios Logos of Hypereides, is a panegyric of those who had given their lives for their country; it is so called because it was originally the duty of the polemarch to arrange the funeral games in honour of those who had fallen in battle. Other declamations, only known from the excerpts in Photius, were imaginary orations put into the mouth of famous persons—Demosthenes advocating the recall of Aeschines from banishment, Hypereides supporting the policy of Demosthenes, Themistocles inveighing against the king of Persia, an orator unnamed attacking Epicurus for atheism before Julian at Constantinople. Himerius is more of a poet than a rhetorician, and his declamations are valuable as giving prose versions or even the actual words of lost poems by Greek lyric writers. The prose poem on the marriage of Severus and his greeting to Basil at the beginning of spring are quite in the spirit of the old lyric. Himerius possesses vigour of language and descriptive powers, though his productions are spoilt by too frequent use of imagery, allegorical and metaphorical obscurities, mannerism and ostentatious learning. But they are valuable for the history and social conditions of the time, although lacking the sincerity characteristic of Libanius.

See Eunapius, Vitae sophistarum; Suidas, s.v.; editions by G. Wernsdorf (1790), with valuable introduction and commentaries, and by F. Dübner (1849) in the Didot series; C. Teuber, Quaestiones Himerianae (Breslau, 1882); on the style, E. Norden, Die antike Kunstprosa (1898).

HIMLY (LOUIS), AUGUSTE (1823-1906), French historian and geographer, was born at Strassburg on the 28th of March 1823. After studying in his native town and taking the university course in Berlin (1842-1843) he went to Paris, and passed first in the examination for fellowship (agrégation) of the lycées (1845), first in the examinations on leaving the École des Chartes, and first in the examination for fellowship of the faculties (1849). In 1849 he took the degree of doctor of letters with two theses, one of which, Wala et Louis le Débonnaire (published in Paris in 1849), placed him in the front rank of French scholars in the province of Carolingian history. Soon, however, he turned his attention to the study of geography. In 1858 he obtained an appointment as teacher of geography at the Sorbonne, and henceforth devoted himself to that subject. It was not till 1876 that he published, in two volumes, his remarkable Histoire de la formation territoriale des états de l’Europe centrale, in which he showed with a firm, but sometimes slightly heavy touch, the reciprocal influence exerted by geography and history. While the work gives evidence throughout of wide and well-directed research, he preferred to write it in the form of a student’s manual; but it was a manual so original that it gained him admission to the Institute in 1881. In that year he was appointed dean of the faculty of letters, and for ten years he directed the intellectual life of that great educational centre during its development into a great scientific body. He died at Sèvres on the 6th of October 1906.

HIMMEL, FREDERICK HENRY (1765-1814), German composer, was born on the 20th of November 1765 at Treuenbrietzen in Brandenburg, Prussia, and originally studied theology at Halle. During a temporary stay at Potsdam he had an opportunity of showing his self-acquired skill as a pianist before King Frederick William II., who thereupon made him a yearly allowance to enable him to complete his musical studies. This he did under Naumann, a German composer of the Italian school, and the style of that school Himmel himself adopted in his serious operas. The first of these, a pastoral opera, Il Primo Navigatore, was produced at Venice in 1794 with great success. In 1792 he went to Berlin, where his oratorio Isaaco was produced, in consequence of which he was made court Kapellmeister to the king of Prussia, and in that capacity wrote a great deal of official music, including cantatas, and a coronation Te Deum. His Italian operas, successively composed for Stockholm, St Petersburg and Berlin, were all received with great favour in their day. Of much greater importance than these is an operetta to German words by Kotzebue, called Fanchon, an admirable specimen of the primitive form of the musical drama known in Germany as the Singspiel. Himmel’s gift of writing genuine simple melody is also observable in his songs, amongst which one called “To Alexis” is the best. He died in Berlin on the 8th of June 1814.

HINCKLEY, a market town in the Bosworth parliamentary division of Leicestershire, England, 14½ m. S.W. from Leicester on the Nuneaton-Leicester branch of the London & North-Western railway, and near the Ashby-de-la-Zouch canal. Pop. of urban district (1901), 11,304. The town is well situated on a considerable eminence. Among the principal buildings are the church of St Mary, a Decorated and Perpendicular structure, with lofty tower and spire; the Roman Catholic academy named St Peter’s Priory, and a grammar school. The ditch of a castle erected by Hugh de Grentismenil in the time of William Rufus is still to be traced. Hinckley is the centre of a stocking-weaving district, and its speciality is circular hose. It also possesses a boot-making industry, brick and tile works, and lime works. There are mineral springs in the neighbourhood.

HINCKS, EDWARD (1792-1866), British assyriologist, was born at Cork, Ireland, and educated at Trinity College, Dublin. He took orders in the Protestant Church of Ireland, and was rector of Killyleagh, Down, from 1825 till his death on the 3rd of December 1866. Hincks devoted his spare time to the study of hieroglyphics, and to the deciphering of the cuneiform script (see Cuneiform), in which he was a pioneer, working out contemporaneously with Sir H. Rawlinson, and independently of him, the ancient Persian vowel system. He published a number of original and scholarly papers on assyriological questions of the highest value, chiefly in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy.

HINCKS, SIR FRANCIS (1807-1885), Canadian statesman, was born at Cork, Ireland, the son of an Irish Presbyterian minister. In 1832 he engaged in business in Toronto, became a friend of Robert Baldwin, and in 1835 was chosen to examine the accounts of the Welland Canal, the management of which was being attacked by W. L. Mackenzie. This turned his attention to political life and in 1838 he founded the Examiner, a weekly paper in the Liberal interest. In 1841 he was elected M.P. for the county of Oxford, and in the following year was appointed inspector-general, the title then borne by the finance minister, but in 1843 resigned with Baldwin and the other ministers on the question of responsible government. In 1848 he again became inspector-general in the Baldwin-Lafontaine ministry, and on their retirement in 1851 became premier of Canada, his chief colleague being A. N. Morin (1803-1865). While premier he was prominent in the negotiations which led to the construction of the Grand Trunk railway, and in co-operation with Lord Elgin negotiated with the United States the reciprocity treaty of 1854. In the same year the bitter hostility of the “Clear Grits” under George Brown compelled his resignation, and he was prominent in the formation of the Liberal-Conservative Party. In 1855 he was chosen governor of Barbados and the Windward Islands, and subsequently governor of British Guiana. In 1869 he was created K.C.M.G. and returned to Canada, becoming till 1873 finance minister in the cabinet of Sir John Macdonald. In February of that year he resigned, but continued to take an active part in public life. In 1879 the failure of the Consolidated Bank of Canada, of which he was president, led to his being tried for issuing false statements. Though found guilty on a technicality (see Journal of the Canadian Bankers’ Association, April 1906) judgment was suspended, his personal credit remained unimpaired, and he continued to take part in the discussion of public questions till his death on the 18th of August 1885.

His writings include: The Political History of Canada between 1840 and 1855 (1877); The Political Destiny of Canada (1878), and his Reminiscences (1884).

HINCMAR (c. 805-882), archbishop of Reims, one of the most remarkable figures in the ecclesiastical history of France, belonged to a noble family of the north or north-east of Gaul. Destined, doubtless, to the monastic life, he was brought up at St Denis under the direction of the abbot Hilduin (d. 844), who brought him in 822 to the court of the emperor Louis the Pious. When Hilduin was disgraced in 830 for having joined the party of Lothair, Hincmar accompanied him into exile at Corvey in Saxony, but returned with him to St Denis when the abbot was reconciled with the emperor, and remained faithful to the emperor during his struggle with his sons. After the death of Louis the Pious (840) Hincmar supported Charles the Bald, and received from him the abbacies of Notre-Dame at Compiègne and St Germer de Fly. In 845 he obtained through the king’s support the archbishopric of Reims, and this choice was confirmed at the synod of Beauvais (April 845). Archbishop Ebbo, whom he replaced, had been deposed in 835 at the synod of Thionville (Diedenhofen) for having broken his oath of fidelity to the emperor Louis, whom he had deserted to join the party of Lothair. After the death of Louis, Ebbo succeeded in regaining possession of his see for some years (840-844), but in 844 Pope Sergius II. confirmed his deposition. It was in these circumstances that Hincmar succeeded, and in 847 Pope Leo IV. sent him the pallium.

One of the first cares of the new prelate was the restitution to his metropolitan see of the domains that had been alienated under Ebbo and given as benefices to laymen. From the beginning of his episcopate Hincmar was in constant conflict with the clerks who had been ordained by Ebbo during his reappearance. These clerks, whose ordination was regarded as invalid by Hincmar and his adherents, were condemned in 853 at the council of Soissons, and the decisions of that council were confirmed in 855 by Pope Benedict III. This conflict, however, bred an antagonism of which Hincmar was later to feel the effects. During the next thirty years the archbishop of Reims played a very prominent part in church and state. His authoritative and energetic will inspired, and in great measure directed, the policy of the west Frankish kingdom until his death. He took an active part in all the great political and religious affairs of his time, and was especially energetic in defending and extending the rights of the church and of the metropolitans in general, and of the metropolitan of the church of Reims in particular. In the resulting conflicts, in which his personal interest was in question, he displayed great activity and a wide knowledge of canon law, but did not scruple to resort to disingenuous interpretation of texts. His first encounter was with the heresiarch Gottschalk, whose predestinarian doctrines claimed to be modelled on those of St Augustine. Hincmar placed himself at the head of the party that regarded Gottschalk’s doctrines as heretical, and succeeded in procuring the arrest and imprisonment of his adversary (849). For a part at least of his doctrines Gottschalk found ardent defenders, such as Lupus of Ferrières, the deacon Florus and Amolo of Lyons. Through the energy and activity of Hincmar the theories of Gottschalk were condemned at Quierzy (853) and Valence (855), and the decisions of these two synods were confirmed at the synods of Langres and Savonnières, near Toul (859). To refute the predestinarian heresy Hincmar composed his De praedestinatione Dei et libero arbitrio, and against certain propositions advanced by Gottschalk on the Trinity he wrote a treatise called De una et non trina deitate. Gottschalk died in prison in 868. The question of the divorce of Lothair II., king of Lorraine, who had repudiated his wife Theutberga to marry his concubine Waldrada, engaged Hincmar’s literary activities in another direction. At the request of a number of great personages in Lorraine he composed in 860 his De divortio Lotharii et Teutbergae, in which he vigorously attacked, both from the moral and the legal standpoints, the condemnation pronounced against the queen by the synod of Aix-la-Chapelle (February 860). Hincmar energetically supported the policy of Charles the Bald in Lorraine, less perhaps from devotion to the king’s interests than from a desire to see the whole of the ecclesiastical province of Reims united under the authority of a single sovereign, and in 869 it was he who consecrated Charles at Metz as king of Lorraine.

