History of Bengali Language and Literature c10.s2.3

c10.s2.3

Long distance separates these villages of Bengal from the seething life of political centres. These homes of the people are counted sacred by reason of the noble rivers on whose banks they stand,—the rushing Ganges, the ever-white Dhaleçwari, the foaming Padmā, the furious Dāmodara, the great Brahmaputra, the dark-watered Meghna, and many others that branch themselves into a hundred streams to flow to the sea, keeping up a never ceasing music by their murmurs. How do these villages adorn themselves with gardens, through whose green foliage peep the scarlet *java*, the white *kunda*, and the crescent-shaped yellow *atasi*,—gardens where the sacred *bel* and *nimba* trees rustle in the breeze the long summer day! There from thick groves of mango and jack, starts suddenly spire-like to view, the tall Bengali *devadaru* rising above the majestic *asvattha*—far beyond the tiara-shaped domes of temples. Here, under the sacred *tulasi* plant, the lamp is lighted at even-fall and the brow marked with vermilion bows down to leave its scarlet traces at the root. Here the sound of the evening conch summons the villagers to the temple; while on the edge of the meadow the cows stand quietly waiting the call of the shepherds to lead them to the shed; and the *madhavi* creepers, rich with the treasure of the spring, diffuse their fragrance as the weary pilgrim approaches his earthly paradise, his straw-roofed mud-hovel. From these same simple Bengali homes sprang the Navya Nyāya—the logical system of modern Bengal—which some of us hold to be the greatest achievement of the pure intellect in modern times. In these villages the poems of Vālmiki and Vyāsa, of Kalidās and Bhababhuti have, for hundreds of years, cast the spell of their beauty upon the people. In them the lofty principles of Vedanta philosophy have been taught by Brahmins who realised that man was one with the universe,—a flute through which might sound the whole music of god's kingdom,—and that his greatest good lay in returning to the consciousness of his oneness with the Supreme Principle. These Bengali villages are hallowed above all by the wonderful sacrifices of the *satis*, and their heroic death on the funeral pyres of their husbands, when, with a gentle wave of the hand from the midst of flames, they would often indicate a wish to hear the name of god recited at the last moment. Here in Bengal the renunciation of Buddha has been practised by princes from age to age, by Dīpaṅkara Sri Jñana of Eastern Bengal—by Gopi Chānd of the Pāl dynasty, by Narottama of Kheturi, by Raghunātha Dās of Sātgaon, and in our modern times by the saintly Lālā Babu of Pāikpārā, all of whom left their worldly glory, and went forth, beggar's bowl in hand, caring for naught but the highest truth vouchsafed to man. Here the dynasty of the ancient *risies* and seers of the Vedanta Philosophy remains unbroken to the present day in the person of Ram Kriṣṇa Paramhaṅsa, who exemplified self forgetful divine love in the eyes of men now living. These villages of Bengal should not be taken for the homes of men like Mirzāfar, Umichānd and Nanda Kumāra,—political intriguers, trained in courts to heinous vices revolting to the nature of a rural people. Fifty years ago the one great fear of Hindu parents in Bengal was lest their sons should take the vow of the Sannyasin. They would not allow them even to sit on a *kusasana*,—a seat which was generally used by Sadhus. Since the time of Buddha, renunciation in the cause of the highest truth has been no idle dream, no will-o'-the-wisp theory, amongst Hindus. It is a goal towards which the whole Indian civilisation has continued to move, even as Western civilisation moves towards patriotism, and against political serfdom.