Note 8 — INTRODUCTION.

We have already mentioned the 'Gītā Govinda.' It needs scarcely to be said that Indian lyrical poetry is of still older ancestry. The reader of Kalidāsa's 'Shakuntalā' for example, will find there innumerable parallels both to Vidyāpati's combined tenderness and wisdom, and his quaint conceits. These parallels are so many that we have made no attempt to mention them in the 'Notes' The same spirit, too, is already recognizable in the lyrical passages of the 'Rāmāyana.' All this is no more than to say that Vidyāpati is essentially and typically Indian.