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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[DECEMBER, 1898.
With his full concurrence, it was determined to delay the publication of the section of his Grundriss which was to be devoted to the modern vernaculars of India till after the completion of the Survey. Surprises, he was sure, were in store for us, and, unless we postponed the production of the section on the Tertiary Prakrits,' there would be danger of its being out of date almost as soon as it was issued. How true this was, the subsequent progress of the Survey has shown, and of the two specimens which I now proceed to give, one illustrates tLese surprises.
Gujari and Ajeri.
One of the most well-marked dialects of Rajputana is M@wari, spoken by the Chauhan Rajputs of Mêwâr. It is one of the great West-Central group of Indo-Aryan languages to which belong Eastern Panjabi, Gujarati and Standard Hindi, and forms one of the connecting links between these last two languages. Closely connected with it is Marwari, spoken in the neighbouring Bate of Marwar. The grammars of both will be found in Mr. Kellogg's work, and need not le described here.
More than eight hundred miles from Mâwâr, across the Indian Desert and the entire Panjab, beyond the North-West frontier of India, lies the Swật Valley, inhabited principally by a Pushtôspeaking popalation. There are, however, two Muhammadan tribes, the Gujars and the Ajars, who speak an Indian, and not an Iranian, language. The Gujars are cowherds, and the Ajars, who are closely connected with them, tend sleep. The former are a well known tribe, and seem to be at home right through the hill country north of the Panjab, though strongest in the North-West. They are also numerous' along the banks of the upper Jumna near Jagadri and Buriya, and in the Sabaranpur District, which during the last century was actually called Gujarat. To the east they occupy the petty State of Samptar, in Bundelkhand, and one of the northern districts of Gwalior, which is still called Grújargår; but they are more numerous in the Western States, and especially towards Gujarat, where they form a large portion of the population, The Rajâs of Riwari to the south of Delhi are Gújars. In the Southern Panjab they are thinly scattered, but their numbers increase rapidly towards the North, where they have given their name to several important places, such as Gujranwala, in the Rechna Duab, Gujarât, in the Chaj Duab, and Gujar Khan, in the Sindh-Sagar Dukb. They are numerous about Jehlam and Hasan Abdál, and throughout the Hazara District ; and they are also found in considerable numbers in the Dardu Districts of Childs, Koli, and PAlas, to the east of the Indus, and in the contiguous districts to the east of the river.'1 Regarding the Gujars of the Panjab, I have not as yet received any certain information, except that, the language-specimens, received from the District of Muzaffarnagar on the east bank of the Jamna show several points of connection with the language spoken by their brethren of Swât. The Gujars of the rest of the Panjab Himalayas, and those of Kashmir are reported to speak a language of their own, but specimens of it bave not yet been received. We must therefore content ourselves for the present with that spoken by those who are the most western and the most northern of all the Gujars with whom we are acquainted. This brings us to the surprise already alluded to. The language of the Swat Gujars is practically identical with Mêwâți, spoken, more than eight hundred miles away, in Rajputana. As might be expected they have borrowed a portion of their vocabulary from the neighbouring Pushto and Panjabi, but the grammars of Swât Gujari and of Ajari, on the one hand, and of Mêwârf, on the other, are to all intents and purposes identical. This will be manifest from the following notes and specimens. It is an interesting fact that, both with the Gujars and the Ajars, one of their septs is known as Chöhân.' I am indebted to Major H. A. Deane, C.S.I., for all these specimens.
1 Cunningham, Arch, Sur. Rep. ii., 61, quoted by Crooke in the Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, 8.2, Gujar.
