Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

History of Bengali Language and Literature c10: Chapter VI. The Post-Chaitanya Literature

History of Bengali Language and Literature c10

Language
English

Contents

Chapter VI. The Post-Chaitanya Literature

c10.1

THE POST-CHAITANYA LITERATURE.

c10.2

I. (a) The Court of Rājā Kṛṣṇa Chandra of Nadīā.—Vitiated classical taste and word-painting.
(b) Alāol—The Mahāmedan poet who heralded the new age. His life and a review of his works.
(c) The Story of Vidyā-Sundara.
(d) Early poets of the Vidyā-Sundara-poems.
(e) Bhārata Chandra Rāi Guṇākara—the great poet of the 18th century. Prāṇarāma Chakra-varti.

c10.3

II. (a) The Court of Rājā Rājavallabha of Rāja Nagara in Dacca. Its poets. Jaya Nārāyaṇa Sen—Ānanda Mayī Devī.
(b) The poets of the school of Bhārata Chandra.

c10.4

III. Poetry of rural Bengal.
(a) The Kaviwalās and their songs—Raghu, the Cobbler—Haru Thākur—Rāma Vasu and others. The Portugese Kaviwallā Mr. Antony.
(b) Religious Songs.
(c) Rāma Prasāda Sen and poets of his school.

c10.5

IV. The Jātrās or popular theatres.

c10.6

V. The three great poets with whom the age closed—Dāsarathi—Rāmanidhi Gupta—Içwara Chandra Gupta.

c10.7

VI. The folk-literature of Bengal.

c10.8

I. (a) The Court of Rājā Kṛṣṇa Chandra of Nadīā.—Vitiated Classical taste and word-painting.

c10.9

A new era was dawning in our literature. Society after a great movement sinks into callousness. A great idea passes away; and in the age that follows the spasmodic efforts of common men to reach the high ideal expressed in some great historic character slowly spend themselves. Lesser men arise who pose as leaders of society, scoffing at all that constitutes greatness; and custom and convention—two hoary-headed monsters—once more clasp the people in their iron grip. This is an age when craft and ingenuity find favour instead of open-hearted sincerity; when moral courage, character, manliness and strength of conviction fall into disfavour and worldly manœuvres of all sorts pass for high qualities and are praised as indicating wisdom.

c10.10

In the literature of such an age, we miss that genial flow of noble ideas—that freedom of thought and freshness of natural instincts which characterise great epochs in a nation's life, and in their place we find the poets struggling to furnish long and wearisome details about a small point till it is worn thread-bare by its very ingenuity; a small idea is over-coloured and followed in frivolous niceties on the lines of a vitiated classical taste till it becomes almost grotesque or absurd.

c10.11

Such an age came upon the society of Bengal and its influence is stamped on the literature of the 18th century. This was an age when Mahāmedan power had just decayed. Robbers and bandits overran the country; and knavery of all sorts was practised in the courts of the Rājās. The school set up by Aurangeb in politics became the model for his chiefs to follow in their own courts. Conspiracies, plots and counterplots amongst brothers and relations who wanted to elbow down and kill one The political atmosphere.

c10.12

Rājā Kṛṣṇa Chandra.

c10.13

another to gain the *gadi*, were events of every-day-occurrence in the courts of Indian noblemen. Rājā Kṛṣṇa Chandra of Navadwip by a stratagem which was highly praised, deprived his own uncle of his rightful ownership of the *gadi* of Kṛṣṇagar. Kṛṣṇa Chandra’s son Çambhu Chandra played a similar dodge and tried to usurp the possessions of his father, by spreading a false report of his death. The Rājā was thus going to be paid in his own coin. His agent at Agradwip in Burdwan by an equally unscrupulous action ousted the rightful owner out of the possession of that place and gained it for his own master. In the Courts of Serajuddulāh, the Nabab, plots of a far more important character were being formed fraught with consequences which were to change the history of the whole of India. It was not an age conspicuous for its appreciation of high ideas or of noble sentiments. “Rājā Kṛṣṇa Chandra was hostile to the followers of Chaitanya.”* He frustrated the efforts of Rājā Rājavallava who had tried to obtain sanction of the Pundits of Bengal to the remarriage of Hindu widows of tender ages. Yet Kṛṣṇa Chandra was the most important man of the period in the Hindu Society of Bengal. His Court had gathered round it some of the greatest Sanskrit scholars of the country. He appreciated merit, patronised literature, and encouraged art. The far-famed clay-models of Kṛṣṇagar and the fine cotton-industry of Çantipur owe their perfection to the patronage of the Rājā. The Rājā was friendly to the English and it was he who first put the idea of overthrowing Serājuddulāh by the help of the English into the head of Mirzāfar and other influential men engaged in conspiracy against the Nowāb. Kriṣṇa Chandra was himself a scholar of no mean order. He could discuss knotty problems of logic with Hari Rāma Tarka Sidhānta and in theology he was a match for the far-famed Rāmānanda Vāchaspati. He was well-versed in the doctrines of the six schools of Hindu philosophy, and made endowment of lands to the great exponents of that learning of the period—Çiva Rāma Vāchaspati and Vireçwara Nyāya Panchānana. He could compose extempore verses in Sanskrit and competed personally in public with Vāneçwara Vidyālaṅkāra—the famous Sanskrit poet of his court.

c10.14

∗ Khitiça Vamçābali Charita P. 29.

c10.15

Besides all these Rājā Kriṣṇa Chandra was the great patron of Bengali literature of the 18th century.

c10.16

The great patron of Bengali.

c10.17

Poetry under such patronage became the creation of schoolmen and courtiers. It no longer aimed at offering its tribute to God but tried to please the fancy of a Rājā; the poets found the gates of the palace open to receive them and cared not if the doors of heaven were shut. For models of Bengali court-poetry, we shall quote here a passage translated from the Naiṣadha Charita—a Sanskrit poem held in great admiration by the scholars of the period.

c10.18

The ove drawn similes of Sanskrit and Persian models.

