History of Bengali Language and Literature c5.23

c5.23

With the decadence of the power of the Buddhist priests, who in their zeal to popularize their creed, had not considered the Vernacular of Bengal as an unworthy medium for propagating their religious views, Bengali lost the patronage which it had secured of the lettered men of the country; and its future seemed dismal and uncheerful. We have shewn that the form of Prākrita prevalent in Bengal was in disfavour with the Sanskritic school which gave it a contemptuous epithet. Sanskrit scholars, who brought about a revival of Hinduism in Bengal, were imbued with a taste for the hard and fast rules of classical grammar, and had an unmixed abhorrence for the laxities of Prākrita adopted by the Buddhists. Bengali seemed to have no prospects with such scholars:—nay they zealously opposed the efforts of those who offered to help the Vernacular of the country to assert its claim as a written language. The following well-known Sanskrit couplet bears testimony to their ill-will.