History of Bengali Language and Literature c11.s2.73

c11.s2.73

the ridiculous, was not an unmixed evil. Their productions materially aided the cause of Bengali style in the long run. The *pundits* had a perfect command over the Sanskrit vocabulary and Sanskrit grammar and aimed at a pure grammatical style which was gradually introduced into Bengali prose, mainly through their influence and by their writings. Under the salutary control of the European scholars these *pundits* were trained to write in a simple style and they no longer despised the colloquial dialect from which they gradually imported a large number of simple and elegant expressions into the written language. Modern prose was developed both in purity of style and in resources of words by the efforts of these scholarly writers, and abundant proofs of this are to be found in the standard works of the 19th century, written by them. In the prose works of Içvara Chandra Vidyāsāgara we have that crowning success in prose composition to attain which the *pundits* had been struggling for half a century. The high sounding compounds were reduced in his writings to simpler and more elegant forms, the coarse and the vulgar element was entirely eliminated; and living at this distance of time, as we do, we cannot help being struck with the inimitable grace and purity of his style. He saved our prose alike from pedantry and vulgarity and adopted a golden mean which only a finished master of Sanskrit and gifted literature could have been capable of achieving.