c10.19

“How shall I describe, O, King, the profuse hair on Damayanti’s head! They compare it to the hair of a *chamari* (a species of deer). But it is foolish to compare Damayanti’s hair to what that animal hides behind him as a mark of shame. They say her eyes are as beautiful as those of the

c10.20

gazelle. But it is as a sign of his disappointment and defeat that the gazelle kicks the ground with his hoofs. God took the quintessence of the moon and made Damayanti's face. So a hole was made on the moon's surface and they call it a spot. The lotuses have all fled into the watery forts being struck by the beauty of Damayanti's face. Before God had created Damayanti, he exercised himself in the art of creating feminine beauty by his creation of all other women, so that he might give perfection to that single form of Damayanti; and when the ideal was reached in her, the subsequent forms were created only to establish the superiority of Damayanti over the rest."

c10.21

Not only the Naiṣadha Charita, but Daçakumāra Charita, Harṣa Charita and other Sanskrit works admired in this period, abound with passages like the above, and these served as models to the Bengali writers who were under the immediate influence of the courts, and they themselves began to regale on niceties which now seem so absurd to us. The Persian poems which were favoured in this age, also contain long drawn-out similes verging on the ridiculous, and the noblemen and scholars, who prided themselves on a vain-glorious pedantry, encouraged our poets to introduce similar artificial compositions into Bengali. Here are a few short passages translated from a favourite Persian work of the period.

c10.22

"Her black hair was like a net to catch the wise." "The lustre of her nails kept the hearts of all men fixed on them. They were like so many rising moons". "Her waist was slender as a single hair or rather half of it."—Zelekhā.

c10.23

Slenderness of the waist was held to be a point of feminine beauty, hence absurdities passed for niceties and were admired as poetic skill!

c10.24

The literature that sprang up under the patronage of courts was thus vitiated by their influence. Not only in the style of writing but in its subject-matter also, it showed the control of those evil stars that held sway over the literary horizon of Bengal at this time. The romantic conceptions of Persian tales are often singularly unpleasing to the Bengali mind; especially does this remark apply to those *kutnis* or serving women, who acted as agents in matters of illicit passion. Yet these women figure prominently in the literature of this period. Here is an extract, translated from Zelekhā, a Persian poem, in which a *kutni* is vaunting her powers before the heroine of the tale. The Bengali poets were trying their level best to import such characters into their poems.

c10.25

“Who is it that has tampered with your heart? Tell me why it is that your face beautiful as a flower has grown pale and yellowish. Why are you waning day by day like the moon? I am afraid you have fallen in love. Tell me who is that person. If he be the very moon whose abode is in the sky, I will make him come down to the earth as a slave to your wishes. If he be a spirit of the mountains, I know such charms that he would be put into a phial and brought to you. If he be merely a man, take my word, I shall make him a bond-slave to you. He will be made to minister to your wishes in every matter and you need not care to please him by offering him your services,”

c10.26

The maid-servants of the Hindu classics not to be confounded with Kutnis.

c10.27

These *kutnis* are numerous in Persian tales. They are not of the class of Durvalā, the maid-servant described in the Chandi Kāvyas dealt with by us in a previous chapter. The latter are knaves who repay the kindness shown to them by creating disunion amongst the members of a family to serve their own selfish ends and by robbing their masters as much as they can, when entrusted with marketing. Durvalā bears a family-likeness to Mantharā of the Rāmāyaṇa, though placed in different situations, and these women should not be confounded with the *kutnis* of the Māhomedan stories; they are not accessories to immoral purposes. The *dutis* perform a quite different function in the Vaiṣṇava poems where love is spiritualised.

c10.28

Indeed the Hindu poets had hitherto taken particular care to keep scenes of illicit love out of their poems. But the *kutni* now became a very common thing in our literature, especially in the poems of Vidyā-Sundara. A very striking instance of such women as figuring in the poetry of the age is found in the character of Hirā mālinī in Bhārata Chandra's Annadā Maṅgala—the most popular Bengali poem of the day.

c10.29

The depraved taste in style and in spirit.

c10.30

Thus in the style of poetry as well as in its spirit, the court literature of Bengal presents a striking difference to the earlier Bengali works. The style and the spirit both became depraved—the former by a vain-glorious pedantry which made descriptions grotesque by their over-drawn niceties, the serious often passing into the burlesque—and the latter by scurrilous obscenities grosser than anything in Sterne, Smollett or Wycherley and by the introduction of characters like those of Hirā mālinī and Vidu Brāhmini—accessories to illicit love of the most revolting type. The descriptions of men and women are often marred by overcolouring like those of the beards of Hudibras described by Butler in a well known lengthy passage.

c10.31

But a literary epoch cannot be wholly without its redeeming features. There must be some really meritorious points by which it can attract and make people its votaries, reconciling them even to its vices. In this age, a rigid classical taste gave a unique finish to the Bengali style and enriched it with the variety of Sanskrit metres that so powerfully appeal to the ear. Bhārata Chandra Rāya, the court poet of Rājā Kriṣṇa Chandra, stands alone in the field of our old literature as a word-painter. No poet before him contributed so much to our wealth of expression or had such success in importing elegance to our Sanskritic metres. The poet here, like a true Indian artizan, applied himself patiently to the sphere of decorative art. He hunted for and found choicest expressions and strung them into the most elegant metres and carried the whole school of Bengali poets after him maddened by the zeal to imitate his style. The heart had been feasted to satiety on the emotions contained in the Vaiṣṇava literature, the ear now wanted to be pleased. High sentiments expressed in rich poetry had abounded in the literature of the Vaiṣṇavas; enough of such. The scholars would have a brief day of their own. They would show feats of clever expression, pedantry and wealth of words strung together with masterly skill. The people were drawn by this novelty. After the strain of a high-strung idealistic spirituality, they were glad to revel

c10.32

The merits of the literary epoch.

c10.33

The great poet Bhārata Chandra.

