English
A passage for editorial review. KASHMIRI PROVERBS & SAYINGS Explained and Illustrated from the rich and interesting Folklore of the Valley. BY THE Rkv. J^INTON\kNOWLES, F.R.G.S., M.R.A.S., Ac, (a M. s.) MISSIONARY TO THK KASHMIRIS. A wise man will endeavour "to understand a proverb and the interpretation.*' — Prov. I. w. 5, 6. BOMBAY : Education Society's Press. CALCUTTA :—Th ACKER, Spink A Co. LONDON :— Trubnkr & Co. 1885. [All rights reserved.'] t Cf € . • C ', C^L y-/.-.M.U-^. KG PREFACE. That moment when an author dots the last period to his manuscript, and then rises up from the study-chair to shake its many and bulky pages together is almost as exciting an occasion as when he takes a quire or so of foolscap and sits down to write the 6rst Uoe of it. Many and mingled feelings pervade his mind, and hope and fear vie with one another and alternately overcome one another, until at length the author finds some slight relief for his feelings and a kind of excuse for his book, by writing a preface, in which he states briefly the nature and character of the work, and begs the pardon of the reader for his presomption in undertaking it. A winter in Kashmir must be experienced to be realised. The air is most inyigorating, and the quiet is sublime. Even an ordinarily busy missionary enjoys much leisure through such a season in this beautiful country. I have now spent two long quiet winters here, and this '* Dictionary of Kashmiri Proverbs and Sayings" is the result of many hours of labour, study, and anxiety, during these leisurable months. As a missionary, on arriving in the Valley, I at once devoted my attention to the study of the language ; and believing that Proverbs taught " the real people's speech," discovered "the genius, wit and spirit of a nation," and embodied its ** current and practical philosophy,'* IV PREFACE. I quickly began to make a collection of them.* This hook, I believe, contains nearly all the Proverbs and Proverbial sayings now extant among the Kashmiri people. They have been gathered from various sources. Sometimes the great and learned Pandit instinctively uttered a proverb in my hearing; sometimes I got the barber to tell me a thing or two, as he polled my head ; and sometimes the poor coolie said something worth knowing, as carrying my load he tramped along before me. A few learned Muhammadan and Hindu friends also, have very materially helped me in this collection and its arrangement ; and here I again heartily acknowledge their kind and ready service. Actum est. It is done ; and now the manuscript has to be sent to the publishers, and notices have to be posted to the different papers and journals interested to advertise the work as *' in the press." "What will the little world say, into whose hands it may chance to arrive ? How will the philologist, the ethnologist, the antiquarian, the student of folklore, and the general reader regard this which has cost some considerable time and study. Dear reader, in order that your criticism may not be so hard as it might, perhaps, otherwise be, please permit me to remind you that Kashmir proper is but a small country, a little vale surrounded by snow-capped mountain ranges, about eighty-four miles long from north-west to south-east, and from twenty to twenty-five miles in width, with an area of about 1,850 square miles ; that the Kashmiri * " The genius, wit and spirit of a nation are discovered in its proverbs. " — Bacon. " Proverbs embody the current and practical philosophy of an age or nation."— Fleming. " Proverbs teach the real people's speech, and open up the hitherto sealed book of the native mind." — John Beames. PREFACE. V language is virtually minus a Dictionary and Grammar, and that besides one or two very unimportant works* written in the Persian character, all true Kashmiri books are printed in a kind of mongrel- Devanagari character called Shiirada, which only a very small proportion of the population can properly read ; that the Kashmiri language itself is very difficult, and is spoken differently by different persons — the Hindiis and Muhammadans, especially, speaking distinct dialects; that information from books of travel, &c., like Vigne's, Hugers, Knight's, Drew's, Bellew's and others, is very crude, scanty, and contradictory, concerning the manners and customs of the Kashmiri ; and that this individual is not naturally so com- municative as mi[^ht be expected from his cheery look and humorous disposition. Horace says somewhere " Nonum prematur in annum ; " and perhaps it would have been better to have kept by me what I have written, for nine years before publishing it. But other work demands much of my leisure time, — the prepara- tion of a Kashmiri Dictionary, of which these proverbs, and the words that contain them, form but a stepping-stone, and the translations of the ** Psalms of David** and ** Proverbs of Solomon,'* which have been deferred only because of the non- appearance as yet of the revised edition of the Old Testament, However, I trust the reader will accept my various excuses and forgive any error, whether in the romanizing, or the style, or the information, as the case may be. The Proverbs and Sayings have all been translated as liter- ally as possible ; and with a fairly-trained ear I have honestly tried hard to render correctly in the Roman character what * A short interesting account of the origin of this character is given in Dr. Klmslie's Kashmiri Vocabulary, p. 149. VI PREFACE. I heard ; but the different dialects made this very confasing work ; and there were some sounds which could not possibly be written like Roroan-Urdd, except with the following addi- tional vowels : — An o as the German o, but short. An o as the German o, but long and drawling. These two vowels, I believe, exist in Hungarian. An u as the German u. An M as the German m, but long and drawling. In addition to these there is a sound which is something like a very short i, to which I have given the name of Miydli zer ; it is frequently the sign of the instrumental case as ktcriy a dog, huni by a dog, &c. This sound, I believe, is to be found in Russian, and is in that language written as j. In the Roman character this sound will be represented by the simple letter , and in order that this i may always appear, I have always written the final Ae {hd,e mukhtaji). With the exception of this i or hhiydli zer^ 1 have, however, avoided introducing any diacritical points. The following is the Roman- Kashmiri alphabet with the powers of the letters : — A a pronounced as a in woman. P d pronounced as d in barf — A i a in art. the point of the Ai ai ai in aisle. tongue is struck An au au in our. back on the palate. B b b in hwt. E e „ e in there. Chch ch in church E e „ e in pet. D d point d in </ew, the of the tongue F f „ / in /ind, the English / is only is pressed on the sounded, and then upper fore-teeth. very badly, in the PREFACE. VU middle or at the end of a word. If it occurs at the commeacement of a word it is most distinctly and inva- riably turned into pA. 6 g pronounced as ^ in ^. The Arabic letter hgain gK, with its peculiar guttural sound is seldom heard in pure Kaah- mfri. H h pronounced as h in ^use. I i is a kind of half t. I hear that there is something analogous to this to be found in Rus- sian and is written as ;'. I ( pronounced as t in police. J j ,, j injust. K k M A in feec^le* Kh kh „ ch in the Scotch and Irish \ocht or the final ch of the German schacA and hvLch. L 1 pronounced as 2 in lane. M m pronounced as m in man. N n „ n in noon N n „ n in the French words saws, bon. O o pronounced as o in no. P P „ p in^aint, Ph ph „ similar to ph in ^Alegm. The Kashmirfs turn the Persian J/? into phe, e.g., phaklr and phatah for fakir and fatb, except perhaps when this letter, or rather sound, comes in the mid- dle, and at the end of a word. R r pronounced as r in ran. A Scotchman's r is perhaps not met with in pure Kashmiri. The euphonic r is very com- mon, e.g., bonth and brohth by or and bror, &c. The Mu- hammadans generally omit the r in these and similar words. S s pronounced as s in sin. Sh sh „ th in Mine.