History of Bengali Language and Literature c5.6

c5.6

This land has, from very early times, been the cradle of popular movements in religion. The Buddhists and the Jains, at one time, converted nearly the whole population of Bengal to their new creeds, and the Brahmanic influence was for centuries at a very low ebb here. Some of the greatest Buddhist scholars and reformers of India were born in Bengal, among whom the names of Atiça Dipankara (born, 980 A.D.) and Çila-Bhadra are known throughout the Buddhistic world. Çanta Rakṣit, the renowned High Priest of the monastery of Nālandā—a native of Gauḍa, spent many years of his life in Tibet on a religious mission, and an illustrious band of Bengalis, within the first few centuries of the Christian era, travelled to China, Corea and Japan, carrying there the light of the Buddhist religion. The scriptures of the Japanese priests are still written in Bengali characters of the 11th century,* which indicates the once-great ascendency of the enterprising Bengali priests in the Land of the Rising Sun. The marvellous sculptural design of the Boro Buddor temple of Java owed its execution, in no inconsiderable degree, to Bengali artists, who worked side by side with the people of Kalinga and Guzrat, to whom that island was indebted for its ancient civilization. In the vast panorama of bas-reliefs in that temple, we find numerous representations of ships which the people of lower Bengal built, and which carried them to Ceylon, Java, Sumatra, Japan and China,—countries visited by them for the purpose of promulgating the Buddhistic faith and conducting commercial transactions. The well-known story of how prince Vijay Siṃha, son of King Siṃhabāhu of Bengal, migrated to Ceylon with seven hundred followers and established his kingdom there in 543 B. C. is narrated in Mahāvaṃça and other Buddhist works. Buddhism flourished in Ceylon under the patronage of the kings of the Siṃha dynasty—and the island is called ‘Siṃhal’ after them. The Ceylonese era dates from the commencement of the reign of Vijay Siṃha. The citizens of Champā in Bengal had already, in a still earlier epoch of history, founded a colony in Cochin China and named it after that famous old town.* About the middle of the ninth century, Dhimān and his son Bit Pālo, inhabitants of Vārendra (North Bengal), founded new schools of painting, sculpture and works in cast metal, which stamped their influence on works of art in Nepal, from whence the art of the Bengali masters spread to China and other Buddhistic countries.†