A
The language of the caryd songs betrays some lingering traces
of Avahattha, but that is not at all unexpected. Avahattha was,
besides Sanskrit, the only other common literary language of the
day, and some of the writers of the carya songs wrote also in
Avahattha (and in Sanskrit too).
A
The Prakrits never had a common literary form that
could be used throughout Aryan-speaking India. But Apa-
bhramga, which is generally believed to have been a later
phase of the Prakrits but in reality was the literary representa-
tive of the spoken form of Middle Indo-Aryan, was used
practically without much variation in Northern India end to
end. It cannot be denied that Apabhramsa had some local
variations, but as a humble rival of Sanskrit the literary
Apabhram§ga was an all-India literary speech.
A
These early Bengali devotional narrative poems are classed
as ‘Pancali’ or ‘Pafcalika’ which originally meant ‘doll’ or
‘puppet’. The name indicates that at the beginning the devo-
tional songs sung and poems recited were supported by a
puppet show. Even now a puppet show in Bengal is accom-
panied by a recital of the story in verse punctuated by beating
of drums and clapping of cymbals. An abridged and painted
version of such puppet show is the painted scroll (‘Pata’)
depicting the same stories as in the devotional narratives. The
man showing the scroll tells the story in crude (often extem-
pore) verse as he unrolls it.
A
But when Bengal had cut off its administrative connection
with Delhi and had become once again an independent king-
dom, the people of the land found something like a proper
atmosphere for literary and other intellectual activities. Some
of the old traditions of the Pala and the Sena court were
revived at the Muslim darbar in Gaud. The officialdom of
the Hindu days that had survived the onslaught tried its best
to maintain, however humbly, shadow courts. of its own. The
poets and panegyrists attached to such courts were all Sanskrit
scholars as the vernacular had as yet no prestige: in high
society. When an influential Hindu found for himself an
honoured position in the sultan’s darbar he naturally tried
to get official recognition for his protégés. This was the
way how cultural and literary activity in Bengal began to assert
itself once again slowly but surely from the beginning of the
fifteenth century.
A
There arose a trouble in the domain of the gods. The new-
born calf of the divine cow Kapila, not getting a feed in time,
drank up the waters of the Balluka which supplied water
for the pious section of the gods. On the advice of Siva the
gods propitiated Kapila who gave enough milk to fill up the
sea. But the trouble did not end here. A parrot flying over
the sea dropped a tamarind which it was fetching for a sage.
The fruit was so sour that the milk of the Balluka turned into
curds. The gods were again in a fix. There was no other
way but to churn the sea so that the curds would be liquified.
(The story here follows the Purana episode.) The good things
that were churned out of the sea were taken by Visnu, Indra
and other prominent gods. When Siva and the Asuras came
there was nothing left for them. They now insisted on a
second churning, which turned up only poison that threatened
the destruction of the universe. Siva was persuaded by the gods
to drink up the poison and thereby save the creation,
A
The manuscript copies of the Bengali Ramayana bearing
the name of Krttivasa are numerous, but they mostly belong
to the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and,
none is older than the end of the seventeenth. The poem
being considered a most suitable text for the civil servants
of East India Company learning the language of the province
was printed at the Mission Press at Serampore in 1802.
‘The text of this editio princeps is really better than
most of the older manuscripts and all of the later printed
editions.
A
For the last eighteen years of his life (1515-33) Chaitanya
did not leave Puri. He would come every day to the temple,
take his stand by the Garuda pillar, his eyes fixed on the deity
for hours and streaming tears flowing from his eyes. Then he
would return home and beguile the long hours of disconsolate
separation from his Beloved by listening to the Bhdgavata read
by Gadadhar Pandit, a friend from his childhood days, and the
songs of Jayadeva and other poets on his beloved Krsna sung
by Damodar Svariip. The nights he passed in sorrowful ecstasy.
Every year, on the occasion of the Car festival (‘Rathayatra’)
his old friends, followers and devotees from the farthest cor-
ners of Bengal would assemble at Puri
A
Balaram’s best poems include songs describing the mother
Yasoda’s anxious love for Child-Gopala (Krsna). The follow-
ing poem expresses the intensity of Radha’s newly awakened
love for Krsna:
His age is young but his behaviour indicates maturity. He
looks like an image of the god of love made of emerald. I
know not who fashioned him and how. As one looks on him,
one receives a shower of sweetness. I am indeed undone.
