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Hindi Folk-Songs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Extract

Some ten years ago a Brahman scholar was travelling by rail from Jaunpur to Allahabad. At a country station there was an incident familiar in those parts: a number of women crowded the platform, weeping and bidding farewell to their men-folk, who were going to Calcutta to find work. Two or three of the women got into the carriage with their husbands, and, as the journey continued, began a, song. One line of this made a great impression on the Pandit. “The railway, my rival, has carried away my beloved.” A bold metaphor. In the poetry to which he was accustomed, the rival wife with her interference would be compared to the swan with its mythical power of dividing milk from water. But, after all, was not the railway simile much more natural and vigorous ? The swan simile was part of the stock in trade of centuries of poets, and required a special education and tradition for its understanding. The railway simile spoke from the heart to the heart.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1936

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References

page 211 note 1 Gram Git, p. 77.

page 211 note 2 Gram Git, p. 471.

page 211 note 3 Gram Git, p. 264.

page 212 note 1 Gram Git, p. 152. Wedding Song 12.

page 212 note 2 Gram Git, p. 48. Birth Song 25.

page 214 note 1 Gram Git, p. 103. Birth Song 56.

page 215 note 1 Gram Git, p. 142. Wedding Song 4.

page 215 note 2 Gram Git, p. 163. Wedding Song 13.

page 217 note 1 Gram Git, p. 368. Weeding Song 3. Grierson, , “Bihari Folk-songs,” xviGoogle Scholar.

page 217 note 2 Gram Git, p. 379.

page 217 note 3 Gram Git, p. 381.

page 217 note 4 Grierson, “Bhojpuri Folk-songs.”

page 217 note 5 Gram Git, p. 266. Mill Song 14.

page 218 note 1 Gram Git, pp. 264, 310, 343, 381. Mill Song 13, 27, 37. Weeding Song 4. Grierson, , “Bhojpuri Folk-songs,” xlv (Basti Singh)Google Scholar.

page 219 note 1 Gram Git, p. 429. Swing Song 26.

page 219 note 2 Grierson, , “Bhojpuri Folk-songs,” xlivGoogle Scholar.

page 219 note 3 Gram Git, p. 293. Mill Song 22.

page 219 note 4 Gram Git, p. 424. Swing Song 25.

page 219 note 5 Gram Git, p. 58. Birth Song 33.

page 220 note 1 Gram Git, p. 184. Wedding Song 25.

page 221 note 1 Quoted in Clement Allen's, F. R.The Chinese Book of the Odes for English Readers,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland, Vol. XVI, p. 455Google Scholar.

page 221 note 2 Gram Git, p. 74. Birth Song 43.

page 222 note 1 Gram Git, p. 393. Weeding Song 7.