In the middle of the 9th century there appeared in Gaul the collection of false decretals commonly known as the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals. The exact date and the circumstances of the composition of the collection are still an open question, but it is certain that Hincmar was one of the first to know of their existence, and apparently he was not aware that the documents were forged. The importance assigned by these decretals to the bishops and the provincial councils, as well as to the direct intervention of the Holy See, tended to curtail the rights of the metropolitans, of which Hincmar was so jealous. Rothad, bishop of Soissons, one of the most active members of the party in favour of the pseudo-Isidorian theories, immediately came into collision with his archbishop. Deposed in 863 at the council of Soissons, presided over by Hincmar, Rothad appealed to Rome. Pope Nicholas I. supported him zealously, and in 865, in spite of the protests of the archbishop of Reims, Arsenius, bishop of Orta and legate of the Holy See, was instructed to restore Rothad to his episcopal see. Hincmar experienced another check when he endeavoured to prevent Wulfad, one of the clerks deposed by Ebbo, from obtaining the archbishopric of Bourges with the support of Charles the Bald. After a synod held at Soissons, Nicholas I. pronounced himself in favour of the deposed clerks, and Hincmar was constrained to make submission (866). He was more successful in his contest with his nephew Hincmar, bishop of Laon, who was at first supported both by the king and by his uncle, the archbishop of Reims, but soon quarrelled with both. Hincmar of Laon refused to recognize the authority of his metropolitan, and entered into an open struggle with his uncle, who exposed his errors in a treatise called Opusculum LV. capitulorum, and procured his condemnation and deposition at the synod of Douzy (871). The bishop of Laon was sent into exile, probably to Aquitaine, where his eyes were put out by order of Count Boso. Pope Adrian protested against his deposition, but it was confirmed in 876 by Pope John VIII., and it was not until 878, at the council of Troyes, that the unfortunate prelate was reconciled with the Church. A serious conflict arose between Hincmar on the one side and Charles and the pope on the other in 876, when Pope John VIII., at the king’s request, entrusted Ansegisus, archbishop of Sens, with the primacy of the Gauls and of Germany, and created him vicar apostolic. In Hincmar’s eyes this was an encroachment on the jurisdiction of the archbishops, and it was against this primacy that he directed his treatise De jure metropolitanorum. At the same time he wrote a life of St Remigius, in which he endeavoured by audacious falsifications to prove the supremacy of the church of Reims over the other churches. Charles the Bald, however, upheld the rights of Ansegisus at the synod of Ponthion. Although Hincmar had been very hostile to Charles’s expedition into Italy, he figured among his testamentary executors and helped to secure the submission of the nobles to Louis the Stammerer, whom he crowned at Compiègne (8th of December 877).

During the reign of Louis, Hincmar played an obscure part. He supported the accession of Louis III. and Carloman, but had a dispute with Louis, who wished to instal a candidate in the episcopal see of Beauvais without the archbishop’s assent. To Carloman, on his accession in 882, Hincmar addressed his De ordine palatii, partly based on a treatise (now lost) by Adalard, abbot of Corbie (c. 814), in which he set forth his system of government and his opinion of the duties of a sovereign, a subject he had already touched in his De regis persona et regio ministerio, dedicated to Charles the Bald at an unknown date, and in his Instructio ad Ludovicum regem, addressed to Louis the Stammerer on his accession in 877. In the autumn of 832 an irruption of the Normans forced the old archbishop to take refuge at Epernay, where he died on the 21st of December 882. Hincmar was a prolific writer. Besides the works already mentioned, he was the author of several theological tracts; of the De villa Noviliaco, concerning the claiming of a domain of his church; and he continued from 861 the Annales Bertiniani, of which the first part was written by Prudentius, bishop of Troyes, the best source for the history of Charles the Bald. He also wrote a great number of letters, some of which are extant, and others embodied in the chronicles of Flodoard.

Hincmar’s works, which are the principal source for the history of his life, were collected by Jacques Sirmond (Paris, 1645), and reprinted by Migne, Patrol. Latina, vol. cxxv. and cxxvi. See also C. von Noorden, Hinkmar, Erzbischof von Reims (Bonn, 1863), and, especially, H. Schrörs, Hinkmar, Erzbischof von Reims (Freiburg-im-Breisgau, 1884). For Hincmar’s political and ecclesiastical theories see preface to Maurice Prou’s edition of the De ordine palatii (Paris, 1885), and the abbé Lesné, La Hiérarchie épiscopale en Gaule et en Germanie (Paris, 1905).

(R. Po.)

HIND, the female of the red-deer, usually taken as being three years old and over, the male being known as a “hart.” It is sometimes also applied to the female of other species of deer. The word appears in several Teutonic languages, cf. Dutch and Ger. Hinde, and has been connected with the Goth. hinÞan (hinthan), to seize, which may be connected ultimately with “hand” and “hunt.” “Hart,” from the O.E. heort, may be in origin connected with the root of Gr. κέρας, horn. “Hind” (O.E. hine, probably from the O.E. hinan, members of a family or household), meaning a servant, especially a labourer on a farm, is another word. In Scotland the “hind” is a farm servant, with a cottage on the farm, and duties and responsibilities that make him superior to the rest of the labourers. Similarly “hind” is used in certain parts of northern England as equivalent to “bailiff.”

HINDERSIN, GUSTAV EDUARD VON (1804-1872), Prussian general, was born at Wernigerode near Halberstadt on the 18th of July 1804. He was the son of a priest and received a good education. His earlier life was spent in great poverty, and the struggle for existence developed in him an iron strength of character. Entering the Prussian artillery in 1820 he became an officer in 1825. From 1830 to 1837 he attended the Allgemeine Kriegsakademie at Berlin, and in 1841, while still a subaltern, he was posted to the great General Staff, in which he afterwards directed the topographical section. In 1849 he served with the rank of major on the staff of General Peucker, who commanded a federal corps in the suppression of the Baden insurrection. He fell into the hands of the insurgents at the action of Ladenburg, but was released just before the fall of Rastadt. In the Danish war of 1864 Hindersin, now lieutenant-general, directed the artillery operations against the lines of Düppel, and for his services was ennobled by the king of Prussia. Soon afterwards he became inspector-general of artillery. His experience at Düppel had convinced him that the days of the smooth-bore gun were past, and he now devoted himself with unremitting zeal to the rearmament and reorganization of the Prussian artillery. The available funds were small, and grudgingly voted by the parliament. There was a strong feeling moreover that the smooth-bore was still tactically superior to its rival (see Artillery, § 19). There was no practical training for war in either the field or the fortress artillery units. The latter had made scarcely any progress since the days of Frederick the Great, and before von Hindersin’s appointment had practised with the same guns in the same bastion year after year. All this was altered, the whole “foot-artillery” was reorganized, manoeuvres were instituted, and the smooth-bores were, except for ditch defence, eliminated from the armament of the Prussian fortresses. But far more important was his work in connexion with the field and horse batteries. In 1864 only one battery in four had rifled guns, but by the unrelenting energy of von Hindersin the outbreak of war with Austria one and a half years later found the Prussians with ten in every sixteen batteries armed with the new weapon. But the battles of 1866 showed, besides the superiority of the rifled gun, a very marked absence of tactical efficiency in the Prussian artillery, which was almost always outmatched by that of the enemy. Von Hindersin had pleaded, in season and out of season, for the establishment of a school of gunnery; and in spite of want of funds, such a school had already been established. After 1866, however, more support was obtained, and the improvement in the Prussian field artillery between 1866 and 1870 was extraordinary, even though there had not been time for the work of the school to leaven the whole arm. Indeed, the German artillery played by far the most important part in the victories of the Franco-German war. Von Hindersin accompanied the king’s headquarters as chief of artillery, as he had done in 1866, and was present at Gravelotte, Sedan and the siege of Paris. But his work, which was now accomplished, had worn out his physical powers, and he died on the 23rd of January 1872 at Berlin.

See Bartholomäus, Der General der Infanterie von Hindersin (Berlin, 1895), and Prince Kraft zu Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen, Letters on Artillery (translated by Major Walford, R.A.), No. xi.

HINDĪ, EASTERN, one of the “intermediate” Indo-Aryan languages (see Hindostani). It is spoken in Oudh, Baghelkhand and Chhattisgarh by over 22,000,000 people. It is derived from the Apabhraṁśa form of Ardhamāgadhī Prakrit (see Prakrit), and possesses a large and important literature. Its most famous writer was Tulsī Dās, the poet and reformer, who died early in the 17th century, and since his time it has been the North-Indian language employed for epic poetry.

