In the centuries gone by the educated and influential Mahomedan gentlemen took interest in the cultivation of the Hindi literature is amply established from the writings of Nawab Khankhana, Malik Jaisi and other eminent Mahomedan authors. European scholarship on the basis of linguistic researches has come to hold that the Hindi was the general language of the Upper Provinces and the authors and religious reformers whether Hindus or Mahomedans who wrote for or spoke to the people of the country used the Hindi––the language understood by the majority of the population to express their sentiments. The so called Urdu was not known in those days. No work of merit in Urdu dates prior to the eighteenth century. The vice-regal Court of Oudh was the great supporter of the Urdu literature and under its patronage Urdu has attained its position as the refined language of Upper India. With the rise of Urdu, the cultivation of Hindi was disparaged and in time the pure and impressive Hindi of Tulsidas––Kabirdas and Nabhaji––has given place to the artificial Hindi of the Sanscrit scholars––which is nothing but a collection of Sanscrit words linked together with Hindi particles. Works written in such language will never enrich the Hindi literature. There has arisen another class of Hindi––which is Urdu in Nagri character. The
