EARLY BARDIC CHRONICLES 13 said to date from the middle of the thirteenth century, and is probably a free adaptation of the Prakrit poem. Visala Deva (Bisal Dev) was the king of Ajmer in 1001 a.d. when Mahmiid of Ghazni made one. of his raids into India. He is celebrated in a short poem called Bisal Dev Raso, the date of which is unknown, but which has been con- sidered by some to belong to the thirteenth century. Till these poems are dated and their language thoroughly examined by scholars, it is not possible to say what evidence they give as to the date when the modern vernacular became clearly distinguished from the earlier Prakrit, and as even the Prithi Raj Raso, which is dated in 1191, is said by such an eminent authority as Sir Ge9rge Grierson to be abounding in pure Apabhrarii^a Sauraseni Prakrit forms," it would be rash in the absence of further evidence to place the date of the emergence of the modern vernaculars of Hindustan much earlier than the beginning of the twelfth century. Chand Bardai.— Prithi Raj (also called Prithvi Raj or Rai Pithora), who was born 1159 and killed in 1192, was the Chauhan ruler of Ajmer and Delhi at the time of the battles of Tarain, in the second of which he was captured and afterwards slain. He was a great patron of literature, and besides Ananya Das, mentioned above, his court was also attended by the famous bard Chayid Bardai. Chand Bardai belonged to an old family of bards, and the famous poet Sur Das is said by some to have been one of his descendants. He came to the court of Prithi Raj and was appointed as his minister and poet- laureate. His poetical works were collected by Amar Singh of Mewar in the seventeenth century, and it is probable that they were then recast and partially modernized though still full of archaic language. Chand' s chief work is the Prithi Raj Raso. In this famous poem of sixty-nine books and 100,000 stanzas he gives the life of his patron and the history of the time in which he wrote. Chand Bardai and his patron were both killed after the battle of Tarain
