History of Bengali Language and Literature c7.s8: 6. Poems in honour of Dakṣin Rāi
History of Bengali Language and Literature c7.s8
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6. Poems in honour of Dakṣin Rāi
c7.s8.1
Yet another god and we have done with this chapter. He is Dakṣin Rāi, the god of tigers. He is worshipped in many parts of Bengal, where tigers make havoc amongst men,—especially in districts adjoining the Sundarvans. The form of this god, as made in clay, is that of a warrior with bow and arrows in his hands. He rides on a tiger. His first poetic votary was Mādhavācāryya, who lived in the middle of the 17th century. The work is called Rāyamaṅgala. The next poem on the subject by Kṛṣṇarām contains two significant lines, which show the god as anxious to receive worship from the country people, to whom he holds out a menace. The poet tells how he dreamt a dream in which Dakṣin Rāi appeared to him and said :—
c7.s8.2
The god of tigers.
c7.s8.3
His threat.
c7.s8.4
"If there is any one to be found, who does not like your poem, be sure, he will be devoured by tigers with his whole family."
c7.s8.5
The rustic element and the classical standard both. So we find in this literature much that is crude, and suited only for a rustic population. But many of its good works, which form a part of the Renaissance literature, conform to a high classical standard, and there are descriptions of great beauty and marked effects in word-painting, which in a subsequent age developed into a high-flown and ornate style,—the characteristic of the age of Bhārat Chandra. The worshippers of Manasā Devī and Maṅgal Chandī were to be found all over Bengal, and many eminent poets were drawn into writing poems in their honour, and these works are characterised by a true literary excellence; but there were other poems, which show a crudeness befitting rustic literature, as that on the god of tigers just referred to.
c7.s8.6
Some remarks about the Poems.
c7.s8.7
The popular stories presented in a new garb. As already explained, the illeterate villagers of Bengal worshipped many gods and goddesses under the influence of Tāntrik Buddhism, and the Hindu priests gradually took these up, and associating them with the deities of the Hindu pantheon as related in the Purāṇas, Hinduised the whole spiritual atmosphere of Bengal. They connected the fables current in the country with the Śāstrik stories and thus bridged over a gap, created by the loss of Buddhistic ascendency and its traditions in Bengal.
c7.s8.8
This contact of the popular faith with the new creed, that was being introduced, created a strange force, which is to be observed in a growing literary activity all over the country. Hindus did not destroy, but improved upon, what was left of Buddhism, and the literature of the Paurāṇik Renaissance, while showing an unmistakable rebirth of Sanskritic ideals, had a place reserved for popular creeds and also for the stories current in the country, which the Brahmanic School presented in a new and attractive garb.
c7.s8.9
But the whole of nature does not flourish at the same time; we find some buds turning into flowers, side by side with others that have withered; similarly, the stories of Chandī and Manasā Devī developed into poems of high literary excellence, but those of Rāy Maṅgal and Dhanya Purnimā Vrata Katha betray the early literary stage in which they were left,—doomed to premature decay. The worship of the sun which may be traced back to very early times, has attached to it, a number of poems whose chief exponents in Bengali were Dwija Kālīdāsa and Dwija Rāmjivan Vidyabhusana. The poems in honour of the sun-god tell a story in illustration of his glory as is usual in works of this kind. In the poem of Rāmjīvana Vidyābhūṣaṇa (written in 1689 A.D.) we find descriptions of the oppression of the Hāḍis by the sun-worshippers. The Hāḍis were Buddhists and the incidents related of this oppression, couched in the form of a mythical story have reference, as I believe, to an actual fight between the Buddhists and the worshippers of the sun. At one time the worship of the sun formed the most important factor in the religious functions of the Bengalis. This is evidenced by the discovery of numerous images of the sun-god of great size and artistic beauty all over the country, especially in East Bengal. But the worship of this god was in later times reduced to the recitation of some hymns only, and Bengali poems in honour of him were not destined to flourish.