HINDĪ, WESTERN, the Indo-Aryan language of the middle and upper Gangetic Doab, and of the country to the north and south. It is the vernacular of over 40,000,000 people. Its standard dialect is Braj Bhāshā, spoken near Muttra, which has a considerable literature mainly devoted to the religion founded on devotion to Krishna. Another dialect spoken near Delhi and in the upper Gangetic Doab is the original from which Hindostani, the great lingua franca of India, has developed (see Hindostani). Western Hindī, like Punjabi, its neighbour to the west, is descended from the Apabhraṁśa form of Śaurasēnī Prakrit (see Prakrit), and represents the language of the Madhyadēśa or Midland, as distinct from the intermediate and outer Indo-Aryan languages.

HINDKI, the name given to the Hindus who inhabit Afghanistan. They are of the Khatri class, and are found all over the country even amongst the wildest tribes. Bellew in his Races of Afghanistan estimates their number at about 300,000. The name Hindki is also loosely used on the upper Indus, in Dir, Bajour, &c., to denote the speakers of Punjabi or any of its dialects. It is sometimes applied in a historical sense to the Buddhist inhabitants of the Peshawar Valley north of the Kabul river, who were driven thence about the 5th or 6th century and settled in the neighbourhood of Kandahar.

HINDLEY, an urban district in the Ince parliamentary division of Lancashire, England, 2 m. E.S.E. of Wigan, on the Lancashire & Yorkshire and Great Central railways. Pop. (1901) 23,504. Cotton spinning and the manufacture of cotton goods are the principal industries, and there are extensive coal-mines in the neighbourhood. It is recorded that in the time of the Puritan revolution Hindley church was entered by the Cavaliers, who played at cards in the pews, pulled down the pulpit and tore the Bible in pieces.

HINDOSTANI (properly Hindōstāni, of or belonging to Hindostan1), the name given by Europeans to an Indo-Aryan dialect (whose home is in the upper Gangetic Doab and near the city of Delhi), which, owing to political causes, has become the great lingua franca of modern India. The name is not employed by natives of India, except as an imitation of the English nomenclature. Hindostani is by origin a dialect of Western Hindi, and it is first of all necessary to explain what we mean by the term “Hindi” as applied to language. Modern Indo-Aryan languages fall into three groups,—an outer band, the language of the Midland and an intermediate band. The Midland consists of the Gangetic Doab and of the country to its immediate north and south, extending, roughly speaking, from the Eastern Punjab on the west, to Cawnpore on its east. The language of this tract is called “Western Hindi”; to its west we have Panjabi (of the Central Punjab), and to the east, reaching as far as Benares, Eastern Hindi, both Intermediate languages. These three will all be dealt with in the present article. Panjabi and Western Hindi are derived from Śaurasēnī, and Eastern Hindi from Ardham gadhā Prakrit, through the corresponding Apabhraṁśas (see Prakrit). Eastern Hindi differs in many respects from the two others, but it is customary to consider it together with the language of the Midland, and this will be followed on the present occasion. In 1901 the speakers of these three languages numbered: Panjabi, 17,070,961; Western Hindi, 40,714,925; Eastern Hindi, 22,136,358.

Linguistic Boundaries.—Taking the tract covered by these three forms of speech, it has to its west, in the western Punjab, Lanndā (see Sindhi), a language of the Outer band. The parent of Lahndā once no doubt covered the whole of the Punjab, but, in the process of expansion of the tribes of the Midland described in the article Indo-Aryan Languages, it was gradually driven back, leaving traces of its former existence which grow stronger as we proceed westwards, until at about the 74th degree of east longitude there is a mixed, transition dialect. To the west of that degree Lahndā may be said to be established, the deserts of the west-central Punjab forming a barrier and protecting it, just as, farther south, a continuation of the same desert has protected Sindhi from Rajasthani. It is the old traces of Lahndā which mainly differentiate Panjabi from Hindostani. To the south of Panjabi and Western Hindi lies Rajasthani. This language arose in much the same way as Panjabi. The expanding Midland language was stopped by the desert from reaching Sindhi, but to the south-west it found an unobstructed way into Gujarat, where, under the form of Gujarati, it broke the continuity of the Outer band. Eastern Hindi, as an Intermediate form of speech, is of much older lineage. It has been an Intermediate language since, at least, the institution of Jainism (say, 500 B.C.), and is much less subject to the influence of the Midland than is Panjabi. To its east it has Bihari, and, stretching far to the south, it has Marathi as its neighbour in that direction, both of these being Outer languages.

Dialects.—The only important dialect of Eastern Hindi is Awadhī, spoken in Oudh, and possessing a large literature of great excellence. Chhattīsgaṛhī and Baghēlī, the other dialects, have scanty literatures of small value. Western Hindi has four main dialects, Bundēlī of Bundelkhand, Braj Bhasha (properly “Braj Bhāṣā”) of the country round Mathura (Muttra), Kanaujī of the central Doab and the country to its north, and vernacular Hindostani of Delhi and the Upper Doab. West of the Upper Doab, across the Jumna, another dialect, Bāngarū, is also found. It possesses no literature. Kanauji is very closely allied to Braj Bhasha, and these two share with Awadhi the honour of being the great literary speeches of northern India. Nearly all the classical literature of India is religious in character, and we may say that, as a broad rule, Awadhi literature is devoted to the Ramaite religion and the epic poetry connected with it, while that of Braj Bhasha is concerned with the religion of Krishna. Vernacular Hindostani has no literature of its own, but as the lingua franca now to be described it has a large one. Panjabi has one dialect, Dōgrī, spoken in the Himalayas.

Hindostani as a Lingua Franca.—It has often been said that Hindostani is a mongrel “pigeon” form of speech made up of contributions from the various languages which met in Delhi bazaar, but this theory has now been proved to be unfounded, owing to the discovery of the fact that it is an actual living dialect of Western Hindi, existing for centuries in its present habitat, and the direct descendant of Śaurasēnī Prakrit. It is not a typical dialect of that language, for, situated where it is, it represents Western Hindi merging into Panjabi (Braj Bhasha being admittedly the standard of the language), but to say that it is a mongrel tongue thrown together in the market is to reverse the order of events. It was the natural language of the people in the neighbourhood of Delhi, who formed the bulk of those who resorted to the bazaar, and hence it became the bazaar language. From here it became the lingua franca of the Mogul camp and was carried everywhere in India by the lieutenants of the empire. It has several recognized varieties, amongst which we may mention Dakhinī, Urdū, Rēkhta and Hindī. Dakhini or “southern,” is the form current in the south of India, and was the first to be employed for literature. It contains many archaic expressions now extinct in the standard dialect. Urdu, or Urdū zabān, “the language of the camp,” is the name usually employed for Hindostani by natives, and is now the standard form of speech used by Mussulmans. All the early Hindostani literature was in poetry, and this literary form of speech was named “Rēkhta,” or “scattered,” from the way in which words borrowed from Persian were “scattered” through it. The name is now reserved for the dialect used in poetry, Urdu being the dialect of prose and of conversation. The introduction of these borrowed words, which has been carried to even a greater extent in Urdu, was facilitated by the facts that the latter was by origin a “camp” language, and that Persian was the official language of the Mogul court. In this way Persian (and, with Persian, Arabic) words came into current use, and, though the language remained Indo-Aryan in its grammar and essential characteristics, it soon became unintelligible to any one who had not at least a moderate acquaintance with the vocabulary of Iran. This extreme Persianization of Urdu was due rather to Hindu than to Persian influence. Although Urdu literature was Mussulman in its origin, the Persian element was first introduced in excess by the pliant Hindu officials employed in the Mogul administration, and acquainted with Persian, rather than by Persians and Persianized Moguls, who for many centuries used only their own languages for literary purposes.2 Prose Urdu literature took its origin in the English occupation of India and the need for text-books for the college of Fort William. It has had a prosperous career since the commencement of the 19th century, but some writers, especially those of Lucknow, have so overloaded it with Persian and Arabic that little of the original Indo-Aryan character remains, except, perhaps, an occasional pronoun or auxiliary verb. The Hindi form of Hindostani was invented simultaneously with Urdu prose by the teachers at Fort William. It was intended to be a Hindostani for the use of Hindus, and was derived from Urdu by ejecting all words of Persian or Arabic birth, and substituting for them words either borrowed from Sanskrit (tatsamas) or derived from the old primary Prakrit (tadbhavas) (see Indo-Aryan Languages). Owing to the popularity of the first book written in it, and to its supplying the need for a lingua franca which could be used by the most patriotic Hindus without offending their religious prejudices, it became widely adopted, and is now the recognized vehicle for writing prose by those inhabitants of northern India who do not employ Urdu. This Hindi, which is an altogether artificial product of the English, is hardly ever used for poetry. For this the indigenous dialects (usually Awadhi or Braj Bhasha) are nearly always employed by Hindus. Urdu, on the other hand, having had a natural growth, has a vigorous poetical literature. Modern Hindi prose is often disfigured by that too free borrowing of Sanskrit words instead of using home-born tadbhavas, which has been the ruin of Bengali, and it is rapidly becoming a Hindu counterpart of the Persianized Urdu, neither of which is intelligible except to persons of high education.

