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INTRODUCTION.
The centre of India from the time immemorial has been the home of aborigines, whether they were autochthones or driven in to find a suitable shelter in its hills and forests by Aryans and other immigrants. In the Central Provinces they still hold the majority, numbering as they do about four millions out of a population of about 16 millions. There are no less than 40 different tribes in which they are divided, but the most predominant are the Gonds, numbering over two millions. They once dominated the province which was given the name of Gondwana after them. The term connoted a wilderness full of forests, tigers and Bandarvas or monkey-like people. The natural inference has been that this country was devoid of fine arts and has therefore been regarded as the most backward in India, but the fact is otherwise. Historical research has of late revealed the fact that this province once held its own against any other civilized provinces of India, and that one of its dynasties ruling at Tripuri near Jubbulpore aspired to bring the whole of India under "one umbrella" and succeeded so far as to extend its dominions to Nepal in the north, to the Karnatak in the south, and from sea to sea in the other two directions. In their days fine arts of all descriptions indigenous to the Indians flourished to the same extent, as they did in the other provinces of India. Kalachuri architecture claims a separate place of its own, and their court possessed poets like Sasidhara and Rajasekhara, to whom other ports bowed low in their days.
The Central Provinces
and their traditions.
The Literati.
l'erhaps the oldest and greatest man that this province produced was Nagarjuna, the founder of the Buddhist Madhyamika philosophy. He was horn in Berar and was at once a poet, philosopher, physician and author of great literary abilities. In fact Berar produced a galaxy of scholars which includes names like Bhavabhuti of Padmapur or Umarkhed, Bharavi, Dandin and king Pravarasena I of Achalapur (present Elchpur), Bopanadeva of Sardha on the Wardha), Vidarbharaja, Bhoja, Gunadhya (author of Brihat Katha ), Sarvavarma ( author of Katantra Sutra), Hala (author of Saptasati), Hemadri, Lakshmana of Kundinapur, Trivikarmabhatta (author of Nalachampu) and his descendants Bhaskarabhatta, Maheśvaracharya, Bhaskaracharya, Lakshmidhara and Changadeva, Jianaraja of Pathri and his son Surya, Pandita Mallari of Gelegaon and his descendants Sivadaivajña and Kamalakara, Narayana of Tapargaon and his son Gangadhara (author of Manorama, a commentary on Graha-laghava), Ananta of Dharmapur and his sons Rama and Nilakantha, Krishna, Rama, Narayana and Munisvara of Dahegaon, Ramakrishna of Amraoti (author of Bijaprabodha and Ganitamrita Lahari),