History of Bengali Language and Literature c8.14

c8.14

The five Gauḍas or "five Indies" viz. Svārasvata (the Pānjab), Kānyakuvja (Kanoja), Gauḍa (Bengal), Mithilā (Durbhāṅgā), and Utkala (Orissā) were formerly more allied to one another than they are now. We find the Bengalis to have been in close touch with the people of other parts of Āryyāvarta. The old Bengali poems were known by the common name of Pāñchāli. This word shews that we owe at least some forms of the old Bengali metres to Pañchāla or Kānoja. Svārasvata or the Pānjab gave us its Çaka era which was adopted by the Bengalis, as it was by the people of other parts of India. The civilization of Bengal—the new learning, especially that of logic, which made the tols of Nadia famous throughout India, came from Mithilā, when Magadha, its glorious days over, had ceased to give light to Eastern India. With Kaliṅga or Orissā, Bengal in the past was inseparably associated. Our prophet Chaitanya Deva counts more votaries amongst the Uriyā people than in Bengal itself. So we find that the five Gauḍas, as the five influencial Provinces of Āryyāvarta were called, had in the past ages a greater touch with one another and exchanged their thoughts and ideas more freely than now.