Not only has Urdu adopted a Persian vocabulary, but even a few peculiarities of Persian construction, such as reversing the positions of the governing and the governed word (e.g. báp mērā for mērā bāp), or of the adjective and the substantive it qualifies, or such as the use of Persian phrases with the preposition ba instead of the native postposition of the ablative case (e.g. ba-khushí for khushī-sē, or ba-ḥukm sarkār-kē instead of sarkār-kē ḥukm-sē) are to be met with in many writings; and these, perhaps, combined with the too free indulgence on the part of some authors in the use of high-flown and pedantic Persian and Arabic words in place of common and yet chaste Indian words, and the general use of the Persian instead of the Nāgarī character, have induced some to regard Hindostani or Urdu as a language distinct from Hindi. But such a view betrays a radical misunderstanding of the whole question. We must define Urdu as the Persianized Hindostani of educated Mussulmans, while Hindi is the Sanskritized Hindostani of educated Hindus. As for the written character, Urdu, from the number of Persian words which it contains, can only be written conveniently in the Persian character, while Hindi, for a parallel reason, can only be written in the Nagari or one of its related alphabets (see Sanskrit). On the other hand, “Hindostani” implies the great lingua franca of India, capable of being written in either character, and, without purism, avoiding the excessive use of either Persian or Sanskrit words when employed for literature. It is easy to write this Hindostani, for it has an opulent vocabulary of tadbhava words understood everywhere by both Mussulmans and Hindus. While “Hindostani,” “Urdu” and “Hindi” are thus names of dialects, it should be remembered that the terms “Western Hindi” and “Eastern Hindi” connote, not dialects, but languages.

The epoch of Akbar, which first saw a regular revenue system established, with toleration and the free use of their religion to the Hindus, was, there can be little doubt, the period of the formation of the language. But its final consolidation did not take place till the reign of Shah Jahān. After the date of this monarch the changes are comparatively immaterial until we come to the time when European sources began to mingle with those of the East. Of the contributions from these sources there is little to say. Like the greater part of those from Arabic and Persian, they are chiefly nouns, and may be regarded rather as excrescences which have sprung up casually and have attached themselves to the original trunk than as ingredients duly incorporated in the body. In the case of the Persian and Arabic element, indeed, we do find not a few instances in which nouns have been furnished with a Hindi termination, e.g. kharīdnā, badalnā, guzarnā, dāghnā, bakhshnaā, kamīnapan, &c.; but the European element cannot be said to have at all woven itself into the grammar of the language. It consists, as has been observed, solely of nouns, principally substantive nouns, which on their admission into the language are spelt phonetically, or according to the corrupt pronunciation they receive in the mouths of the natives, and are declined like the indigenous nouns by means of the usual postpositions or case-affixes. A few examples will suffice. The Portuguese, the first in order of seniority, contributes a few words, as kamarā or kamrā (camera), a room; mārtōl (martello), a hammer; nīlām (leilão), an auction, &c. &c. Of French and Dutch influence scarcely a trace exists. English has contributed a number of words, some of which have even found a place in the literature of the language; e.g. kamishanar (commissioner); jaj (judge); ḍākṭar (doctor); ḍākṭarī, “the science of medicine” or “the profession of physicians”; inspēkṭar (inspector); isṭanṭ (assistant); sōsayaṭí (society); apīl (appeal); apīl karnā, “to appeal”; ḍikrī or ḍigrī (decree); ḍigrī (degree); inc (inch); fut (foot); and many more, are now words commonly used. Some borrowed words are distorted into the shape of genuine Hindostani words familiar to the speakers; e.g. the English railway term “signal” has become sikandar, the native name for Alexander the Great, and “signal-man” is sikandar-mān, or “the pride of Alexander.” How far the free use of Anglicisms will be adopted as the language progresses is a question upon which it would be hazardous to pronounce an opinion, but of late years it has greatly increased in the language of the educated, especially in the case of technical terms. A native veterinary surgeon once said to the present writer, “kuttē-kā saliva bahut antiseptic hai” for “a dog’s saliva is very antiseptic,” and this is not an extravagant example.3

The vocabulary of Panjabi and Eastern Hindi is very similar to that of Western Hindi. Panjabi has no literature to speak of and is free from the burden of words borrowed from Persian or Sanskrit, only the commonest and simplest of such being found in it. Its vocabulary is thus almost entirely tadbhava, and, while capable of expressing all ideas, it has a charming rustic flavour, like the Lowland Scotch of Burns, indicative of the national character of the sturdy peasantry that employs it. Eastern Hindi is very like Panjabi in this respect, but for a different reason. In it were written the works of Tulsī Dās, one of the greatest writers that India has produced, and his influence on the language has been as great as that of Shakespeare on English. The peasantry are continually quoting him without knowing it, and his style, simple and yet vigorous, thoroughly Indian and yet free from purism, has set a model which is everywhere followed except in the large towns where Urdu or Sanskritized Hindi prevails. Eastern Hindi is written in the Nāgarī alphabet, or in the current character related to it called “Kaithi” (see Bihari). The indigenous alphabet of the Punjab is called Laṇḍā or “clipped.” It is related to Nāgarī, but is hardly legible to any one except the original writer, and sometimes not even to him. To remedy this defect an improved form of the alphabet was devised in the 16th century by Angad, the fifth Sikh Guru, for the purpose of recording the Sikh scriptures. It was named Gurmukhī, “proceeding from the mouth of the Guru,” and is now generally used for writing the language.

Grammar.—In the following account we use these contractions: Skr. = Sanskrit; Pr. = Prakrit; Ap. = Apabhraṁśa; W.H. = Western Hindi; E.H. = Eastern Hindi; H. = Hindostani; Br. = Braj Bhasha; P. = Panjabi.

(A) Phonetics.—The phonetic system of all three languages is nearly the same as that of the Apabhraṁśas from which they are derived. With a few exceptions, to be noted below, the letters of the alphabets of the three languages are the same as in Sanskrit. Panjabi, and the western dialects of Western Hindi, have preserved the old Vedic cerebral l. There is a tendency for concurrent vowels to run into each other, and for the semi-vowels y and v to become vowels. Thus, Skr. carmakāras, Ap. cammaāru, a leather-worker, becomes H. camār; Skr. rajani, Ap. ra(y)aṇi, H. rain, night; Skr. dhavalakas, Ap. dhavalau, H. dhaulā, white. Sometimes the semi-vowel is retained, as in Skr. kātaras, Ap. kā(y)aru, H. kāyar, a coward. Almost the only compound consonants which survived in the Pr. stage were double letters, and in W.H. and E.H. these are usually simplified, the preceding vowel being lengthened and sometimes nasalized, in compensation. P., on the other hand, prefers to retain the double consonant. Thus, Skr. karma, Ap. kammu, W.H. and E.H. kām, but P. kamm, a work; Skr. satyas, Ap. saccu, W.H. and E.H. sāc, but P. sacc, true (H., being the W.H. dialect which lies nearest to P., often follows that language, and in this instance has sacc, usually written sac); Skr. hastas, Ap. hatthu, W.H. and E.H. hāth, but P. hatth, a hand. The nasalization of vowels is very frequent in all three languages, and is here represented by the sign ~ over the vowel. Sometimes it is compensatory, as in sãc, but it often represents an original m, as in kawãl from Skr. kamalas, a lotus. Final short vowels quiesce in prose pronunciation, and are usually not written in transliteration; thus the final a, i or u has been lost in all the examples given above, and other tatsama examples are Skr. mati-which becomes mat, mind, and Skr. vastu-, which becomes bast, a thing. In all poetry, however (except in the Urdū poetry formed on Persian models, and under the rules of Persian prosody), they reappear and are necessary for the scansion.

In tadbhava words an original long vowel in any syllable earlier than the penultimate is shortened. In P. and H. when the long vowel is ē or ō it is shortened to i or u respectively, but in other W.H. dialects and in E.H. it is shortened to e or o; thus, bēṭī, daughter, long form H. biṭiyā, E.H. beṭiyā; ghōṛī, mare, long form H. ghuṛiyā, E.H. ghoṛiyā. The short vowels e and o are very rare in P. and H., but are not uncommon (though ignored by most grammars) in E.H. and the other W.H. dialects. A medial ḍ is pronounced as a strongly burred cerebral ṛ, and is then written as shown, with a supposited dot. All these changes and various contractions of Prakrit syllables have caused considerable variations in the forms of words, but generally not so as to obscure the origin.

(B) Declension.—The nominative form of a tadbhava word is derived from the nominative form in Sanskrit and Prakrit, but tatsama words are usually borrowed in the form of the Skr. crude base; thus, Skr. hastin-, nom. hastī, Ap. nom. hatthī, H. hāthī, an elephant; Skr. base mati-, nom. matis, H. (tatsama) mati, or, with elision of the final short vowel, mat. Some tatsamas are, however, borrowed in the nominative form, as in Skr. dhanin-, nom. dhanī, H. dhanī, a rich man. As another example of a tadbhava word, we may take the Skr. nom. ghōṭas, Ap. ghōḍu, H. ghōṛ, a horse. Here again the final short vowel has been elided, but in old poetry we should find ghōṛu, and corresponding forms in u are occasionally met with at the present day.

