Obscure Religious Cults as Background of Bengali Literature c5.4

c5.4

Apart from the general relation of literature with religion and apart from the fact that Bengal is a province of India, which is specially noted as a land of religion and philosophy, there seems to be some historical reason for such predominance of religion in Bengali literature. It is through the social and political vicissitudes of a nation that there comes deep unrest in the life and mind of man and man comes more face to face with the world of stern realities which help the growth and development of the potential Man. It is through the continual struggle for existence, fight against the adverse circumstances, conflict with the external powers that a nation becomes conscious of her real worth and learns to hold in high esteem the glories of terrestrial life. The paucity of such noteworthy social or political events happening in the life of Bengal may account for the fact that the history of Bengali literature during its old and mediaeval period is practically the same as the history of the different religious movements that flourished in the province for about a decade of centuries.¹ Even in the nineteenth century the general practice was to borrow stories either from the *Rāmāyaṇa* and the *Mahābhārata* or from the annals of the Rājputs, Sikhs and Mārhaṭṭās to introduce heroic grandeur in the epics, novels and dramas.