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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(JUNE, 1882.
far enough to allow a good many of the hearers but broke down in the middle ;--a Brahman to share it. We go nearly into the front helped him out with it; "thank you," said he, ranks, anxious to see and hear all; there is and proceeded with his address. Generally, at no sign of opposition or dislike; the chief the end of the recitations the dancing became performer looks at us, but does not pause in his very animated. It was not dancing, however, so address. Several point to the front as our much as jumping. The leader jumped; all his proper place; but we wave a polite decli- assistants jumped; many of the audience nature. We listen. The leader speaks a few jumped. Some, with heads bent down, were sentences in Marathi ; then gives a poetical running wildly rcund. Shouting; jumping; quotation, which is instantly caught up by clashing of cymbals; clouds of sand; will the the twenty, who repeat it over and over people go mad? No; in the height of the again, with a great clashing of the tåls. The tempest of emotion a loud call is heard ; and first of these quotations is
instantly all is over, and the assembly breaks up. Nahi sukha koná aliyá sansari
So this was what Takâ meant when he said (Happiness falls not to any who comes into
Saints are there, a noble band, the world); and the address is simply a dis
Dancing joyful on the sand ! course on that text; treating of the shortness We moved on and found some twenty of life and the vanity of all earthly joys. assemblies at short distances from each other, Man's life, said the speaker, is not one hundred all similarly employed. This sort of thing years; even if it were, nearly one half goes in continued for hours. My friend went out again, sleep. Then diseases come; you are laid aside; towards midnight, to see how matters were perhaps you die young. So the strain ran on; going on, and found the reciters in many cases it seemed quite in the spirit of the lines making desperate efforts to keep their audiences
Tukå said, One refuge-Hari's feet-ne'er awake. One man, a Mall (gardener) by caste, faileth;
had his whole congregation sound asleep. My Nothing else availeth;
friend began to expostulate with him on his All but pains thee. lost labour. "Do not, my good sir, take all " All earthly things are vanity; therefore this trouble; see, you are speaking to deaf draw thy heart away from them, and devote men." "Do you think," said the preacber thyself to the worship of Vithoba.” Such was indignantly, " that I do this for men ? I am the exhortation-a strange mixture of truth doing it for God." and error. We longed to tell of a better refuge All through the night there had been borne than Vithobâ; but the recitation was far from across the river to our resting place the mingled finished, and we had to depart before we could noise of the clashing cymbals and the soundsay anything.
ing of the name," i.e. the loud shouting of the The preacher introduced illustrations pretty name of one of the manifestations of Vishnufrequently from Hindu mythology. The names especially Vitthal. During the day, even at a of the god and his wife Rukhmat were often considerable distance, we heard a continuous ruentioned ; and when this was done the multi- murmur which we named "the roar of the tude broke out in a loud and long-continued yåtrå." shout. The feeling was very infectious; old men | On going out early next morning we found the and even little children clapped their hands, recitations still barely concluded. A cheerless and shouted, Vitthal, Vitthal, jaya, jaya, Vitthal night many of the poor pilgrims must have (Vitthal, Vitthal, victory, victory to Vitthal). spent, whether they waked or slept. The breeze Almost equally frequent is the shout of Jnan- towards morning became very chill; and we dev Tukaram-the combined names of the two were glad when we could exclude it from our chief Marathi poets, who have been exalted to the tent. Most of the pilgrims were doubtless rank, at least, of demi-gods. The twenty men under some kind of covering ; but those who moved in a kind of dance. There was nothing remained, professedly listening to the recitations of what could be called solemnity. The reciter all night long, were not few in number. sometimes stopped and told people where to So, with little variation, the kirttans were sit. He once attempted a Sanskrit quotation, conducted night after night. The most notable
