Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c28.s1.t2.106

v2.c28.s1.t2.106

Karan, the Bard.—Karna-Kavya, or simply Karna, who traced his descent from the last household bard of the last emperor of Kanauj, was at once a politician, a warrior, and a scholar, and in each capacity has left ample proofs of his abilities. In the first he took a distinguished part in all the events of the civil wars ; in the second, he was one of the few who survived a combat almost without parallel in the annals even of Rajput chivalry ; and as a scholar, he has left us, in the introduction to his work,² the most instructive proof, not only of his inheriting the poetic mantle of his fathers, but of the course he pursued for the maintenance of its lustre. The bare enumeration of the works he had studied evinces that there was no royal road to Parnassus for the Rajput Kaviswar,³ but that, on the contrary, it was beset with difficulties not a little appalling. The mere nomenclature of works on grammar and historical epics, which were to be mastered ere he could hope for fame, must have often made Karna exclaim, “ How hard it is to climb the steeps ” on which from afar he viewed her temple. Those who desire to see, under a new aspect, an imperfectly known but interesting family of the human race, will be made acquainted with the qualifications of our bardic historians, and the particular course of studies which [99] fitted