DRAVIDIAN SONGS.

OME one, presumably a Missionary from the Madras 0 Presidency, but certainly a scholar and a philanthropist, has published in the Cornhill Magazine a paper on Dravidian Folk- Songs, which deserves the attention of all who are interested in poetry, in theology, or in the character of the peoples of India. We have seen nothing of such fascinating interest for a long time, The paper itself is of minor importance, and we intend by and by to dissent from one of its main conclusions ; but it is gemmed, as it were, with translations from songs which, as we are assured, are folk-songs known to all the people of the Dravidian stock, the great race of thirty millions which speaks Tamil, Teloogoo, or Canarese. The songs were originally composed, no doubt, by rhapsodists, the wandering minstrels who still roam over India, and, Bitting under the trees, chant the popular epics and hymns, in high-pitched wailing voices like sentient ....Bohan harps, in the ears of enchanted thousands, who sit or squat in their white robes immovable for hours, save when, ou the occurrence of some really poetic passage or lofty appeal to God, they rise for a moment, fluttering, quivering, almost weeping, with excitement and delight. Valiniki, the Indian homer, was one of these men ; and though they have lost some of their old faculty, and their improvisations are no longer epics, they have gained, we suppose from some change in their method of observation, a terrible proficiency in satire, and hit the popular enemies, and more especially the English, with the deadly aim of Banger or De Musset. What- ever their origin, however, certain of the hymns have become with the Dravidian nations household words. " No one will be quoted which does not pass from mouth to mouth, and has not been gathered from the roadside or temple gate. Some of those we give were collected and printed in the Canareso character by a German missionary a few years back ; otherwise it is not known that they have ever been printed, even by the natives of the country. They are the property of a minstrel caste, known in Tamil as the Sataui, in Telugu as the Chatali, and in Canuese as the Dasara," and in Bengalee as the Kothoks. " They are handed down from genera- tion to generation entirely vied voce, and from the minstrels have passed into public use." More noteworthy songs to become the songs of a people do not exist, nor could we produce evidence so conclusive as to the depth of the chasm which divides the Hindoo from the Western habit of mind, of the radical difference existing between their daily thoughts. The British soldier who stalks among these half-fed, uneducated, brown-skinned men as master is absolutely incapable of understanding, far more of enjoying, a song like this, largely sold in the Tamil country, and taught to all the children of the more thoughtful—not necessarily of the richer— fathers,—

" God supremo and groat Dwells not in mortal flesh, nor bath he frame Of substance elemental. Ho is not

Confined in what tho simple call a God—

In Hari, IIara, and the minor host.

Tho Godhead is not oven mind itself ; 'Tie Ile, the Uncreato, who knoweth all, Who'ne'or began and never hath an end.

"Bat will that God Vow down and dwell with men— Abide in things that bath no worth or praise—

That are not ono, but somo, and separate ?

Ho bath no end nor had beginning. He Is ono, ineeparate. To Him alone Should mortals offer praise and prayer. Poor fools.

Must bow to idols—they cannot discern The higher things. As when some woakly man Who cannot walk a mile, is urged to pace Such distance as he can : so fools adore An imago. Not to them tho perfect blies Of knowing inner things. The wise man saith That God, the Omniscient essence, fills all space And time. Ho cannot die or end. In Him All things exist. There is no God but Ho.

If thou wouldst worship in the noblest way

Bring flowers in thy hand. Their names aro these,—

Contentment, justice, wisdom. Offer them To that groat essence—then thou sorvost God.

No stone can image God. To bow to it Is not to worship. Outward rites cannot

Avail to compass that reward of bliss That true devotion gives to those who know."