c10.34

in grossly sensual ideas. They descended from heaven to have a little taste of the mundane pleasures. The Sanskrit vocabulary and Sanskrit works of rhetoric became the chief sources of poetic inspiration; yet the period, by a strange irony of fate, was ushered in by one who was not a Hindu, as it would be natural to expect, but a Mahomedan. A Mahomedan writer arose with a mastery of the Sanskrit tongue, the like of which we rarely find among Hindu poets in the Bengali literature. He was Syed Ālāol, translator of Padmāvata a Hindi poem written by Mir Māhammad in 1521 A.D.

c10.35

Syed Ālāol.

c10.36

(b) Ālāol—the Māhammedan poet who heralded the new age—His life and a review of his works.

c10.37

Ālāol was the son of a minister of Samser Kutub, the Nawab of Jālālpur (in the district of Faridpur). When a youngman, he undertook a sea-voyage in the company of his father. The crew were attacked by Portuguese pirates, known in the country as Hermadas (from Armada). We have a line in the Chandi Kāvya by Mukunda Rāma describing the great fear in which sailors held these Hermadas. "Night and day the merchant plied his oars in fear of being overtaken by the Hermadas."* The father of Ālāol was killed in a hand-to-hand fight with the marauders and our poet narrowly escaped a similar fate, and fled to Arācān where Māgana Thakur, the Moslem Prime minister of the ruling Chief of the place, received him hospi-

c10.38

His father is killed.

c10.39

∗ "রাত্রি দিন বয়ে খায় হার্মাদের ডরে।" Kavi Kankana Chandi.

c10.40

tably, being pleased with the great scholarship of the youngman. He resided at this place for many years and when he was verging on forty, he was ordered by Māgana Thakur to translate the Hindi poem Padmāvat into Bengali and he did so to please his patron and master. Some years passed in this high and agreeable company, and our poet seems to have tasted during this time the sweets of life after the woes that had befallen him in the early part of his career. He was again ordered by Māgana Thākur to translate a Persian work named Saiful Mulluk and Badiujjamāl into Bengali. But he had now declined ‘in the vale of years’ and when a few chapters of this book were written, Māgana Thākur, the poet's friend and patron, met with an unexpected death, and Alāol in great disappointment left the half-finished poem and retired into a life of rest. But it was yet reserved for him to be subjected to further vicissitudes in life; and greater sorrows than those hitherto experienced were still in store for him. Sujā, brother of Aurangzeb, had come to Arācān about this period and a fight ensued between the unfortunate prince and the Arācān Chief,—the former being completely defeated. A wicked man named Mirzā gave evidence against Alāol, to satisfy a private grudge implicating him as a party to Sujā's action against the Chief of Arācān. Alāol was thrown into prison, where he spent a few years, subjected to all sorts of cruel treatment. He was, however, released and spent 9 years of his life in close retirement. Syed Musā, a rich nobleman of Arācān, took some interest in the poet during these evil days and at his request he completed his translation of Saifulmulluk and His poetry halts, Badiujjamāl. Alāol had grown old by this time and had lost his wonted spirit—the spring of all his noble poetry. In the last part of this translation we miss his characteristic genial flow and sweetness of expression. Besides the above two works he wrote sequels to the stories of Lora Chandrāni and Sati Mainā—poems written by Doulat Kāzi in Bengali. The latter works were undertaken by our poet at the command of Solamān, another minister of the Arācān Chief. At the request of an influential man of the court named Syed Mahamed Khan, Alāol translated the Persian poem Hastapaikār by Nizāmi Gaznavi. Besides these, Alāol wrote several poems on Rādhā and Kriṣṇa, some of which display exquisite poetic touches. Alāol was born about the year 1618; was thrown into prison in 1658; and being released lived to a good old age, till the close of the 17th century.

c10.41

A list of his works. It will be seen that Alāol the poet worked manly in the field of translation, and the chief work of his Muse on which his fame rests—the Padmāvati—is only, as we have said, the Bengali translation of a Hindi poem. But Alāol's translation is not only free but is also marked by great originality, and though conforming in the main to the tale of the Hindi bard, is an improvement upon it in many respects.

c10.42

An improvement on the original. The Padmāvati is written in a high flown Sanskritic Bengali. Alāol is the first of the poets who aimed at word-painting and at that finished Sanskritic expression which is the forte of the Bengali literature of the 18th century. In fact Alāol, though, generally speaking, inferior to Bhārata Chandra, because he lacks the "elegant genius"

c10.43

of the latter, eclipses nearly all the other poets of Bengal in his profuse use of Sanskritic terms. For a Moslem writer to have the credit of importing the largest number of Sanskritic words into a Bengali poem and thus heralding an age of classical revival, is no small achievement, and we are bound to admit that none of the Hindu poets of the age in which he lived, was in this respect, a match for him.

c10.44

Alāol has given descriptions of the religious ceremonies of the Hindus, their customs and manners with an accuracy and minuteness which strike us as wonderful, coming as they do from the pen of a Mahomedan writer. He has given a classification of feminine emotions in all their subtlest forms as found in the Sanskrit books of rhetoric, in the portraiture of such characters as Vāsakasajjā, Khaṇḍitā, Kalahāntaritā, and Vipralavdhā. He has represented the ten different stages of separation from a lover (বিরহের দশ দশা), closely following the rules laid down in Sāhityadarpaṇa and in Pingala's works on rhetoric. He has discoursed on medicine in a manner which would do credit to a physician versed in the Aurvedic lore. He has, besides, shown a knowledge of the movements of the planets and their influence on human fortune worthy of an expert astrologer. In his accounts of the little rituals connected with the religious ceremonies of the Hindus such as the Praçastha Vandanā, he displays a mastery of detail which could only have been expected from an experienced priest. He has, besides, described the rules of long and short vowels, the principles মগণ, রগণ etc. by which the various Sanskrit metres are governed, and quoted Sanskrit

c10.45

The Sanskritic style and the Hindu spirit.