In the article Prakrit attention is drawn to the frequent use of pleonastic suffixes, especially -ka- (fem.-(i)kā). With such a suffix we have the Skr. ghōṭa-kas, Ap. ghōḍa-u, Western Hindi ghoṛau, or in P. and H. (which is the W.H. dialect nearest in locality to P.) ghōṛā, a horse; Skr. ghōṭi-kā, Ap. ghōḍi-ā, W.H. and P. ghōḍī, a mare. Such modern forms made with one pleonastic suffix are called “strong forms,” while those made without it are called “weak forms.” All strong forms end in au (or ā) in the masculine, and in ī in the feminine, whereas, in Skr., and hence in tatsamas, both ā and ī are generally typical of feminine words, though sometimes employed for the masculine. It is shown in the article Prakrit that these pleonastic suffixes can be doubled, or even trebled, and in this way we have a new series of tadbhava forms. Let us take the imaginary Skr. *ghōṭa-ka-kas with a double suffix. From this we have the Ap. ghōḍa-a-u, and modern ghoṛawā (with euphonic w inserted), a horse. Similarly for the feminine we have Skr. *ghōṭi-ka-kā, Ap. ghōḍi-a-ā, modern ghoṛiyā (with euphonic y inserted), a mare. Such forms, made with two suffixes, are called “long forms,” and are heard in familiar conversation, the feminine also serving as diminutives. There is a further stage, built upon three suffixes, and called the “redundant form,” which is mainly used by the vulgar. As a rule masculine long forms end in -awā, -iyā or -uā, and feminines in -iyā, although the matter is complicated by the occasional use of pleonastic suffixes other than the -ka- which we have taken for our example, and is the most common. Strong forms are rarely met with in E.H., but on the other hand long forms are more common in that language.

There are a few feminine terminations of weak nouns which may be noted. These are -inī, -in, -an, -nī (Skr. -inī, Pr. -iṇī); and -ānī, -āni, -āin (Skr. -ānī, Pr. -āṇī). These are found not only in words derived from Prakrit, but are added to Persian and even Arabic words; thus, hathinī, hathnī, hāthin (Skr. hastinī, Pr. hatthiṇī), a she-elephant; sunārin, sunāran, a female goldsmith (sōnār); shērnī, a tigress (Persian shēr, a tiger); Naṣīban, a proper name (Arabic naṣīb); paṇḍitānī, the wife of a paṇḍit; caudhrāin, the wife of a caudhrī or head man; mehtrānī, the wife of a sweeper (Pres. mehtar, a sweeper). With these exceptions weak forms rarely have any terminations distinctive of gender.4

The synthetic declension of Sanskrit and Prakrit has disappeared. We see it in the actual stage of disappearance in Apabhraṁśa (see Prakrit), in which the case terminations had become worn down to -hu, -ho, -hi, -hī and -hã, of which -hi and -hĩ were employed for several cases, both singular and plural. There was also a marked tendency for these terminations to be confused, and in the earliest stages of the modern vernaculars we find -hi freely employed for any oblique case of the singular, and -hī for any oblique case of the plural, but more especially for the genitive and the locative. In the case of modern weak nouns these terminations have disappeared altogether in W.H. and P. except in sporadic forms of the locative such as gãwē (for gãwahi), in the village. In E.H. they are still heard as the termination of a form which can stand for any oblique case, and is called the “oblique form” or the “oblique case.” Thus, from ghar, a house (a weak noun), we have W.H. and P. oblique form ghar, E.H. gharahi, gharē or ghar. In the plural, the oblique form is sometimes founded on the Ap. terminations -hã and -hu, and sometimes on the Skr. termination of the genitive plural -ānām (Pr. -āṇa, -aṇhaṃ), as in P. gharã, W.H. gharaū, gharõ, gharani, E.H. gharan. In the case of masculine weak forms, the plural nominative has dropped the old termination, except in E.H., where it has adopted the oblique plural form for this case also, thus gharan. The nominative plural of feminine weak forms follows the example of the masculine in E.H. In P. it also takes the oblique plural form, while in W.H. it takes the old singular oblique form in -ahĩ, which it weakens to aĩ or (H.) ẽ; thus bāt (fem.), a word, nom. plur. E.H. bāt-an, P. bāt-ã, W.H. bātaĩ or (H.) bāte.

Strong masculine bases in Ap. ended in -a-a (nom. -a-u); thus ghōḍa-a- (nom. ghōḍa-u), and adding -hi we get ghōḍa-a-hi, which becomes contracted ghōḍāhi and finally to ghōṛē. The nominative plural is the same as the oblique singular, except in E.H. where it follows the oblique plural. The oblique plural of all closely follows in principle the weak forms. Feminine strong forms in Ap. ended in -i-ā, contracted to ī in the modern languages. Except in E.H. the -hi of the original oblique form singular disappears, so that we have E.H. ghōṛihi or ghōṛī, others only ghōṛī. The nominative plural of feminine strong forms exhibits some irregularities. In E.H., as usual, it follows the plural oblique forms. In W.H. (except Hindostani) it simply nasalizes the oblique form singular (i.e. adds -hĩ instead of -hi), as in ghōrĩ, but first on line looks like -hĩ]. P. and H. adopt the oblique long form for the plural and nasalize it, thus, P. ghōṛīã, H. ghōṛiyã. The oblique plurals call for no further remarks. We thus get the following summary, illustrating the way in which these nominative and oblique forms are made.

Panjabi. Hindostani. Braj Bhasha. Eastern Hindi.

Weak Noun Masc.—

Nom. Sing. ghar ghar ghar ghar

Obl. Sing. ghar ghar ghar ghar, gharahi

Nom. Plur. ghar ghar ghar gharan

Obl. Plur. gharã gharõ gharaũ, gharani gharan

Strong Noun Masc.—

Nom. Sing. ghōṛā ghōṛā ghōṛau ghōṛā

Obl. Sing. ghōṛē ghōṛē ghōṛē, ghōṛai ghōṛā, ghōṛē

Nom. Plur. ghōṛē ghōṛē ghōṛē ghōṛan

Obl. Plur. ghōṛiã ghōṛō ghōṛaũ, ghōṛani ghōṛan

Weak Noun Fem.—

Nom. Sing. bāt bāt bāt bāt

Obl. Sing. bāt bāt bāt bāt

Nom. Plur. bātã bātẽ bātaī bātan

Obl. Plur. bātã bātõ bātaū, bātani bātan

Strong Noun Fem.—

Nom. Sing. ghōṛī ghōṛī ghōṛī ghōṛī

Obl. Sing. ghōṛī ghōṛī ghōṛī ghōṛī, ghōṛihi

Nom. Plur. ghōṛīã ghōṛiyã ghōṛĩ ghōṛin

Obl. Plur. ghōṛīã ghōṛiyõ ghōṛiyaũ, ghōṛiyani ghōṛin

We have seen that the oblique form is the resultant of a general melting down of all the oblique cases of Sanskrit and Prakrit, and that in consequence it can be used for any oblique case. It is obvious that if it were so employed it would often give rise to great confusion. Hence, when it is necessary to show clearly what particular case is intended, it is usual to add defining particles corresponding to the English prepositions “of,” “to,” “from,” “by,” &c., which, as in all Indo-Aryan languages they follow the main word, are here called “postpositions.” The following are the postpositions commonly employed to form cases in our three languages:—

Agent. Genitive. Dative. Ablative. Locative.

Panjabi nai dā nũ tē vicc

Hindostani nē kā kō sē mẽ

Braj Bhasha nẽ kau kaũ tẽ, saũ maĩ

Eastern Hindi None kēr, k kã sē mẽ, bikhē

The agent case is the case which a noun takes when it is the subject of a transitive verb in a tense formed from the past participle. This participle is passive in origin, and must be construed passively. In the Prakrit stage the subject was in such cases put into the instrumental case (see Prakrit), as in the phrase ahaṁ tēṇa māriō, I by-him (was) struck, i.e. he struck me. In Eastern Hindi this is still the case, the old instrumental being represented by the oblique form without any suffix. The other two languages define the fact that the subject is in the instrumental (or agent) case by the addition of the postposition nē, &c., an old form employed elsewhere to define the dative. It is really the oblique form (by origin a locative) of nā or nō, which is employed in Gujarati (q.v.) for the genitive. As this suffix is never employed to indicate a material instrument but here only to indicate the agent or subject of a verb, it is called the postposition of the “agent” case.

The genitive postpositions have an interesting origin. In Buddhist Sanskrit the words kŗtas, done, and kŗtyas, to be done, were added to a noun to form a kind of genitive. A synonym of kŗtyas was kāryas. These three words were all adjectives, and agreed with the thing possessed in gender, number, and case; thus, māla-kŗtē karaṇḍē, in the basket of the garland, literally, in the garland-made basket. In the various dialects of Apabhraṁśa Prakrit kŗtas became (strong form) kida-u or kia-u, kŗtyas became kicca-u, and kāryas became kēra-u or kajja-u, the initial k of which is liable to elision after a vowel. With the exception of Gujarati (and perhaps Marathi, q.v.) every Indo-Aryan language has genitive postpositions derived from one or other of these forms. Thus from (ki)da-u we have Panjabi dā; from kia-u we have H. kā, Br. kau, E.H. and Bihari k and Naipali kō; from (ki)cca-u we have perhaps Marathi cā; from kēra-u, E.H. and Bihari kēr, kar, Bengali Oriya and Assamese -r, and Rajasthani -rō; while from (ka)jja-u we have the Sindhi jō. It will be observed that while k, kēr, kar, and r are weak forms, the rest are strong. As already stated, the genitive is an adjective. Bāp means “father,” and bāp-kā ghōrā is literally “the paternal horse.” Hence (while the weak forms as usual do not change) these genitives agree with the thing possessed in gender, number, and case. Thus, bāp-kā ghōṛā, the horse of the father, but bāp-kī ghōṛī, the mare of the father, and bāp-kē ghōṛē-kō, to the horse of the father, the kā being put into the oblique case masculine kē, to agree with ghōṛē, which is itself in an oblique case. The details of the agreement vary slightly in P. and W.H., and must be learnt from the grammars. The E.H. weak forms do not change in the modern language. Finally, in Prakrit it was customary to add these postpositions (kēra-u, &c.) to the genitive, as in mama or mama kēra-u, of me. Similarly these postpositions are, in the modern languages, added to the oblique form.