The Saxon soldier, if a devout man, might so use the words of an Asiatic king and poet that ho would express nearly the same thoughts ; but of himself he would be mute, and incapable, except when the ideas were presented in the well-accustomed words of the Psalmist, of comprehending them. Repetition and habit help the Dravidian, too ; but he has another aid, the habit of meditation, from which this writer, at all events, has never known a Hindoo of any class absolutely free. Indolent, or rather fond of sitting, with

a keen brain, no books, no newspapers, and no interests outside his village, dwelling in a country where nature is always oppressive, not to be mastered except by the stern white man, very weary of small excitements, and still oppressed by that fear of the unknown which, as we deem, once tormented all the Asiatic races—though the Mongol has shaken it off—the Ilindoo, bad or good, meditates always on the whence and whither. The great problems of life in- terest him as polities interest the Englishman, and he embraces any

thought, any dogma which seems to give hint relief, with a grip of which the Western mind, distracted by many interests, seems scarcely capable. This is, we firmly believe, the cause of that extraordinarily clear conception of sin, as distinct from crime, at which all Hindoo races appear to have arrived—though it is not a. prominent feature in their creed—of their intense reluctance to give up ceremonial, as a straw which may save, and of their equally intense distrust and even scorn of the very rites they yet will not omit. In Bengal the meditation has resulted in a permanent tone of resignation, as of men who can see uo certainty, a toes ,,eh

as it were with gleams of satiric thought ; but among the Dravi- diens there would seem to be a different impression—one of deep, immovable, and most melancholy certainty, The destiny of man is pain ; hope there is none save iu the Lord of all ; and he, how move his aid ?

"CRY FOR HELP.

" How many births are past, I cannot toll,

How many yet may be, no man may say ;

But this alone I know, and know full well,—

That trouble sore embitters all the way. Its weight ie more than I can boar, but thou, Great God, who once didst bloats e'en Ibharaj,

Of elephants the king, must help me now ? Be pleased to grant my prayer—my soul enlarge. Chorus. 0 Vishnu, help ! Groat Vishnu, save A wretched soul like mine I

Thou boldest up the earth and wave, Oh, send thy help in time I "Groat Lord, my boyish years wore one long pain,

Although they seemed to pass in play. For play

Is nought but pain, in that it brings disdain Of God and holy things. This very day, 0 happy Narasimha, bear my prayer, And freely, from thy heart, on me bestow The help that now to crave I humbly dare.

Oh, help and save before from life I go.

Chorus. 0 Vishnu, help! &o.

"But now, in ago and feebleness extreme, Distress and pain are harder still to bear. I cannot bear such woe! For, like a stream, It surges overhead. Deat thou not taro, Purandala Vithala, in whose eye

All men are one and equal ? On thy throne, 0 king of birds, how swiftly dost thou fly! List, hear with joy, and take me for thy own. Chorus. 0 Vishnu, help ! &c."

That help comes nevertheless through prayer is strongly asserted in all these hymns, more especially in the most remarkable of all, in which the singer rises to a lofty poetry both of thought and of expression. After sadly recounting in low, wailing distichs, the .sins the dead has committed, the Rhapsodist goes on :-

"Prayer. What though he sinned so much, Or that his parents sinned ?

What though the sins' long score Was thirteen hundred crimes? Oh I let them every one Fly swift to Bas feet.

Chorus. Fly swift.

"The chamber dark of death Shall open to his soul, The seas shall rise in waves, Surround on every side, But yet that awful bridge, No thinker than a thread, Shall stand both firm and strong.

The yawning dragon's mouth Is shut—it brings no fear.

The Palaces of heaven Throw open all their doors.

Chorus. Open alt their doors.

" The thorny path is steep, Yet shall his soul go safe. The silver pillar stands So near—he touches it. He may approach the wall, The golden wall of heaven.

The burning pillar's flame Shall have no beat for him.

Chorus. Shall have no heat.

a' Finial. Oh, Iet us never doubt That his sine are gone— That Bassava forgives.

May it bo well with him.

Chorus. May it be well. Let all be well with him.

(Aorta. Let all be well."

The doctrine of the highest Christian minds, that the refuge from earth is nearness to the Creator, is quite familiar to the Dravi- diens, though some of the songs contain an elaborate and subtle system of morality. Here are two verses from one of them in which the Christian command, Do unto others as you would they .should do unto you is very distinctly taught :—

" The man who is rich but his wealth gives not

Is worse than an outcast indeed.

