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APPENDIX I.
NOTES ON AUTHORS.
No. 1. AGRADĀSA SVĀMI :-Flourished about 1575 A. D. He was a Vaishnava preceptor, the Guru of Nabhādāsa, the well-known author of Bhaktamāla. He lived at Galata in Amera (Jayapur State). He wrote in Kundaliya verse condensing the wisdom of experience in witty forms. Apparently he wrote 52 of these and named the collection as Hitopadesa Upakhyāna Bavani (see S. R. 1903), but the name was simplified to Agradasa-ki-kuṇḍaliyā like Tulasidasa's Ramacharitamanasa to the easy and expressive name 'Rāmāyaṇa.' The present collection bears no name and appears to have been embellished by insertion of other verses attributed to Agradāsa. The last or 76th verse is in Chhappaya metre and indicates that as many as (76-52)=24 verses have been interpolated.
Agradasa is an impressive poet. His enigmatical utterances are based on very common-place pithy sayings used by the people as proverbs. He is known to have written five books for some of which see no. 77 of S. R. 1900, no. 60 of 1923 and no. 121 of 1906-08.
No. 2. AHMAD:-Flourished during the reign of Jahangir. He composed a book on palmistry styled Samudrika in 1621 A. D. This is a newly discovered work. It shows its author to be of an ordinary class.
No. 3. AHMADULLAH (poetic name Dakshana of Bhahariābād in U. P.) :-Wrote Dakshaṇa-vilāsa, a book on Nayikabheda or technical heroines of Hindi poets. He began his book in Hijri 1135 and completed it at Delhi in 1140 Hijri = 1722 A. D. during the reign of Muhammad Sah, who ascended the throne in 1719 A. D. Although a Muhammadan he invokes Hindu Gods and Goddesses like a Hindu. Bis style and diction are good. It looks as if he was a
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