and concludes with a series of Arithmetical problems with their solutions." The following are a few gleanings from this treatise: A measure of paddy contains 14,400 grains, one of rice 38,000; one of rape seed, 115,200. A measure of mud weighs 17 palam; one of sand 20 palam ; paddy, 6 palam; rice, 10 palam; salt, 16 palam. The distance of the sun is twice the length of the earth; the moon is double the distance of the sun. The age of man is 100 years; of oxen, 20 years; buffaloes, 30 years; horses, 32 years; sheep, 12 years; dogs, 15 years; camels, 73 years. Alavai Perttokuti. அளவைப்பெயர்த்தொகுதி. Small 4to. 34 pp. Arithmetical tables of various kinds. CLASS E. ARTS. SECTION I. MECHANICAL ARTS: This division is almost a total blank. The following are the only works, all modern, which have come under the notice of the compiler. Pulavunul. புலவுநூல். 8vo. 8 as. On cookery. It professes to be translated from the Persians. About curries, sweetmeats, &c. Gunpowder Manufacture. L. 18mo. 14 pp. Indigo Cultivation, 8vo. 60 pp. Rupees 2. A translation of Dr. Shortt's Essay. SECTION II. FINE ARTS. Music. Out of the 64 sciences of the Hindus, five belong to music; viz., No. 22. The modulation of sounds. 23. Art of playing on stringed instruments. 24. Art of playing on wind instruments. 25. Art of beating the tambourine. 26. Art of beating the cymbals. After numerous inquiries, the compiler has been unable to ascertain the existence of a single treatise in Tamil on music. Only a few tunes have been printed by Europeans. It may be mentioned, that the musical notation extensively used by Curwen, resembles the Hindu system. The following notice of Hindu Music is from the Journal of the Madras Literary Society for July, 1864 "The accessible sources of knowledge of Indian music are still only two-Sir Wm. Jones' Essay On the Musical Notes of the Hindus, published in the third volume of the Asiatic Researches, p. 55, and J. D. Patterson, On the Gramal, or musical scales of the Hindus, Ibid. IX, 445. The following neat statement of the chief points established in these essays is translated from the fourth volume of Lassen's Indische Alterthumskunde, ss. 832, 833: 'The native musical literature is tolerably copious, and the Indians are acquainted with four systems, whose founders, as usual with them, are mythical personages. The first system is ascribed to Devarshi Narada, who in the epic poetry appears as wellskilled in stories, and goes about between the gods and men, to recite tales to them. From him I'çvara or Siva received this system. The author of the second system is Bharata, the mythic inventor of the dramatic art; the author of the third, is the divine ape Hanumat, and that of the fourth, Kapila, the founder of the Sankhya-philosophy. These assertions of course only mean that the Indians attached a high value to the practice of music; and this view is confirmed by the circumstance that in the epic mythology the Gandharvas appear as musicians in Indra's heaven. For the antiquity of song amongst the Indians, it is important to observe that the Udgatar i. e., the priest who sings the saman, belongs to the Vedic period. As to later times we may refer to the fact that in the Mricchakatika Rebhila is praised as a renowned singer. "The Indians are acquainted with our scale of seven tones, and denote them by letters (sa, ri, ga, ma, pa, dha, ni). They admit, moreover, six ragas or modes, and the musical treatises contain minute directions as to the employment of them in the six seasons into which the year is divided. The Indians have also mythologised these ideas, and regard the six ragas as god-like beings, whose consorts are called Raginis and are eight in number. These couples produce forty-eight sons called ragaputras, by whom the various mixtures of the chief modes are denoted. This view furnishes a very striking example of the boundlessness of Indian imagination, as it is impossible really to distinguish so many modes from one another. In some MSS. are found portraits of these two and sixty male and female genii. A more accurate investigation of the musical writings of the Indians would be highly desirable, as they throw much light on the representation of the dramas." Tunes. Chants. A collection of 22. American Mission Press, 1853. German Tunes, for the Hymn-Books of the E. Lutheran Mission. s. 8vo. 64 pp. 8 as. Tranquebar. இராகங்கள். A number of tunes, with a brief introduction. Six South Indian Airs. Society for July, 1864. Journal of Madras Literary Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture. The compiler has not heard of any work in Tamil on the above subjects. Pictures of the Hindu gods, painted on glass, are very common, and are sold, with rude frames, at low rates. Illustrations, lithographed, on wood, and even on copper, are becoming more and more numerous, as well as improving in