So he who would poison one's food, I wet, Is worse than an outcast indeed.

Who shuns not the hypocrite's fearful lot Is worse than an outcast indeed.

But ho who would puff his good deeds one jot, No outcast so vile in his greed.

Chorus. Pariahs dwell, &o.

"" The man who his promise forgets to keep,

In Pariah village should dwell.

Who sows not the good he desires to reap,

In Pariah village should dwell.

The man who can lie, yet at night can sleep, In Pariah village should dwell.

Then he who in blood his right hand dare stoop

No Pariah blacker iu

Chorus. Pariahs dwell, &e."

The absolute prohibition of lying is the more remarkable, because it is foreign to the whole genius of Iiindooism, a creed whose philosophic essence is that God may be lying throughout, and that

all may be illusion, and also because it is the command which all these races find it hardest to obey. A Hindoo will turn celibate, or self-torturer, will resolve never to speak or never to stand up- right, and will never break his vow, but the resolve to speak the truth always involves too sustained a strain upon his mental energies. We must quote one more poem, though the proprietor of the Cornhill will really have a fair case of piracy to allege against the Spectator, in which deep religious feeling, feeling like that of the best Quakers towards God and the best Nit Royalists towards Christ, is mingled with a subtle worldly humour of which English hymns of late years have become hopelessly devoid. It is wonder- fully difficult, we should add, to a Hindoo in his highest and most ecstatic moments to avoid a sly hit at his womankind. There is the Chaucerian spirit in the very laws of 11.1unoo, and it is to this moment doubtful whether the awful custom of Suttee had not its root in a grim chuckle, that under it no widow could rejoice in her husband's death 0 THIS TROM3LESCOIE WORLD.

"If thou shouidst have a wife, Trouble is thine, If none should bless your life, Trouble is thine,

If neither wise nor witty,

Sorrow will come Still more if she be pretty, Sorrow will come,

For then, all guarding vain,

Sore trouble this.

She brings unmeasured pain, Sore trouble this.

Chorus—Never, 0 my soul! can peace be thine,

Until great Runga's grace be mine.

If angry he, all hope resign.'

" If children come to thee, Mourning comes too.

But if no heir should be, Mourning comes too.

With earning wealth and power Pain fills the cup.

"When men are sick and poor, Sorrow enters.

Though wealth should bar door, Sorrow enters.

If gained by strength and caro- Pain is in store. • Groat hoards the shelves should bear, Pain is in store.

But if each day you pray, No sorrow comes.

To him who hears always—

No sorrow comes.

Tho excellent Vishnu—

Your joy is great.

Groat peace will dwell in you, Your joy is great.

Chorus. Never, 0 my soul! &c."

That a people like this have in them the essential spirit of goodness and of progress would seem to the observer clear, and the fact that they are not good can only be explained by a reference to the severance which always exists between life and the mind's ideal, and to the result of a popular creed in which symbolism run mad, and become utterly base and concrete, has destroyed not indeed the tone of the mind, but the tone of daily life. Of the filthiness of Southern Brahmanism we think little—for it is not worse than that of the highest ancient Greek society, and there are stages in civilization in which Socrates and Phallic worship contrive to exist side by side—but of its marvellous effect in destroying virtue by making it consist in external rites it is impossible to speak too strongly. The Hindoo belongs, by the law of his nature, to the Quietist rather than the Calvinist. No dogma will purify, or even greatly influence his life ; nothing but that inner conscious- ness of nearness to the Divine which he sometimes derives from meditation, and which shines out through all these hymns. We said we differed with the writer on one point, and It is this: we doubt if the people who are influenced by these verses deem God so unapproachable as he thinks they do. Ile knows them personally far better than we can pretend to do, but in these hymns the depth of sadness, the undertone of wailing does not

seem to us to proceed from hopelessness, but rather from a sense best expressed—at however immeasurable a distance—in the prayer, "If it be thy will, let this cup pass from me."