The locative of the Sanskrit kŗtas, kŗtē, was used in that language as a dative postposition, and it can be shown that all the dative postpositions given above are by origin old oblique forms of some genitive postposition. Thus H. kō, Br. kaũ, is a contraction of kahũ, an old oblique form of kia-u. Similarly for the others. The origin of the ablative postpositions is obscure. To the present writer they all seem (like the Bengal haïtē) to be connected with the verb substantive, but their derivation has not been definitely fixed. The locative postpositions mẽ and maī are derived from the Skr. madhyē, in, through majjhi, māhī, and so on. The derivation of vicc and bikhē is obscure.

Apabhraṁśa. Panjabi. Hindostani. Braj Bhasha. Eastern Hindi.

i, Nom. haū maī maĩ haũ maī

Obl. maī, mahu, majjhu mai mujh mohi mō

we, Nom. amhē asĩ ham ham ham

Obl. amahã asā hamõ hamaū, hamani ham

thou, Nom. tuhũ tũ tū tū taĩ

Obl. taĩ, tuha, tujjhu tai tujh tohi tō

you, Nom. tumhē tusĩ tum tum tum

Obl. tumhahã tusā tumhõ tumhaū tum

The pronouns closely follow the Prakrit originals. This will be evident from the preceding table of the first two personal pronouns compared with Apabhraṁśa.

It will be observed that in most of the nominatives of the first person, and in the E.H. nominative of the second person, the old nominative has disappeared, and its place has been supplied by an oblique form, exactly as we have observed in the nominative plural of nouns substantive. The P. asĩ, tusĩ, &c., are survivals from the old Lahndā (see Linguistic Boundaries, above). The genitives of these two pronouns are rarely used, possessive pronouns (in H. mērā, my; hamārā, our; tērā, thy; tumhārā, your) being employed instead. They can all (except P. asāḍā, our; tusāḍā, your, which are Lahndā) be referred to corresponding Ap. forms.

There is no pronoun of the third person, the demonstrative pronouns being used instead. The following table shows the principal remaining pronominal forms, with their derivation from Ap.:—

Apabhraṁśa. Panjabi. Hindostani. Braj Bhasha. Eastern Hindi.

that, he, Nom. ? uh woh wō ū

Obl. ? uh us wā ō

those, they, Nom. ōi ōh wē wai unh

Obl. ? unhã unh uni unh

this, he, Nom. ēhu ih yeh yah ī

Obl. ēhasu, ēhaho ih is yā ē

these, they, Nom. ēi ēh yē yai inh

Obl. ēhāṇa inhã inh ini inh

that, Nom. sō sō sō sō sē

Obl. tasu, taho tih tis tā tē

those, Nom. sē sō sō sō sē

Obl. tāṇa tinhã tinh tini tenh

who, Nom. jō jō jō jō jē

Obl. jasu, jaho jih jis jā jē

who (pl.), Nom. jē jō jō jō jē

Obl. jāṇa jinhã jinh jini jenh

who? Nom. kō, kawaṇu kauṇ kaun kō kē

Obl. kasu, kaho kih kis kā kē

who? (pl.), Nom. kē kauṇ kaun kō kē

Obl. kāṇa kinhã kinh kini kenh

what?(Neut.), Nom. kiṁ kiā kyā kahā kā

Obl. kāha, kāsu kāh, kās kāhē kāhē kāhē

The origin of the first pronoun given above (that, he; those, they) cannot be referred to Sanskrit. It is derived from an Indo-Aryan base which was not admitted to the classical literary language, but of which we find sporadic traces in Apabhraṁśa. The existence of this base is further vouched for by its occurrence in the Iranian language of the Avesta under the form ava-. The base of the second pronoun is the same as the base of the first syllable in the Skr. ē-ṣas, this, and other connected pronouns, and also occurs in the Avesta. Ap. ēhu is directly derived from ē-sas.

There are other pronominal forms upon which, except perhaps kōī (Pr. kō-vi, Skr. kō-’pi), any one, it is unnecessary to dwell. The phrase kōī hai? “Is any one (there)?” is the usual formula for calling a servant in upper India, and is the origin of the Anglo-Indian word “Qui-hi.” The reflexive pronoun is āp (Ap. appu, Skr. ātmā), self, which, something like the Latin suus (Skr. svas), always refers to the subject of the sentence, but to all persons, not only to the third. Thus maĩ apnē (not mērē) bāp-kō dēkhtā-hũ, “I see my father.”

C. Conjugation.—The synthetic conjugation was already commencing to disappear in Prakrit, and in the modern languages the only original tenses which remain are the present, the imperative, and here and there the future. The first is now generally employed as a present subjunctive. In the accompanying table we have the conjugation of this tense, and also the three participles, present active, and past and future passive, compared with Apabhraṁśa, the verb selected being the intransitive root call or cal, go. In Ap. the word may be spelt with one or with two ls, which accounts for the variations of spelling in the modern languages.

The imperative closely resembles the old present, except that it drops all terminations in the 2nd person singular; thus, cal, go thou.

In P. and H. a future is formed by adding the syllable gā (fem. gī) to the simple present. Thus, H. calũ-gā, I shall go. The gā is commonly said to be derived from the Skr. gatas (Pr. gaō), gone, but this suggestion is not altogether acceptable to the present writer, although he is not now able to propose a better. Under the form of -gau the same termination is used in Br., but in that dialect the old future has also survived, as in calihaũ (Ap. calihaũ, Skr. caliṣyāmi), I shall go, which is conjugated like the simple present. The E.H. formation of the future is closely analogous to what we find in Bihari (q.v.). The third person is formed as in Braj Bhasha, but the first and second persons are formed by adding pronominal suffixes, meaning “by me,” “by thee,” &c., to the future passive participle.

Apabhramśa. Panjabi. Hindostani. Braj Bjasja. Eastern Hindi.

Old Present—

Singular 1. callaũ callã calũ calaũ calaū

Singular 2. callasi, callahi callẽ calē calai calas

Singular 3. callai callē calē calai calai

Plural 1. callahū calliyē calẽ calaī calaī

Plural 2. callahu callō calō calau calau

Plural 3. callanti, callahĩ callaṇ calẽ calaī calaī

Present Participle callanta-u calldā caltā calatu calat

Past Part. Passive callia-u calliā calā calyau calā

Future Part. Passive callaṇia-u callṇā calnā calnaũ

calliavva-u . . . . caliwaũ calab

Thus, calab-ũ, it-is-to-be-gone by-me, I shall go. We thus get the following forms. It will be observed that, as in many other Indo-Aryan languages, the first person plural has no suffix:—

Sing. Plur.

1. calabũ calab

2. calabē calabō

3. calihai calihaī

In old E.H. the future participle passive, calab, takes no suffix for any person, and is used for all persons.

The last remark leads us to a class of tenses in P. and W.H., in which a participle, by itself, can be employed for any person of a finite tense. A few examples of the use of the present and past participles will show the construction. They are all taken from Hindostani. Woh caltā, he goes; woh caltī, she goes; maī calā, I went; woh calī, she went; wē calē, they went. The present participle in this construction, though it may be used to signify the present, is more commonly employed to signify a past conditional “(if) he had gone.” It will have been observed that in the above examples, in all of which the verb is intransitive, the past as well as the present participle agrees with the subject in gender and number; but, if the verb be transitive, the passive meaning of the past participle comes into force. The subject must be put into the case of the agent, and the participle inflects to agree with the object. If the object be not expressed, or, as sometimes happens, be expressed in the dative case, the participle is construed impersonally, and takes the masculine (for want of a neuter) form. Thus, maī-nē kahā, by-me it-was-said, i.e. I said; us-nē ciṭṭhī likhī, by-him a-letter (fem.) was-written, he wrote a letter; rājā-nē shērnī-kō mārā, the king killed the tigress, lit., by-the-king, with-reference-to-the-tigress, it (impersonal) -was-killed. In the article Prakrit it is shown that the same construction is obtained in that language.

In E.H. the construction is the same, but is obscured by the fact that (as in the future) pronominal suffixes are added to the participle to indicate the person of the subject or of the agent, as in calat-eũ, (if) I had gone; cal-eũ, I went; mār-eũ (transitive), I struck, lit., struck-by-me; mār-es, struck-by-him, he struck. If the participle has to be feminine, it (although a weak form) takes the feminine termination i, as in māri-ũ, I struck her; calati-ũ, (if) I (fem.) had gone; cali-ũ, I (fem.) went.

Further tenses are formed by adding the verb substantive to these participles, as in H. maĩ caltā-hū, I am going; maĩ caltā-thā, I was going; maĩ calā-hū, I have gone; maĩ calā-thā, I had gone. These and other auxiliary verbs need not detain us long. They differ in the various languages. For “I am” we have P. hã, H. hū, Br. haũ, E.H. bāṭyeũ or aheũ. For “I was” we have P. sī or sā, H. thā, Br. hau or hutau, E.H. raheũ. The H. hũ is thus conjugated:—

Sing. Plur.

1. hũ haĩ

2. hai hō

3. hai haī

The derivation of hã, hũ, haũ, and aheũ is uncertain. They are usually derived from the Skr. asmi, I am; but this presents many difficulties. An old form of the third person singular is hwai, and this points to the Pr. havaï, he is, equivalent to the Skr. bhavati, he becomes. On the other hand this does not account for the initial a of aheũ. This last word is in the form of a past tense, and it may be a secondary formation from asmi. The P. sī is not a feminine of sā, as usually stated, but is a survival of the Skr. āsīt, Pr. āsī, was. As in the Prakrit form, sī is employed for both genders, both numbers and all persons. Sā is a secondary formation from this, on the analogy of the H. thā, which is from the Skr. sthitas, Pr. thiō, stood, and is a participial form like calā; thus, woh thā, he was; woh thī, she was. The Br. hau is a modern past of haū, while hutau is probably by origin a present participle of the Skr. bhũ, become, Pr. huntaō. The E.H. bāṭeũ, is the Skr. vartē, Ap. vaṭṭaũ. Raheũ is the past tense of the root rah, remain.

