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without whose help a religion so firmly rooted as Bud- -dhism was, would never have given way. The poems do yeach a point where the allegory is not traceable and merges into love-stories and hero-worship and the like. But even then the dying notes of the allegory will here -and there not fail to ring in the ear once rendered sensi- tive to the main-spring of the poet’s heart. The poems of Narasinha Mehta and Mira may be said to be the nucleus of all subsequent literature on the sub- ject. As the lives of the leading Plantagenets and Tudors are known to many English people as Shakespeare has -drawn them, Gujarat derives its associations of Krishna from the lively imagery in the poems of Mird and Mehta Narasinha and of others who have followed in their wake. Does a mother want to see her own love to her -child visibly painted before her? Mother Jasoda and -all the villagers of Gokul had poured their love upon the sweet little baby Kanaiy&;and the poet and poetess vhave sweetly sung of it. Woman in Gujarat marries -before she loves, and the family customs allow no scope to her indulging in even a bit of such open partialities and vanities as her heart may be longing for even in respect of her husband. But when she sings of Kanaiya and the Gopis, both husband and wife enjoy the open -expression of something which they have been used .t0 feel in their own hearts. The Bhakta, on the other band, finds in the exploits of the ten Avatars a living
