Obscure Religious Cults as Background of Bengali Literature c28.4

c28.4

As for the *Śūnya-purāṇa*, which is ascribed to Rāmāi Paṇḍit, there are sufficient reasons to believe that the text in its published form does not represent the contents of a single book composed at any particular point of time by any particular author. On the other hand the text seems to be a collection of versified accounts of the Dharma cult which grew during the thirteenth and the fifteenth centuries among the adherents of this cult. It will be observed that the same topics under the same heading have been introduced thrice or even four times within the text with slightly different readings. There is no order in the arrangement,—cosmogonical, liturgical, ceremonial and legendary accounts have been introduced here and there pell-mell. Linguistic differences are also noticeable in different chapters. All these go to prove that the text is more of the nature of a compilation than the authentic version from a single hand. With the pseudo-archaic forms introduced late in the composition of the verses the language of the *Śūnya-purāṇa* in general presents no archaic character which might justify its claim to have been composed sometime during the fourteenth or the fifteenth century. From the heaps of traditional accounts that have gathered round the figure of Rāmāi Paṇḍit we are loathe to explain away the personality of Rāmāi as purely fictitious. We may not, and we should not, accept all the mythical and semi-mythical accounts given in the *Śrī-dharma-purāṇa* ascribed to Mayūra-bhaṭṭa,¹ or in the *Yātrā-siddha-rāyer Paddhati*²; but nevertheless Rāmāi seems to have been a historical personage.