The future participle passive is everywhere freely used as an infinitive or verbal noun; thus, H. calnā, E.H. calab, the act of going, to go. There is a whole series of derivative verbal forms, making potential passives and transitives from intransitives, and causals (and even double causals) from transitives. Thus dīkhnā, to be seen; potential passive, dikhānā, to be visible; transitive, dēkhnā, to see; causal, dikhlānā, to show.

D. Literature.—The literatures of Western and Eastern Hindi form the subject of a separate article (see Hindostani Literature). Panjabi has no formal literature. Even the Granth, the sacred book of the Sikhs, is mainly in archaic Western Hindi, only a small portion being in Panjabi. On the other hand, the language is peculiarly rich in folksongs and ballads, some of considerable length and great poetic beauty. The most famous is the ballad of Hīr and Rānjhā by Wāris Shāh, which is considered to be a model of pure Panjabi. Colonel Sir Richard Temple has published an important collection of these songs under the title of The Legends of the Punjab (3 vols., Bombay and London, 1884-1900), in which both texts and translations of nearly all the favourite ones are to be found.

Authorities.—(a) General: The two standard authorities are the comparative grammars of J. Beames (1872-1879) and A. F. R. Hoernle (1880), mentioned in the article Indo-Aryan Languages. To these may be added G. A. Grierson, “On the Radical and Participial Tenses of the Modern Indo-Aryan Languages” in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. lxiv. (1895), part i. pp. 352 et seq.; and “On Certain Suffixes in the Modern Indo-Aryan Vernaculars” in the Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung auf dem Gebiete der indogermanischen Sprachen for 1903, pp. 473 et seq.

(b) For the separate languages, see C. J. Lyall, A Sketch of the Hindustani Language (Edinburgh, 1880); S. H. Kellogg, A Grammar of the Hindi Language (for both Western and Eastern Hindi), (2nd ed., London, 1893); J. T. Platts, A Grammar of the Hindūstānī or Urdū Language (London, 1874); and A Dictionary of Urdū, Classical Hindi and English (London, 1884); E. P. Newton, Panjābī Grammar: with Exercises and Vocabulary (Ludhiana, 1898); and Bhai Maya Singh, The Panjabi Dictionary (Lahore, 1895). The Linguistic Survey of India, vol. vi., describes Eastern Hindi, and vol. ix., Hindostani and Panjabi, in each instance in great detail.

(G. A. Gr.)

1 “Hindōstān” is a Persian word, and in modern Persian is pronounced “Hindūstān.” It means the country of the Hindūs. In medieval Persian the word was “Hindōstān,” with an ō, but in the modern language the distinctions between ē and ī and between ō and ū have been lost. Indian languages have borrowed Persian words in their medieval form. Thus in India we have shēr, a tiger, as compared with modern Persian shīr; gō, but modern Pers. gū; bōstān, but modern Pers. būstān. The word “Hindu” is in medieval Persian “Hindō” representing the ancient Avesta hendava (Sanskrit, saindhava), a dweller on the Sindhu or Indus. Owing to the influence of scholars in modern Persian the word “Hindū” is now established in English and, through English, in the Indian literary languages; but “Hindō” is also often heard in India. “Hindostan” with o is much more common both in English and in Indian languages, although “Hindustan” is also employed. Up to the days of Persian supremacy inaugurated in Calcutta by Gilchrist and his friends, every traveller in India spoke of “Indostan” or some such word, thus bearing testimony to the current pronunciation. Gilchrist introduced “Hindoostan,” which became “Hindustan” in modern spelling. The word is not an Indian one, and both pronunciations, with ō and with ū, are current in India at the present day, but that with ō is unquestionably the one demanded by the history of the word and of the form which other Persian words take on Indian soil. On the other hand “Hindu” is too firmly established in English for us to suggest the spelling “Hindo.”. The word “Hindī” has another derivation, being formed from the Persian Hind, India (Avesta hindu, Sanskrit sindhu, the Indus). “Hindi” means “of or belonging to India,” while “Hindu” now means “a person of the Hindu religion.” (Cf. Sir C. J. Lyall, A Sketch of the Hindustani Language, p. 1).

2 Sir C. J. Lyall, op. cit. p. 9.

3 This and the preceding paragraph are partly taken from Mr Platts’s article in vol. xi. of the 9th edition of this encyclopaedia.

4 In some dialects of W.H. weak forms have masculines ending in u and corresponding feminines in i, but these are nowadays rarely met in the literary forms of speech. In old poetry they are common. In Braj Bhasha they have survived in the present participle.

HINDŌSTĀNĪ LITERATURE. The writings dealt with in this article are those composed in the vernacular of that part of India which is properly called Hindōstān,—that is, the valleys of the Jumna and Ganges rivers as far east as the river Kōs, and the tract to the south including Rajpūtānā, Central India (Bundēlkhaṇḍ and Baghēlkhaṇḍ), the Narmadā (Nerbudda) valley as far west as Khandwā, and the northern half of the Central Provinces. It does not include the Punjab proper (though the town population there speak Hindōstānī), nor does it extend to Lower Bengal.

In this region several different dialects prevail. The people of the towns everywhere use chiefly the form of the language called Urdū or Rēkhta,1 stocked with Persian words and phrases, and ordinarily written in a modification of the Persian character. The country folk (who form the immense majority) speak different varieties of Hindī, of which the word-stock derives from the Prākrits and literary Sanskrit, and which are written in the Dēvanāgari or Kaithī character. Of these the most important from a literary point of view, proceeding from west to east, are Mārwāṛī and Jaipurī (the languages of Rajpūtānā), Brajbhāshā (the language of the country about Mathurā and Agra), Kanaujī (the language of the lower Ganges-Jumna Doāb and western Rohilkhaṇḍ), Eastern Hindī, also called Awadhī and Baiswārī (the language of Eastern Rohilkhaṇḍ, Oudh and the Benares division of the United Provinces) and Bihārī (the language of Bihār or Mithilā, comprising several distinct dialects). What is called High Hindī is a modern development, for literary purposes, of the dialect of Western Hindi spoken in the neighbourhood of Delhi and thence northwards to the Himālaya, which has formed the vernacular basis of Urdū; the Persian words in the latter have been eliminated and replaced by words of Sanskritic origin, and the order of words in the sentence which is proper to the indigenous speech is more strictly adhered to than in Urdū, which under the influence of Persian constructions has admitted many inversions.

As in many other countries, nearly all the early vernacular literature of Hindōstān is in verse, and works in prose are a modern growth.2 Both Hindī and Urdū are, in their application to literary purposes, at first intruders upon the ground already occupied by the learned languages Sanskrit and Persian, the former representing Hindū and the latter Musalmān culture. But there is this difference between them, that, whereas Hindī has been raised to the dignity of a literary speech chiefly by impulses of revolt against the monopoly of the Brahmans, Urdū has been cultivated with goodwill by authors who have themselves highly valued and dexterously used the polished Persian. Both Sanskrit and Persian continue to be employed occasionally for composition by Indian writers, though much fallen from their former estate; but for popular purposes it may be said that their vernacular rivals are now almost in sole possession of the field.

The subject may be conveniently divided as follows:—

1. Early Hindī, of the period during which the language was being fashioned as a literary medium out of the ancient Prākrits, represented by the old heroic poems of Rajpūtānā and the literature of the early Bhagats or Vaishnava reformers, and extending from about A.D. 1100 to 1550;

2. Middle Hindī, representing the best age of Hindī poetry, and reaching from about 1550 to the end of the 18th century;

3. The rise and development of literary Urdū, beginning about the end of the 16th century, and reaching its height during the 18th;

4. The modern period, marked by the growth of a prose literature in both dialects, and dating from the beginning of the 19th century.

1. Early Hindī.—Our knowledge of the ancient metrical chronicles of Rajpūtānā is still very imperfect, and is chiefly derived from the monumental work of Colonel James Tod, called The Annals and Antiquities of Rājāsthān (published in 1829-1832), which is founded on them. It is in the nature of compositions of this character to be subjected to perpetual revision and recasting; they are the production of the family bards of the dynasties whose fortunes they record, and from generation to generation they are added to, and their language constantly modified to make it intelligible to the people of the time. Round an original nucleus of historical fact a rich growth of legend accumulates; later redactors endeavour to systematize and to assign dates, but the result is not often such as to inspire confidence; and the mass has more the character of ballad literature than of serious history. The materials used by Tod are nearly all still unprinted; his manuscripts are now deposited in the library of the Royal Asiatic Society in London; and one of the tasks which, on linguistic and historical grounds, should first be undertaken by the investigator of early Hindī literature is the examination and sifting, and the publication in their original form, of these important texts.