quality. One of the most recent native attempts is an illustrated edition of the lives of the 63 Saiva devotees. A great defect is the stereotyped character of the figures-they seem all cast from the same mould. The School of Arts, under Dr. Hunter, has already had a considerable influence in improving drawing and engraving in Madras. CLASS F. LITERATURE. SECTION I. POETRY. Nearly the whole of Tamil literature, including works on medicine, arithmetic, grammar, and even dictionaries, is in poetry. Both the exception of the commentaries on poetical works, prose composition may almost be said to owe its origin to European influence. The works included under this section are those in which the poetry may be regarded as the leading feature. The Introduction contains an account of the various kinds of metres. A few quotations from the best poems are interspersed in the catalogue. It must, however, be admitted that only a very imperfect idea of Tamil poetry can thus be given. In some respects natives alone can fully appreciate its excellence; while, on the other hand, they are blind to some of its defects. The estimates of two or three of the best European judges are subjoined. The Rev. H. Bower thus epitomises the remarks of Beschi, adding some observations of his own : "Beschi, in an Appendix to his high Tamil grammar, has given us his thoughts on the art of Tamil poetry. The Tamil poets, he remarks, use the genuine language of poetry. They rarely mention any object to which they do not couple some ornamental epithet. When they speak of a tree, they describe it either as green, or loaded with flowers, or shady, or majestically large, or as having all these qualities. They never mention a mountain, without representing it as rising among woods, or watered by fountains, or decked with flowers. Sometimes they employ this embellishment to excess. They are full of metaphor and allegory. They are at times extravagantly hyperbolical. In the Tamil Naishadam, it is said of Damayanti, the consort of the hero, that when Brahma had created her, her beautiful form had only one rival in the universe, and that was the fair moon. But Brahma, determined that every beauty should centre in Damayanti, took a handful of beauty from off the face of the moon, and threw it into that of Damayanti's. The deformity thus made, is still apparent, in the moon. The Tamil poets delight in similes as all eastern poets do. They indulge in fiction, and pay little regard to nature. Their Parnassus is Pudiyamalai, near Cape Comorin. They have neither Apollo nor Mercury. Their Minerva is Saraswati. They invocate Ganapati. Pathos and sweetness rather than vigour, are the characteristics of Indian poetry. They are not 'thoughts that breathe and words that burn,' so much as thoughts that please and words that charm. Milk and honey flow, but such milk and honey, as to prove an unwholesome diet to some minds." Dr. Caldwell expresses the following opinion : "Whilst an elevated thought, a natural expressive description, a pithy, sententious maxim, or a striking comparison, may sometimes be met with, unfortunately elegance of style, or an affected, obscure brevity, has always been preferred to strength and truthfulness, and poetic fire has been quenched in an ocean of conceits. 'Nothing can exceed the refined elegance and linked sweetness' of many Telugu and Tamil poems; but a lack of heart and purpose, and a substitution of sound for sense, more or less characterise them all; and hence whilst an anthology composed of well-selected extracts would please and surprise the English reader, every attempt to translate any Tamil or Telugu poem in extenso into English, has proved to be a failure. "To these causes of inferiority must be added a slavery to custom and precedent at least equal to what we meet with in the later Sanskrit. Literature could never flourish where the following distich (contained in the 'Nan-nul,' or classical Tamil Grammar) was accepted as a settled principle : : 'On whatsoever subjects, in whatsoever expressions, with whatsoever arrangement, classical writers have written, so to write is denoted propriety of style.'"* The Chintamani, Al, considered by competent judges to be superior even to Kamban's Ramayana, is not included in the following list, as only a few stanzas out of the 15,000 lines which it contains, have been printed. It was written by a Jaina about the 10th cent. A. D. Partly from its heretical origin, partly from its obscurity, it is not much known. The Rev. H. Bower says, "It is a moral epic of the highest merit. The commentator styles the author the master of all the learned. His name is not mentioned. He was a Jain, of whom Beschi remarks, that he may with justice be called the prince of Tamil poets.' Chintamani is an appellation of Sivagan, the hero of the poem."+ * Dravidian Comparative Grammar, p. 89. |