c10.46

couplets like a Pandit, to serve as texts for the theological matter introduced in his book. The Moslem poet is profuse in his eulogies of Çiva the Hindu God, and all through the work writes in the spirit and strain of a devout Hindu. Curiously enough his work has been preserved in Chittagong by Mahomedan readers. The manuscripts of Padmāvati hitherto obtained, all belong to the border-lands of Ārācān in the back-woods of Chittagong, copied in Persian characters and preserved by the rural Mahomedan folk of those localities. No Hindu has ever yet cared to read them. This goes to prove how far the taste of the Mahomedans was imbued with Hindu culture. This book, that we should have thought, could be interesting only to Hindu readers, on account of its lengthy disquisitions on theology and Sanskrit rhetoric, has been strangely preserved, ever since Aurungjeb's time, by Moslems, for whom it could apparently have no attraction, nay to whom it might even seem positively repellent. From the time of Māgana Thākura the Mahomedan minister, till the time of Shaik Hāmidullā of Chittagong who published it in 1893—covering a period of nearly 250 years, this book was copied, read, and admired by the Mahomedans of Chittagong exclusively. What surprises us most is the interest taken by the rustic folk in its high-flown Sanskritic Bengali. The Province of Chittagong must have been once a nucleus of Sanskrit-learning to have disseminated so deep a liking for the classic tongue of the Hindus among the lowest strata of society, and specially amongst Mahomedans who might have been expected to have the least aptitude for this.

c10.47

The poem Padmāvati deals with a well-known episode in Indian history. The Emperor Alāuddin of Delhi had heard of the wonderful beauty of Padmāvati, queen of the Rājā of Chitore, and demanded her for her harem. Bhim Sen, the Rājā, who is called Ratnasen in the Bengali poem, treated this request with the contempt which it deserved, and the result was that for twelve years the Emperor laid siege to Chitore. Bhima Sen was eventually defeated, and his queen sought death on the funeral pyre,—true to the traditions of Rajput women. This story had formed the subject of a poem by Mir Mahomed in Hindi which contains about 10,000 lines. The Bengali Padmāvati by Alāol has about 10,500 lines.

c10.48

I have said that the classic taste, which made the Bengali poets of the 18th century revel in exaggerated and high flown imageries, was indicated in the work of this Mahomedan poet, to such a considerable extent, that he may be said to have heralded the new epoch. Alāol rang the bell of the new age and the sound was caught by a host of other poets amongst whom Bhārata Chandra was the most prominent. I shall here quote some passages from Alāol's Padmāvati to show how his description owns kinship with those found in the Sanskrit and Persian poems already referred to by us, as also with the high sounding flourishes of style which characterise the Bengali poems that followed the age of Alāol.

c10.49

*The light that beams in the face of Padmāvati puts to shame the light reflected from a golden mirror.

c10.50

*কনক মুকুর জিনি মুখজ্যোতি সাজে— দেখহ অপূর্ব্ব রীত বদন উপরে।

c10.51

**Far-fetched similes.** One curious fact with regard to the face is that two lotuses are confined in the disc of the moon (her face.) The sun who finds his friends so confined by his enemy, came to the rescue, in the shape of the vermilion mark on the forehead. The god of love, in aid of the sun, held the bow of her eyebrows, and aimed his shafts, which were the glances of her eyes. The only regret is that these friends though so near were not allowed to see each other."

c10.52

The lotuses are her two eyes. The sun according to the poetic tradition of Sanskrit rhetoric (কবি-প্রসিদ্ধি) is a lover of the lotus. The moon is unfriendly towards the lotus according to a similar tradition. The lotus blooms in the daytime and fades in the evening—a circumstance which caused the acceptance of this idea by the poets.

c10.53

For pages and pages one may follow descriptions on this line. The ingenuity of such compositions, greatly favoured, as they were, by the scholars of a particular epoch, show the artificial taste of the age—the absurdities that passed for intellectual feats and the grotesque and the uncouth that were accepted as beautiful.

c10.54

পদ্মযুগ বন্দী হয় চন্দ্রের মাঝারে ॥ শত্রুমাঝে মিত্রবন্দী দেখি দিবাকর। ধরিয়া সিন্দুর রূপ আইল নিয়ড় ॥ ভুরুযুগ ধলুক ধরিয়া পঞ্চবাণ। তিলে তিলে হানে বাণ কটাক্ষ সন্ধান ॥ কমল নয়নী মাত্র মনে এই দুঃখ। নিকটে থাকিয়া মিত্র না দেখায় মুখ ॥

c10.55

But Alaol's poems often reach a high degree of excellence from the wealth of their Sanskritic expressions. It is to be regretted that the excellence of their style, and the effect produced by the jingle of classic words and associations suggested by them, are not such as can be conveyed in translation. The author frequently imitates the style of the great song-masters of Bengal with a happy effect. The following passage reminds us of some well-known lines from the Sanskrit Gita-Govinda by Jayadeva.

c10.56

*“ In the spring season the bridegroom revels in the joyous company of his bride. They are like two moons, shedding, as it were, ambrosia in the lovely smiles on their softly curving lips. The flowers are in full bloom, and from the floral bowers the cuckoo cooes pleasantly in the company of its mate; the bees hum delightfully; the cool Malaya breeze charged with the scents of flowers, softly touches the bridegroom heightening the charm of the sweet words of his lady-love. The acvatha tree, the prince of the forest, displays its wealth of new leaves, the tamala stands obliquely and the mango-creepers are rich with fresh foliage and

c10.57

*বসন্তে নাগরবর নাগরী বিলাসে
বর বালা দুই ইন্দু, স্রবে যেন সুধা বিন্দু,
মৃদু মন্দ অধরে ললিত মধু হাসে
কুসুম প্রফুল্লিত মধুরত ঝঙ্কৃত,
হূত পরভৃত, কুঞ্জে রত রাসে
মলয় সমীর সুসৌরভ শীতল,
বিলোলিত পতি অতি-রস-ভাসে ॥

c10.58

tendrils. The hearts of the youthful pair are gladsome. They are decked with the wreaths of the rangan, mallika and the malati flowers.”

c10.59

Alas, the beauty of metre and of choice Sanskrit words that characterise this passage is but ill-conveyed in the above translation.

