ruled peacefully; at Ram and Lachhman Kunds near Rawal Pindi, Vishvamitra performed austerities; at Tilla, in Jhelum District, Bainath had his order of Nuths or Siddhas; at Mattan. in Satayuga Prablad taught of God and confronted the fury of his father; at Sialkot rnled Raja Risala (2nd cent. A.D); at Kurukhshetra Sri Krishna uttered the Divine Song ; at Srinagar, Sankeacharya founded his fourth Mattha; at Tuxila, the Great University (5th cent, B. ©.) Gisponsed its light fora quacter-century. Here, again, Panini’s Grammer and Kalhana’s Raj Tarangini were written; here Vyasa, Porus, Prithi Rej and Chand Kavi lived and thrived; this is the original home of the Gypsies, Ods and Sadhs, the Gurjars, Abirs and Kbatris; here camo Skylax, Alexander, Huen Tsang and Fa Hien, Hore we saw past the pageant of Aryauisn, Zoroastrianism, Hellenism,* Buddhism, Muhammadanism, Sikhism. How did this land fare under each contact, under each cataclysm, under each fresh revolution in thought and deed ? How in its blood and brain it received and integrated something of Greece, Persia, China and Tibet, Arabia, Egypt, Central and Western India? Knowing that, we would, also, understand why Buddhism and all it outwardly implied in wood and colour and stone and deed bas not mach eurvived in Panjabi life and letters, only, in part in Panjabi religion; and why Brahman aritualiem has paseed away while the Kehatriya philosopby, the Vedanta, has survived; why the spirit more than the word of Islam as it emerged from its Persian oradle, has appealed to the rural Panjab; why the Chineso and Bongali gamos of children, the Chinose pigtail, the Chinese magio®, the Greck semi-cireular bead-gear, the Terkish words for daily food and utensils, Vikramadityan Rajput tales and eustoms, Buddhist folktales, and the lore of saints and lovers from Persia and Arabic, have found a congenial home in the soil or become favourites with the natives; why again the cult of Krishna or Rama worship bas not struck rovts hero; why local saints have prospered; why comparatively so few traces of the changing past have got preserved in life or literature.
A few more particularized observations on Panjabi character, individual and national, Will suffice:-
1. The Muslim Rajput and the Hindu Khatri and Arora tribes retain a great deal of customs and superstitions of their early days of common ancestry, Similarly, much essentially Muslim ceremonial has penetrated Hindu orthodoxy.
2. Notwithstanding great fraternization and approximation in rural parts, Hindu-Muslim marriages or even inter-tribal marriages within the same creed of Islam have been tabooed or but rarely solemnized, though the existence of both types with tragic ends is hinted at in, e, g., the tales of Hir and Ranjha, Mirza and Sahiban, and Sassi and Panano. There is no mentionable purdah in the villages.
3. Moghul dress and dietary have gota firm hold on the land and they have assumed a National aspect to the obliteration of the old Hindu habit and food.
4. The Hindu caste system owing to the political and religious ascendancy of the foreign elements of Buddhism, and Islam and Sikhism reached the lowest point centuries back.
5. Each tribe has its Ra (Bhatt) or Dum who recalls ia prose or verse its facts and fictions of pedigree; each village has its Dhadi or Mirasi who is the village musician, poctical recorder, and improvisator combined; so does it have the Bhand who plays the travelling comedian and social satirist and entertainer on all occasions of festivity,1 The Greeks ruled in Upper India for nearly two hundred years.”—Eastern Art and Literature by Sir Denison Ross.
2 The very words Madari and Bangalia in Panjabi supply the clues; Madari may be from Mandarin or mandri, mantri.
3 The most intriguing collection of them is from Kashmir, vide, Folktales of Kashmir, Knowles, 1898.
