iv NOTE TO THE FIRST EDITION. Of all the Dravidian languages, Tamil is the richest in its store of ethical treatises in bich form the great code of morals of the Tamil-speaking people. Many of these works, especially those written by the poetess Arvai, of whom the Rer. H. Bower remarks, " She sang like Sappho ; yet not of love, but of virtue,” are: “ familiar as household words ” among the Tamilians. Of Kumral, the most celebrated ethical work in Tamil, the same scholar says that it is superior to the Institutes of Nanu and is worthy of the divine Plato himself. This work has been translated into some of the European languages, and many soholars are of opinion that there is no treatise equal to it in any Indian language. There are some moral treatises in Kannada also : but their number is not very large. Besides, many of them are not quite free from sectarian bias. Knowing a little of both these languages, I thought I might render the Kannadigas a little. service by giving them a free metrical translation in Kannada of portions of some of the Tamil works on morals. The works selected for translation in this Part are chiefly Nanneri, Múdurai, l'ettrizrerkai, Nalvali, Nitinerivilakkam, Nitivenbi, Nitisáram and Neiladi yár. Here and there occur some verses which are my own. The verses are written in old