c10.60

The line “চলিল কামিনী, গজেন্দ্রগামিনী, পঞ্জন-গমন-শোভিতা” is evidently inspired by Vidyāpati’s “গেলি কামিনী, গজহ্ গামিনী, বিহসি পালটি নেহারি” and the lines beginning with “আজি কেন বিপরীত তোমার বদন” breathe the sentiments of Chandi Das in his well-known passage opened by the line “আজি কেন তোমায় এমন দেখি।”

c10.61

The description of the seasons is full of delicate sentiments and calls up familiar scenes by suggestive lines. During the rains the lovers sit up at night in merry talk and “if there be a sound of thunder she is startled, and throws herself into the arms of her lover--an unexpected surprise to him.”

c10.62

প্রফুল্লিত বনস্পতি কুটিল তমাল দ্রুম।
মুকুলিত চুত-লতা কোরক জালে।
যুবজন-হৃদয় আনন্দ-পরিপূরিত।
রঙ্গ-মল্লিকা-মালতি-মালে॥

c10.63

Alāol’s Padmāvati.

c10.64

“চমকিলে বিদ্যুৎ চমকি কণ্ঠে লাগে।
বজ্রপাতে কমলিনী ত্রাসিত হইয়া
ধরয়ে পতির গ্রীমে অধিক আঁটিয়া॥”

c10.65

There are many pretty lines in the poem recalling scenes of domestic affection and of the delicate associations of love.

c10.66

The preliminary lines in praise of God are full of sincerity and devotion. *“He created life to manifest Himself in love, and death to show that He is also the terrible. Sweet scents of flowers He created to indicate heaven and evil odours to warn men of the filth of hell. As a sign of His high favour, He created sweet things, delicious to the taste, and the bitter and pungent, to indicate His wrath. He secretly hid the honey in the flowers and by creating the bees He brought it to the knowledge of the world. He created all in the twinkling of an eye, and the great firmament created by Him stands without the support of pillars. The sun and the moon He created, and also created the night and the day. The winter and the summer He created, and the heat, the rays of the sun and

c10.67

*“ আপন প্রচার হেতু সৃজিল জীবন।
নিজ ভয় দর্শাইতে সৃজিল মরণ॥
সুগন্ধি সৃজিল প্রভু স্বর্গ বুঝাইতে।
সৃজিলেক দুর্গন্ধ নরক জানাইতে॥
মিষ্ট রস সৃজিলেক কৃপা-অনুরোধ।
তিক্ত কটু কষা সৃজি জানাইল ক্রোধ॥
পুষ্পে জন্মাইল মধু গুপ্ত আকার।
সৃজিয়া মক্ষিকা কৈল তাহার প্রচার॥
এতেক সৃজিতে তিল না হইল বিলম্ব।
অন্তরীক্ষ গঠিয়া রাখিছে বিনিস্তম্ভ॥
সৃজিলেক দিবাকর শশি দিবা রাত্রি।
সৃজিলেক নক্ষত্র নির্ম্মল পাঁতি পাঁতি॥

c10.68

the clouds which He lined with lightning. He pervades the universe—both revealed and unrevealed. The virtuous and the saintly know Him, but the vicious know Him not."

c10.69

In this hymn Alāol follows more or less the Hindi original of Mir Mahomed.

c10.70

But though in the main story Alāol follows a style on the line of the Sanskrit classics and shows a wonderfully close acquaintance with the manners, customs and religious life of the Hindus, yet reading between the lines one may discover the vein of a Mahomedan poet by the non-Hindu elements to be found in his work, though couched beneath a highly Sanskritised form of Bengali. A certain extravagance of imagination reminds us, at every stage, of the excesses of fancy which characterise Arabic and Persian tales. Raja Ratna Sen heard of the beauty of Padmāvati, and even before he saw her, fell into a fit of violent love; renounced the world as an ascetic, and wandered through the forests. And "with him 1600 princes turned ascetic."* The

c10.71

সৃজিলেক সুশীতল গ্রীষ্ম রৌদ্র আর।
করিল মেঘের মাঝে বিদ্যৎ সঞ্চার ॥
প্রকট গুপ্ত রহে সবাকারে ব্যাপি।
ধার্মিক চিহ্নয়ে তারে না চিহ্নয়ে পাপী ॥
Alāol's Padmāvati.

c10.72

*নৃপতি গমন শুনি হইয়া বিরাগী ॥
ষোল শত রাজার কুমার হইল যোগী ॥

c10.73

princess was sad, and the message of her sorrow was carried by the bird cuka. The poet describes the mission of the bird and the effect which his flight produced on the objects that he came in contact with.

c10.74

*“The message of her sorrow was carried by the bird through the sky, and the clouds became dark, in an excess of grief. A spark of this sorrow touched the disc of the moon and created a spot on its surface. The wings of the bird drooped under his burden of sorrow and they looked like lightning. The bird passed over the sea and its waters, in their deep woe, became saline.”

c10.75

These excesses of fancy, which should not be confounded with the play of poetic imagination, make the passages such gibberish as children may be heard amusing themselves with in their folk-lore.

c10.76

Ratnasen’s wrestling-feats and skill in riding, which have been graphically described in the poem, have many points which remind us of the feats exhibited by modern circus troupes. They give us

c10.77

Ratna Sen’s wrestlingfeats.

c10.78

দুঃখের সংবাদ লয়ে বিহঙ্গ উড়িল।
সেই দুঃখে জলদ শ্যামল বর্ণ ভেল॥
স্ফুলিঙ্গ পড়িল উড়ি চাঁদের উপর।
অন্তরে শ্যামল তহি ভেল শশধর॥
উড়িতে নারিল পাখা শূন্যের উপর।
উল্কাপাত হয় হেন বলে তারে নর॥
সমুদ্র উপর দিয়া করিল গমন।
জলনিধি হইল তহি পূর্ণিত লবণ॥

c10.79

Ālāol’s Padmāvati.

