Dictionary of Hindustani Proverbs

India is a land of proverbial sayings their name is legion and their use constant and never ending. The natives employ them in their daily intercourse, in their commercial and social correspondence, in all the many vicissitude of everyday life, even in the very Courts of Law. I have often heard a witty reply to a question put by a pleader with a proverb, and in altercations and disputes the natives hurl them at each other by the dozen. The closely connected with real Indian proverbs are the religious and philosophical aphorisms, always attributed to some saint, which so nearly approach the former as to be almost indistinguishable from them. They are habitually used on every possible occasion of daily life, especially in seasons of trouble. They are familiar to all; the women using them as they do their household work ; the men employ them for purposes of condolence and congratulation ; the children are taught them as soon as they can speak ; many persons largely interlard their conversation with them. Taken all in all, therefore, there is no study as a study that I know of, that will render the student of the natives of India so deeply conversant with their thoughts and mode of life as that of their proverbial and aphoristic lore.