Obscure Religious Cults as Background of Bengali Literature c5.35

c5.35

Śiva of Bengal, at least as found depicted in Bengali literature, is not exactly the same Śiva with whom we are acquainted in the Brahminical literature, particularly in the Purāṇas. The indigenous elements of Bengalee life and culture have supplied flesh and blood to his Brahminic skeleton and made him a Bengalee through and through. Śiva of the period between the tenth and the fourteenth century really represents much of the Lord Supreme of Tāntric Buddhism as indiscriminately mixed up with the ancient Lord of India. Śiva of the later period, as depicted in relation to his troublesome family, composed of two sons, two daughters and a wife, represents, through his wild mode of life and unscrupulous activities, a vivid picture of some of the aspects of the social life of mediaeval Bengal. In almost all the literatures belonging to this religious school, human interest of the family-life of Śiva far outweighs the interest of his divine nature, and in this indigenous character of Śiva the Purāṇic elements have been set here and there with the avowed purpose of giving it a Purāṇic colouring. The literature of the Śaivite cult consists chiefly of the Śivāyaṇas, which deal with the peculiar life and activities of lord Śiva, particularly in relation to his family. Like the Śaivite devotional lyrics of the South or even like the few songs on Hara-Gaurī (i.e., Śiva and his wife) composed by Vidyāpati of Mithilā, we have no Śaivite devotional lyric in Bengali. A large portion of fragmentary literature concerning Śiva is, however, to be culled from the Maṅgala-kāvyas belonging to the Dharma cult and particularly to the Caṇḍī and the Manasā cults.