c10.80

a complete idea of the manly sports and pastimes that found favour during the Māhomedan period, though the description is not altogether free from exaggeration.

c10.81

Ālāol's Padmāvati has little interest as a story. The characters are not delineated with skill, and the conception of the plot does not show any great mastery of the poet over his incidents. Its main charm rests on those stray glimpses of poetic elegances and high classical refinement, with which the book abounds, and no less on the great erudition of the poet, indicated in many noble passages. We appreciate the truth of what Ālāol says of himself in the preliminary chapter of Badiujjamāl.

c10.82

*“At the order (of Māgana Thākur) I wrote Padmāvati; therein I showed the utmost powers that my intelligence possessed.”

c10.83

Though greatly inferior to Padmāvati in poetic merit, the Saifulmulluk and Badiujjamāl of this poet contains occasional passages of much beauty. The preliminary hymn to God is quite a match for that which we found in Padmāvati. †“Where would be the glory of light, if it were not

c10.84

*“আজ্ঞা পাইয়া রচিলাম গ্রন্থ পদ্মাবতী। যতেক আছিল মোর বুদ্ধির শকতি॥ Ālāol's Padmāvati.

c10.85

†“উজ্জ্বল মহিমা নাহি অন্ধকার বিনে। অধম না হলে বল উত্তম কেবা চিনে॥ লবণ কারণে চিনে মিষ্ট জল সীমা। কৃপণ না হতো কোথা দাতার মহিমা॥ placed side by side with darkness! If the wicked were not in the world, who would know the value of a saintly life! The salt water of the sea makes us appreciate more the boon of sweet fresh water. If there were no misers, we could not give our tribute of praise to liberal minds. The true and the false represent but two sides of a picture. Don't you Ālāol, care to listen to the praise or blame of this world. The little stock that you have in your own heart, give freely to the world, without feeling ashamed of it."

c10.86

In the preliminary account of Padmāvati Ālāol says that Māgana Thākur, the prime minister of the Chief of Ārācān, had employed him to translate the Hindi poem into Bengali,—high-flown Sanskritic Bengali,—because the people of Ārācān did not understand Hindi but understood Bengali. This leads us to the conclusion that the popular literature not only of Āssām but also of the border-lands of Ārācān used to be written in Bengali, a circumstance confirmed by the other fact to which we have already drawn attention, viz. that it was the low class Māhomedan population of these places who have preserved these poems for about 250 years.

c10.87

The faults and merits of Padmāvati are characteristic of the literary works of the period that

c10.88

সত্য যে অসত্য দুই মতে হল যত।
ভাল মন্দ যে বলে না ক'রো কর্ণগত ॥
যেই পুঁজি আছে মাত্র হৃদয় ভাণ্ডার।
লাজ ছাড়ি আলায়োল ব্যক্ত কর তার ॥

c10.89

Ālāol's Padmāvati.

c10.90

The style and the taste.

c10.91

follows. The Sanskritic style used by Ālāol was greatly improved by Bhārat Chandra. The descriptions of the school that follows abound with niceties which mystify the reader, as in the case of Padmāvati. In Bhārat Chandra, the great master of the age, we only find these niceties somewhat curtailed, and absurdities often reclaimed, by a sweet jingle of words, which please the ear, like the warblings of birds—without conveying to us any clear sense or meaning.

c10.92

The moral tone became more and more vitiated; and Bhārat Chandra, had he lived in this age, when poets are not allowed to revel in the unrestrained language of sensualism and the grosser passions, could not have given us his masterpiece the Vidya-Sundara. The literature of Bengal in the 18th century was pitched in the key of a high-strung classic taste; yet it bore no mark of any master hand, that could shape circumstances and give them life. The works of the period are nevertheless full of sparkling passages and delicate sentiment, and they display above all a unique treasure of choice expressions which has greatly enriched our literature.

c10.93

The poets had betaken themselves to the painter's art. They did not aim at inspiring life; they wanted to give finish to the form. They busied themselves with colouring, till some of the pictures they drew became blurred by their very efforts to embellish them. For it was not the natural that engaged their poetic powers, but the artificial and exaggerated, which pandered to the vitiated taste of mere scholars. From the time of Ālāol the tone gradually degenerated;—the good sense, the sound principles, and the domestic instincts that aimed at purity were lost. There was a violent return to the senses. Sensualism of the grossest kind—unrestrained and vulgar sensualism, redeemed only by fine literary touches and embellished by choice metaphors—pervades a considerable portion of the literature of this age. The poets in their strenuous attempts to depict vulgar scenes cared only to produce effects by their rhythmical pomp; and when one reads such passages he thinks more of the metre and of the niceties of expression than of the wicked and immoral spirit that they breathe. Hence the lawless tone loses much of its force and the scenes themselves appear as harmless as painted devils. Poetry sank to the level of mere painting, as I have said, and to that of a merely decorative type,—painting in which skilled and ornate designs are worked up with inexhaustible patience by gifted hands like those we find in the caves of Elephanta.

c10.94

The Story of Vidyā Sundara.

c10.95

The story of Vidyāsundara finds a prominent place in the works which are called Annadā Maṅgala or Kālikā Maṅgala. Annadā, Kāli and Chandi are all names of the same goddess though their forms are different. These poems therefore are written in honour of a deity. The religious element however, is introduced by way of apology. It was not the custom of the old Bengali poets who rose with the revival of Hinduism to write on a subject which had no touch with religion; and the religious garb of the story is thus accounted for. Grossest matter however is introduced into these works, though bearing a holy name. Those who have seen the sculptural figures in bās relief on the walls of the Puri and Kanāraka temples will not be astonished to find a religious work associated with these scenes of vulgar sensualism which are to be found in Vidyāsundara—a poem forming part of the religious work Annadā Maṅgala.

c10.96

Sundara, son of Rājā Guna Sindhu of Kāñchi (Kanjivaram) hears a report of the remarkable beauty of the Princess Vidyā, daughter of Rājā Vira Siṃha of Burdwan. Vidyā was not only a peerless beauty, but her scholarship was so great that she had sent a challenge aīl over India offering her hand to the person who would defeat her in scholarship. The challenge was accepted by many distinguished princes who flocked to the Burdwan palace, but they were all defeated by the princess whose scholarly discourses in various branches of learning completely out-witted them.