Omitting a few fragments of more ancient bards given by compilers of accounts of Hindī literature, the earliest author of whom any portion has as yet been published in the original text is Chand Bardāī, the court bard of Prithwī-Rāj, the last Hindū sovereign of Delhi. His poem, entitled Prithī-Rāj Rāsau (or Rāysā), is a vast chronicle in 69 books or cantos, comprising a general history of the period when he wrote. Of this a small portion has been printed, partly under the editorship of the late Mr John Beames and partly under that of Dr Rudolf Hoernle, by the Asiatic Society of Bengal; but the excessively difficult nature of the task prevented both scholars from making much progress.3 Chand, who came of a family of bards, was a native of Lahore, which had for nearly 170 years (since 1023) been under Muslim rule when he flourished, and the language of the poem exhibits a considerable leaven of Persian words. In its present form the work is a redaction made by Amar Singh of Mēwār, about the beginning of the 17th century, and therefore more than 400 years after Chand’s death, with his patron Prithwī-Rāj, in 1193. There is, therefore, considerable reason to doubt whether we have in it much of Chand’s composition in its original shape; and the nature of the incidents described enhances this doubt. The detailed dates contained in the Chronicle have been shown by Kabirāj Syāmal Dās4 to be in every case about ninety years astray. It tells of repeated conflicts between the hero Prithwī-Rāj and Sultān Shihābuddin, of Ghōr (Muhammad Ghori), in which the latter always, except in the last great battle, comes off the worst, is taken prisoner and is released on payment of a ransom; these seem to be entirely unhistorical, our contemporary Persian authorities knowing of only one encounter (that of Tiraurī (Tirawari) near Thēnēsar, fought in 1191) in which the Sultān was defeated, and even then he escaped uncaptured to Lahore. The Mongols (Book XV.) are brought on the stage more than thirty years before they actually set foot in India, and are related to have been vanquished by the redoubtable Prithwī-Rāj. It is evident that such a record cannot possibly be, in its entirety, a contemporary chronicle; but nevertheless it appears to contain a considerable element which, from its language, may belong to Chand’s own age, and represents the earliest surviving document in Hindī. “Though we may not possess the actual text of Chand, we have certainly in his writings some of the oldest known specimens of Gaudian literature, abounding in pure Apabhramśa Śaurasēnī Prākrit forms” (Grierson).

It is very difficult now to form a just estimate of the poem as literature. The language, essentially transitional in character, consists largely of words which have long since died out of the vernacular speech. Even the most learned Hindus of the present day are unable to interpret it with confidence; and the meaning of the verses must be sought by investigating the processes by which Sanskrit and Prākrit forms have been transfigured in their progress into Hindī. Chand appears, on the whole, to exhibit the merits and defects of ballad chroniclers in general. There is much that is lively and spirited in his descriptions of fight or council; and the characters of the Rājpūt warriors who surround his hero are often sketched in their utterances with skill and animation. The sound, however, frequently predominates over the sense; the narrative is carried on with the wearisome iteration and tedious unfolding of familiar themes and images which characterize all such poetry in India; and his value, for us at least, is linguistic rather than literary.

Chand may be taken as the representative of a long line of successors, continued even to the present day in the Rājpūt states. Many of their compositions are still widely popular as ballad literature, but are known only in oral versions sung in Hindōstān by professional singers. One of the most famous of these is the Alhā-khaṇḍ, reputed to be the work of a contemporary of Chand called Jagnik or Jagnāyak, of Mahōbā in Bundēlkhaṇḍ, who sang the praises of Rājā-Parmāl, a ruler whose wars with Prithwī-Rāj are recorded in the Mahōbā-Khaṇḍ of Chand’s work. Ālhā and Ūdal, the heroes of the poem, are famous warriors in popular legend, and the stories connected with them exist in an eastern recension, current in Bihār, as well as in the Bundēlkhaṇḍī or western form which is best known. Two versions of the latter have been printed, having been taken down as recited by illiterate professional rhapsodists. Another celebrated bard was Sārangdhar of Rantambhōr, who flourished in 1363, and sang the praises of Hammīr Dēo (Hamir Deo), the Chauhān chief of Rantambhōr who fell in a heroic struggle against Sultān ‘Alā‘uddīn Khiljī in 1300. He wrote the Hammīr Kāvya and Hammīr Rāsau, of which an account is given by Tod;5 he was also a poet in Sanskrit, in which language he compiled, in 1363, the anthology called Sārngadhara-Paddhati. Another work which may be mentioned (though much more modern) is the long chronicle entitled Chhattra-Prakās, or the history of Rājā Chhatarsāl, the Bundēlā rājā of Pannā, who was killed, fighting on behalf of Prince Dārā-Shukōh, in the battle of Dhōlpur won by Aurangzēb in 1658. The author, Lāl Kabi, has given in this work a history of the valiant Bundēlā nation which was rendered into English by Captain W. R. Pogson in 1828, and printed at Calcutta.

Before passing on to the more important branch of early Hindī literature, the works of the Bhagats, mention may be made here of a remarkable composition, a poem entitled the Padmāwat, the materials of which are derived from the heroic legends of Rajpūtānā, but which is not the work of a bard nor even of a Hindu. The author, Malik Muḥammad of Jā‘is, in Oudh, was a venerated Muslim devotee, to whom the Hindu rājā of Amēṭhī was greatly attached. Malik Muḥammad wrote the Padmāwat in 1540, the year in which Shēr Shāh Sūr ousted Humāyān from the throne of Delhi. The poem is composed in the purest vernacular Awadhī, with no admixture of traditional Hindu learning, and is generally to be found written in the Persian character, though the metres and language are thoroughly Indian. It professes to tell the tale of Padmāwatī or Padminī, a princess celebrated for her beauty who was the wife of the Chauhān rājā of Chītōr in Mēwār. The historical Padminī’s husband was named Bhīm Singh, but Malik Muḥammad calls him Ratan Sēn; and the story turns upon the attempts of ‘Alā‘uddīn Khiljī, the sovereign of Delhi, to gain possession of her person. The tale of the siege of Chītōr in 1303 by ‘Alā‘uddīn, the heroic stand made by its defenders, who perished to the last man in fight with the Sultan’s army, and the self-immolation of Padminī and the other women, the wives and daughters of the warriors, by the fiery death called jōhar, will be found related in Tod’s Rājāsthān, i. 262 sqq. Malik Muḥammad takes great liberties with the history, and explains at the end of the poem that all is an allegory, and that the personages represent the human soul, Divine wisdom, Satan, delusion and other mystical characters.

Both on account of its interest as a true vernacular work, and as the composition of a Musalmān who has taken the incidents of his morality from the legends of his country and not from an exotic source, the poem is memorable. It has often been lithographed, and is very popular; a translation has even been made into Sanskrit. A critical edition has been prepared by Dr G. A. Grierson and Paṇḍit Sudhākar Dwivēdi.

The other class of composition which is characteristic of the period of early Hindī, the literature of the Bhagats, or Vaishnava saints, who propagated the doctrine of bhakti, or faith in Vishnu, as the popular religion of Hindōstān, has exercised a much more powerful influence both upon the national speech and upon the themes chosen for poetic treatment. It is also, as a body of literature, of high intrinsic interest for its form and content. Nearly the whole of subsequent poetical composition in Hindī is impressed with one or other type of Vaishnava doctrine, which, like Buddhism many centuries before, was essentially a reaction against Brahmanical influence and the chains of caste, a claim for the rights of humanity in face of the monopoly which the “twice-born” asserted of learning, of worship, of righteousness. A large proportion of the writers were non-Brahmans, and many of them of the lowest castes. As Śiva was the popular deity of the Brahmans, so was Vishnu of the people; and while the literature of the Śaivas and Śāktas6 is almost entirely in Sanskrit, and exercised little or no influence on the popular mind in northern India, that of the Vaishnavas is largely in Hindī, and in itself constitutes the great bulk of what has been written in that language.

The Vaishnava doctrine is commonly carried back to Rāmānuja, a Brahman who was born about the end of the 11th century, at Perambur in the neighbourhood of the modern Madras, and spent his life in southern India. His works, which are in Sanskrit and consist of commentaries on the Vēdānta Sūtras, are devoted to establishing “the personal existence of a Supreme Deity, possessing every gracious attribute, full of love and pity for the sinful beings who adore him, and granting the released soul a home of eternal bliss near him—a home where each soul never loses its identity, and whose state is one of perfect peace.”7 In the Deity’s infinite love and pity he has on several occasions become incarnate for the salvation of mankind, and of these incarnations two, Rāmachandra, the prince of Ayōdhyā, and Kṛishṇa, the chief of the Yādava clan and son of Vasudēva, are pre-eminently those in which it is most fitting that he should be worshipped. Both of these incarnations had for many centuries8 attracted popular veneration, and their histories had been celebrated by poets in epics and by weavers of religious myths in Purānas or “old stories”; but it was apparently Rāmānuja’s teaching which secured for them, and especially for Rāmachandra, their exclusive place as the objects of bhakti—ardent faith and personal devotion addressed to the Supreme. The adherents of Rāmānuja were, however, all Brahmans, and observed very strict rules in respect of food, bathing and dress; the new doctrine had not yet penetrated to the people.

Whether Rāmānuja himself gave the preference to Rāma against Krishna as the form of Vishnu most worthy of worship is uncertain. He dealt mainly with philosophic conceptions of the Divine Nature, and probably busied himself little with mythological legend. His mantra, or formula of initiation, if Wilson9 was correctly informed, implies devotion to Rāma; but Vāsudēva (Krishna) is also mentioned as a principal object of adoration, and Rāmānuja himself dwelt for several years in Mysore, at a temple erected by the rājā, at Yādavagiri in honour of Krishna in his form Raṇchhōṛ.10 It is stated that in his worship of Krishna he joined with that god as his Śaktī, or Energy, his wife Rukminī; while the later varieties of Krishna-worship prefer to honour his mistress Rādhā. The great difference, in temper and influence upon life, between these two forms of Vaishnava faith appears to be a development subsequent to Rāmānuja; but by the time of Jaidēo (about 1250) it is clear that the theme of Krishna and Rādhā, and the use of passionate language drawn from the relations of the sexes to express the longings of the soul for God, had become fully established; and from that time onwards the two types of Vaishnava religious emotion diverged more and more from one another.