History of Bengali Language and Literature c5.16

c5.16

Several works written in the tenth and the eleventh centuries of the Christian era in a very old form of Bengali, have lately been discovered by Mahāmahopādhyāya Hara Prasāda Çāstri in Nepal. These are (1) Charyyācharyya Viniçchaya, (2) Bodhicharyyāvatāra and (3) Dākārnava. The manuscript of Budhicharyyāvatār is incomplete. They appear to be but poor fragments of a literature which owed its origin chiefly to the earnestness of the Tāntrika Buddhists for popularizing their creed. Though these specimens have how been nearly all lost, we hope some portion of them may be yet recovered by careful research carried into the literary archives of Nepal and Chittagong, —the present resorts of Buddhism in Eastern India.