c10.97

Sundara, without taking permission of his royal father, went alone *incognito* and riding a noble horse reached the capital of Rājā Vira Siṃha. A large Bakula grove spread its shadow in the precincts of the city and the fragrance of its flower was carried on all sides by the pleasant evening breeze, when Sundara alighted from his horse, and sat in the grove, not knowing where to seek shelter for the night. At that moment a rather elderly woman whose charms were not altogether lost by years,—a courtezan and a coquette, happened to come there to gather flowers,—for Hirā was a flower-woman whose duty it was to make wreaths and garlands for the ladies of the Rājā's house at early dawn every day. She was charmed with the handsome appearance of the Prince and offered to lodge him for the night and as long as he might wish to do so, if he wanted to put up at her place. He called her aunt, and though she was not pleased with the prince for calling her so, as in her heart of hearts she entertained the hope of being flattered with a little attention from him, yet she showed him every hospitality at her house; but when she asked him who he was and what his mission was at Burdwan she could elicit no satisfactory reply. The Prince said he was a youngman who had taken a fancy to travel in various lands for the sake of pleasure.

c10.98

The evening passed in pleasant conversation, and in the night the flower-woman began to wreathe her floral store into garlands; and placed them in a beautiful basket, and Sundar asked her what she would do with them. She said that the garland would be presented to Princess Vidyā at early dawn, a task which it was her duty to perform every morning by appointment from the queen. The Prince was very much delighted to find in Hirā a woman who had access to the Princess. He asked her many questions about the beauty of Vidyā and Hirā following the close lines of classical metaphor and a highly ornate style, as dictated by the Sanskrit rules of rhetoric, drew an over-coloured sketch of the Princess which had the effect of greatly heightening the desire of the Prince for an interview with the far-famed beauty. He made a request to Hirā to allow him to weave a garland of flowers for Vidyā to be presented to her next morning; of course he did not mean that it was to be offered in his name; as usual she would give it to the Princess;—the garland was to be woven by him—this was all that

c10.99

Offers to present a garland.

c10.100

he wanted. Hirā did not see any harm in this and Sundar, who was an expert in the art of preparing floral wreaths applied his whole heart to the work and prepared a garland with remarkable skill;—the petals of the flowers were so arranged as to form characters by which he conveyed his love to the lady in a beautiful Sanskrit sloka.

c10.101

Hirā had to sit up till a late hour of the night, as much time was taken by Sundar in artistically preparing the garland; so she was late in arriving at the palace the next morning, and Vidyā reproved her for her delay threatening that she would bring her conduct to the notice of the King. Hirā said that it had taken her a long time to weave one special garland for her, and that the Princess should pardon her for this first fault. "Where is the beautiful garland of which you speak?" She said; and as Hirā handed the thing to her she felt the dawn of love in her heart as she read the name of the Prince, and the message conveyed to her by the exquisitely artistic arrangement of the flowers. It was as though reading an elegant poem; the garland rich in design, perfect in execution and containing the sweet message of love, charmed her heart and she importuned Hirā, asking her to tell her who it was that had made it. Hirā at first tried to maintain her position by declaring that she herself had done so; but the Princess laughed at all attempts on her part to establish this point by oaths and long speeches, and she was afterwards obliged to confess the whole truth to Vidyā who, on hearing it, could not disguise her feeling from the flower-woman and wanted to have a sight of the gifted youngman.

c10.102

The inner apartments of a Rājā's house are eternally shut against all out-siders; but through the shutters of her window, Vidyā saw Sundara, who was brought by Hirā to a convenient place that they might have a sight of each other. It should be stated here that Vidyā's learned discussion with those who courted her hand were always, following the custom of Hindus in such cases, managed behind the screen with the help of interpreters and in no case was a prince allowed to have even a peep at her.

c10.103

They saw each other and fell in love. How could an interview be effected? It was impossible to attempt anything like it on the face of the guards—those eunuchs who kept a strict and vigilant watch at the palace gate. Sundara disguised himself as a Sannyasin, wore matted locks and a false beard and covered his face with ashes and saw Rājā Vira Sinha. To the surprise of the Rājā and his courtiers he declared his desire to enter into a scholarly discussion with Vidyā, and, if he succeeded in winning the game, to take her for his wife. A strange story from the lips of an ascetic! Such a challenge would only be entitled to credence and approval if a prince were the suitor. But as Vidyā had promised that any man was welcome to accept the challenge irrespective of age and social status, the false Sādhu insisted on being ushered behind the screen to have a discourse with her in various branches of learning and win her for his bride. The maids of Vidyā humourously asked her to match her powers with his and if she should prove the weaker of the two, to court the lot of an ascetic's wife and wonder with him bare-footed,

c10.104

A sight of each other.

c10.105

Sundara as a sannyasin.

c10.106

Vidyā puts off the date.

c10.107

visiting shrines like Benares, Gayā and Prayāg ! But Vidyā whose mind was full of the handsome prince would not allow the Sannyāsin to approach her, and put off the date for doing so to an indefinite time on some pretext or other.

c10.108

Both the prince and the princess were longing for an interview. Hīrā was taken into their confidence, but she was afraid of the guards who would tear her to pieces if they had a scent of her having a share in the business.

c10.109

Equipped with a charmed rod.

c10.110

Prince Sundara felt that life was unbearable without an interview with Vidyā. He fasted and worshipped Kālī with true devotion, who granted him a charmed rod wherewith the prince worked out a subterranean passage from the room in which he lodged, leading through a mazy tunnel to Vidyā's room in the palace.

