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340
TIE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[SEPTEMBER, 1891.
appreciated by the people, and which in its turn to quote here. Passing over the religious and gives us a true picture of them, is that which is the romantic legends, both of which sections are oral and which takes the form of songs.
full of interest, we come to the Love-songs. In These songs are the work of illiterate poets. Afghanistan these are innumerable, and a dum The dum, or poet-minstrel, plays in Afghan life when told to sing, cannot comprehend his being a part analogous to that taken by the bard asked to sing anything else. A perusal of the speamongst the Gauls. These poets form regular
cimens given by M. Darmesteter shows that the schools. A beginner goes to a celebrated dum,
imagery womes almost entirely from India. We and becomes his shugird, or disciple. The
inect all the same graces and the same comparimaster, or ustad, teaches him his own songs,
sons which we find in the poems of Sar Däs or and those of other popular poets, and intro.
Bidyâpati. Here is a translation of a portion of duces him at the festivals, public and private, to
the well-known Zakhmai, the most popular of all which he is invited. When the pupil feels himself
Afghan songs, written by the poet Mira. strong enough to fly upon his own wings, he
"1. I am sitting in woe, pierced with the dagleaves his master, composes under his own name, gers of separation. and sets up for an ustad in his turn. An ustad
She came to-day, the maind, and hath borne takes half the fees paid by his host for himself,
away my heart: sweet, so sweet. and divides the other half amongst his shdgirds.
2. I am ever engaged in contest : red am I with A good dum dies a rich man. The famous Mira
my blood: I am a beggar before thee. would not open his lips under fifty rupees, and
My life is one anguish. My mistress is my received a fee of Rs. 500 at the wedding of the
physician; I long for the medicine; sweet, so sweet. son of the Navab of Peshấwar.
3. Her bobom bath the apple, her lips the sugar, This Mirá is almost the only celebrated dum of
her teeth the pearl ; all that hath she, my well. Afghản birth. They are nearly all Afghanized beloved; she hath wounded me in the heart, and Indians, recruited principally from the Dôm caste.
therefore am I plunged in tears ; sweet, so sweet. Caste rules not being so strict in Afghanistan a
4. To thee is my service due; dream of me, O in India, other Indians also follow the same pro
my love, for ever and a day. fession, but they are always of low-caste, such as
Morning and eve make I my bed at thy sanc. tális, bhatiyards, malís or dhúis. They are usually, though not always, Musalmane, but are
tuary: I am the first of thy knights; sweet, so indifferent as to the subject of their songs. A good Hinda thinks it no shame to earn an honest livelihood by singing the triumphs of the Prophet. Some of the specimens given of Afghán proverbs This generalization of the caste-term Dôm, should are excellent. Here are a few :be noted by historians of the Gypsies. The "She came to borrow fire, and is become the Lūris, from whom our modern Romanis are mistress of the house. descended, were singers and musicians imported
Do not stick your finger into every hole. into Persia from India by Bahram Gaur.
If you offer only an onion, do it politely. M. Darmesteter's collection of songs is divided
Gram pottage and no teeth; teeth, and no gram into five main divisions, historic songs, religious ones, romances, love-songs, and songs illustrating
pottage (gram requires good teeth.) Customs and Folklore. With the last are given
Who owns elephants, should have big doorways. a number of proverbs and riddles.
A black cow has white milk. The interest of the historical songs is that many i The cock may crow or not, but still the dawn of them were written contemporaneouely with the breaks. facts. The collection commences with a modern The work concludes with a Lexicographic poem describing the Afghan victory at Panipat in Index, which contains all the words in the songs 1761, and is followed by others carrying the history not to be found in Raverty's dictionary, and down to the time of the last Afghan war. Nearly all other useful indexes of proper names. A word these songs are, it is needless to say, written from of praise must be given to the typography and the point of view of our enemies, and the light in paper which are in every way worthy of the tradiwhich they view our actions is not flattering to tions of the Paris Imprimerie Nationale. our vanity. The best of them are too long
G. A. GRIERBON.
sweet."
+ Taken from M. Darmesteter's French version, and not from the original. . [The whole of the proverbs quoted are well known
over all North India in much the same terms. See my Ed. of Fallon's Dict. of Hindostani Proverbs.-R.C.T.]
