6
Such is the key to the poetry
poets found themselves.
the
of Gujarat, and any one who is disposed to unlock treasures of our poets must, in the first instance, learn understand and appreciate what in
to>
Gujarat, the Brah is
man, the Banya, the ascetic, and even the woman used to treasure up deep
within his or her heart, and
communicates only to those whom
he
loves or
or she
regards as one of his or her own fold.
The Gujarati poets are many in number. of
them
are
placed before
the
printing press, and their number seventy.
public
Only
few
a
the
through
amounts
about
to
Eight of these belong to Kathiawar, fifteen
the city of Baroda,
and
the
rest
over
scattered
are
to-
different parts of what we now call the Districts of Surat,
Broach, Kaira, and Ahmedabad,
and over the other
outlying provinces forming parts of Baroda and other petty States.
Six of
Banyas, six Kunbis,
the poets seven
are ladies,
Artisans,
nine
nine Sadhus
ascetics, four Jain priests, one a Maratha bastard,
are
or and
all the rest are Brahmans of different sections. Poetry so written may be studied from an anthropological point of view, and such a study, though it is likely to repay the labour, is not the object seventy
names belong to the fifteenth
to the sixteenth, to
the
of this paper.
eighteenth,
eleven
and
to
Four of the century,
the seventeenth,
twelve
to
the
three sixteen
nineteenth.
The period to which the good many names that remain,