c10.111

The maids of Vidyā were taken into her confidence and they all promised secrecy. One night when the starry sky, with its grey linings of clouds looked beautiful, causing sweet emotions to grow in young hearts.—Vidyā felt a great longing to meet the prince. The maids attending on her suddenly saw that a deep cavity had been made inside the room, through which a turban sparkling with diamonds rose before their bewildered gaze, and shortly after there appeared a human form, the handsomest that had ever met their eyes—Sundara was smiling in triumph and looking to Vidyā assured her that it was all through the grace of Kālī that he had at last succeeded in making an underground passage leading to her apartments. The maids felt reassured at this words; but Vidyā

c10.112

The meeting.

c10.113

said to them that though she could excuse the thief and the intruder, it was not possible to break her promise; unless and until he could defeat her in scholarship there was absolutely no hope for him. Sundara readily accepted the challenge and there followed a discussion in Kāvya, Nyāya, Dharmaśāstra, Philosophy and all other subjects of human knowledge. At every turn Vidyā was brought to bay by the intellectual acumen and profound scholarship of the prince and when so vanquished, she had a smile for him, which, coupled with the glances that they stole at each others face, invested her defeat on the field with a sense of conquest over the heart of her antagonist and lover. Vidyā now acknowledged that she was defeated and that she saw no objection to her being united to him in marriage, true to her promise. Among the various systems of marriage of the Hindus there is the Gandharva vibaha or marriage in secret which makes the vows sacred and legal by mutual election of the bridegroom and the bride. No priest or third party is required to minister to the ceremony,—the only condition required to bring this marriage to a consummation is to exchange garlands of flowers worn by each other. Vidyā in great delight took off the floral garland from her neck and offered it to Sundara and Sundara did the same to her. So the marriage was completed. The poets say that Kāmdeva or the God of love, unseen by others, discharged the priestly function in this ceremony. The marriage parties consisted of six seasons headed by the spring and tinkling sounds of the ornaments,—the napura, the bracelets, the kankana

c10.114

The defeat and marriage in secret.

c10.115

worn by maids, sounded the musical notes to consummate the event.

c10.116

Thus Vidyā and Sundara met every night. The maids connived, and nothing was known about the marriage by the Rājā or his queen. Even in daytime they met, for Vidyā had a compartment in the palace all reserved for herself, and her parents visited her only occasionally, and when they did so they generally sent previous informations of their visit. Chapter after chapter is devoted by Bhārata Chandra to describing the manœvres of the husband and wife to give pleasure to each other by surprise-visits and by every form of play imaginable in which the young couple indulged to their heart's content. Rājā Vira Sinha continued now and then to send information to his daughter about the ascetic till waiting as suitor for her hand, but Vidyā would not listen to it. She declared that she would lead the holy life of a nun and had despaired of marriage as no prince could yet defeat her in scholarship. The ascetic, as I have said, was no other than Sundara himself, who passed his days in the city in the garb of an ascetic, with the object of avoiding attention as he was ostensibly without any occupation. The prince and the princess in the meantime both insisted whenever they met Hirā, the flower woman, on her helping them to have an interview with each other, and the poor woman was at her wit's end to devise some plan for their doing so. She was completely ignorant of the affair that was going on subrosa.

c10.117

The maids of Vidyā were alarmed to find that the princess was *enceinte* so that the fact of her marriage could not be longer concealed from her royal parents. In great dismay they discussed among themselves what was to be done at this crisis. It was settled that the matter should be brought to the notice of the queen; for the disclosure of the circumstances through other sources, which was inevitable, would expose them to the risk of losing their lives, as they would be implicated in a share of the guilt. They would not disclose Sundara's name but would bring the matter itself to the queen's notice—a course to which Vidyā had reluctantly to give her consent, as there was no other alternative.

c10.118

The queen heard of it; she visited the princess, and after vainly attempting to extort the right information from her and rebuking her as best as she could, asked the maids to disclose the name of the person who was so bold as to violate the sanctity of the royal *zenana*; but they washed their hands clean of all knowledge about any one and maintained a determined silence, in answer to all enquires on this point. In a great rage the queen approached the Rājā, who was taking his afternoon nap at the time; the maids in attendance were waiting with *chamars* and fans—standing silently like painted figures by his bed-side. The queen in a violent paroxysm of anger flew into the royal apartments and the tinkling sound of her *napura* awoke the king who was surprised to find her in such a condition.

c10.119

She related the story to the Rājā, declaring him to be quite unfit to hold the sceptre since such a thing could happen in his own palace. The police staff was worthless, if they allowed a thief to enter the royal *zenana* and perpetrate such a heinous crime under the king's nose, what safety was there for the life and property of the poor people living in his dominion ?

c10.120

The Rājā convened his court immediately. The chief officer of police came trembling before the enraged chief, and Vīra Sinha after relating the story said, " You base-born fellow, there will be one grave dug into which you and your children will be thrown if you cannot detect the thief." The officer with folded palms asked for seven days to make an enquiry and find out the thief. The Rājā granted him the time saying, if on the expiry of seven days, the thief should not be brought to his presence, the officer would lose his head and his children would all be killed.

c10.121

The police officer commenced operations of a thorough inspection of the palace. Vidyā was made to leave her apartment, and the police people flocked to see through what passage a thief might enter the house inspite of such a strong body of guards. It took them no time to discover the hole—the passage made by Sundara. They entered the hole but came back feeling as if the vaults of hell were open,—there was no passage of light or air, the gloom that pervaded it over awed them and choked them. The bravest of them repeated his attempts several times and as many times came back apprehending the approach of a venomous snake or some devil. Dhumaketu, the Inspector, pronounced it to be a hole made by a serpent and Yamaketu, another officer of the staff, said that it must have been made by some black spirit. Whatever it might be, they were unanimous in their opinion that in all probability that was the passage used by the thief. They all sat round the hole and contemplated the best method of carrying on a sifting investigation as to where it could lead. They thought of excavating the whole ground covered by it, but that course would require such an extensive operation through the hard ground-floor of the palace that seven days might not suffice for finishing the work. Kālaketu, a police officer, said:—" Brethren, let us wait here in the disguise of maids; the thief may come of himself to visit the princess."

First 121 of 1,016 passages. Read on

Linked texts (13)