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JUNE, 1927]
BOOK-NOTICES
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE MYSORE ARCHEOLOGICAL DEPARTMENT FOR THE YEAR 1925. Government Press, Bangalore, 1926.
This is a record of a very full year's work and contains many features of interest, among them being the elucidation of sixty-three manuscripts concerning Saiva Saints of South India, which are not only of definite chronological value, but also throw much light on the social, moral, religious and political circumstances of the period to which they relate. Another MS. contains a history of the rulers of Kallahalli, who were feudatories of the Vijayanagar kingdom. They are declared to have been descended from certain Jaina Kshatriya families of Dvaravati, who migrated to various parts of India, and sometime later two scions of this stock, named Mangarasa and Changalaraya, who had settled in Vijayanagar, established principalities for themselves in Piripattana and Rangapattana respectively. Mangarasa, in order to secure his ascendancy, contrived by a ruse to destroy the Bêdas, who were polygars of the surrounding country. These Bêdas were presumably of the same stock, if not identical, with the Boyas and the Bédars or Berads, who have played so large a part in the history of Southern India. Several important epigraphical records were discovered, one of which is a grant of a Kadamba King Vishnuvarma, who records that he was installed on the throne by a Pallava ruler named Santivarma, whose name is hitherto unknown in Pallava genealogy. The record indicates clearly that while the founder of the Kadambe line conquered and subdued the Pallavas, his descendant in the sixth degree was a feudatory of that dynasty. Another grant, belonging to the Ganga King Bhuvikrama, describes Karikala Chola as Kárita-KdveriHira, i.e.,' he who constructed banks to the Kaveri,' thus corroborating information about that ruler which is enshrined in Tamil literature. Illustrations are given of these grants, as also of various temples etc., which have engaged the attention of the Director and his Staff.
S. M. EDWARDES.
MEMOIRS OF THE ARCHEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA, No. 19; The Jami Masjid at Badaun and other buildings in the United Provinces, by J. F. BLAKISTON, 1926: No. 21, The Baghela Dynasty of Rewah, by HIRANANDA SHASTRI, 1925. Government of India Central Publication Branch, Calcutta.
Of the above Memoirs, No. 19 is concerned with four monuments of Indian medieval art, all of them rather outside the beaten track of the travelling antiquarian and therefore not widely known. They are the Jami Mosque at Badaun, the Basa at Lalitpur, the Chaurasi Gumbaz of Kalpi, and the Jami Mosque at Irich. The first of these was built by Sultan Altamah, who completed the Kutb
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Minar at Delhi; the origin and use of the second are unknown; the third is an ancient mausoleum, supposed to be that of Mahmud Shah Lodi; the fourth is a relic of the reign of Mahmud Shah Tughlaq. These monuments are fully described and illustrated by good photographs, which are accompanied by admirable drawings of their architectural details, prepared nearly thirty years ago by the late Edmund Smith, who was an expert in the subject of Indian art and architecture.
Memoir No. 21 is devoted to the description and gist of an old Sanskrit MS., Virabhânûdayakavyam, a poem of 12 cantos written at Benares in 1591, which gives the genealogy of the Baghela dynasty of Rewah and other historical information. Two seals on the first and last pages purport to show that the MS. belonged to one Virabhadra, grandson of the hero of the poem, who attended Akbar's court at Delhi and was a personal friend of that emperor. He appears also to have been a confidential supporter of Prince Salim (Jahangir). Much of the information given in the poem requires confirmation: on the other hand, many of the statements are corroborated by the testimony of Muham. madan historians. The genealogy of the Baghela chiefs differs from that given in the Gazetteer and other accounts, but is not on that account necessarily incorrect. It confirms such facts as the conquest of Gahora by Rapingadeva and the friendship existing between Babur and Virasimhadeva ("Nar Singh" of Babur's Memoirs).
8. M. EDWARDES.
THE RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE VEDA AND UPANISHADS, by ARTHUR BERRIEDALE KEITH, D.C.L., D.LITT., Harvard Oriental Series, volumes 31 and 32. Harvard University Press: London. H. Milford. 1925.
This work in two volumes may be described as the latest pronouncement by an acknowledged expert on the various problems presented by Vedic literature. Divided into five parts, it deals in a spirit of judicial caution and analysis with the ori ginal sources of Indian religion, that is to say with the Rigveda and later Vedas and Brahmanas, and the Avesta; with the gods and demons of the Veda, with Vedic ritual, the Spirits of the Dead, and Vedic philosophy. It is impossible within the limits of a brief review to notice in detail the evidence offered under these main heads of inquiry, or the inferences, deductions, and findings which Dr. Keith holds to be permissible in the case of the many enigmas enshrined in the earliest literary remains of the Aryans. No notice in the columns of a journal can adequately portray the immense volume of learning and the profound study of original texts, which have gone to the making of these two volumes. Every student of Rigvedic culture ought to read shem, and read them carefully, for his own benefit
