The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c14.s6.8

c14.s6.8

Under the title of *Bāra-māsyā* or the "twelve month" story of men and women an extensive literature grew up in Bengal. Generally it was incorporated as a section in large works the titles of which end as a rule with *Mangala* (Welfare, Blessings). In the *Chaṇḍī* by Mādhava of East Bengal, available in manuscript one comes across a narrative of the joys and sorrows of the year. Such calendars of human vicissitudes constituted a stock in trade, so to say, of the poetry of creative Bengal.