History of Bengali Language and Literature c10.44

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