What a beauty I have seen in a dream; as I eat or sleep it
stays fixed in my heart. His lips are red, his smiles are soft and
slow ; by a side glance of his dancing eyes he does havoc with a
girl’s home and ambition. My heart aches when I look at the
twin arches of his eye-brows. Alas, alas! Where had such a
sportive lover been all these days? His gait is slow and minc-
ing :. how can I say and to whom what my heart feels ? Even
a chunk of stone melts at a whiff from his body. Balaramdas
Says : a touch is enough to take away one’s consciousness.
A
Lone before Young Bengal had begun to drink deep of English
and other western literature, both classical and modern, its
eyes had been caught by the stagecraft of the West. But it
served only to spotlight the degenerate literary and musical
taste of the contemporary Calcutta society and to give it a new
vogue that did not die down until the sixties of the nineteenth
century. Gerasim Lebedeff, a talented adventurer from Russia,
had opened a short lived ‘Bengally Theatre’ in central Calcutta
where before a full house he staged a farce in Bengali with
music on 27th November 1795. The performance was repeat-
ed on 2Ist March 1796. As Lebedeff has written in the preface
to his Grammar of the Pure and Mixed East Indian Languages
(London 1801) the play was a free adaptation of an English
original entitled The Disguise by Jodrell (a book otherwise
unknown) , made by Lebedeff in collaboration with his Bengali
teacher Goloknath Das and approved by pundits like Jagan-
nath Tarkapaficanan.
A
In spite of these defects Meghanddvadh is the most signifi-
cant work ;jof Dutt. The free Payar is here smooth-flowing ;
the pattern of the diction is not blurred and characterization
is individualistic. The European technique—that is of Homer,
Virgil, Dante, Tasso and Milton—predominate, and Hellenism
in characterization and expression is neither inconspicuous nor
200 HISTORY OF BENGALI LITERATURE
infrequent.
A
The plays of Bose lack the seriousness of Girischandra Ghosh.
Bose was not a teacher but an entertainer, though the moral
effect of his comedies was not negligible.
When Ghosh and Bose were in their heyday of activity,
ae HISTORY OF BENGALI LITERATURE
Kabindranath Tagore came out on his private family stage as
the writer of musical plays and serious drama and also as an
actor thereon.
A
The poems of Mdnast (The Desired She, 1890) reveal a
clear maturity in Tagore’s poetry. The period of musicality
extending from “The Evening Song’ to “The Sharps and Flats’
is over. The poet is now faced with a clash between the ideas
and the ideals. From this viewpoint the most typical and also
the most distinguished poem—not only for the content but for
ithe rugged, uneven and unrhymed verse too—is Nisphal
Kadmana (The Hopeless Desire) .
The immortality that was hidden in you, where is it now? As
at dusk, amidst the isolated stars throbs the boundless secret
of heaven’s light, so does tremble the flame of the secret of
the soul in your eyes, under the depth of compact darkness.
A
Umeschandra Batabyal (1852-98) was a Sanskrit scholar with
a critical mind. His articles on Vedic history and interpreta-
tion and on the Sankhya philosophy are important contribu-
tions in the language. The articles on the Sankhya philosophy
were published posthumously in Sddhandé under the title
Safikhyadarsan (1899).
A
Its precursor was a small book containing four short stories
named Jhader Dola (The Sweep of the Storm, 1922), written
by Gokulchandra Nag, Dineshranjan Das, Srimati Suniti Devi
and Sri Manindralal Basu who as publishers constituted the
‘Four Arts Club’. Nag was a student of the Government Art
School and Das an amateur actor. Suniti Devi wrote verse and
Basu stories. Some of the stories of the young writers of
Kallol were considered improper according to the accepted
literary morals of the time. The journal was by no means a
popular one and the contributors were mostly unknown as yet.
As such the readers’ reaction was not expected for some tme.
But some other writers (not very young) took up the cudgel
against the Kallol group and tried to awaken a hostile reaction
by satirizing their writings in a periodical published
A
Here is a clear, chronological overview of the history of Indian Bengali literature in 20 bullet points:
Charyapada (c. 10th–12th century) marks the earliest known examples of Bengali literature, composed by Buddhist mystic poets.
Mangalkavya tradition (13th–18th century) flourished, celebrating folk deities like Manasa, Chandi, and Dharma.
Vaishnava literature developed strongly under the influence of Sri Chaitanya (15th–16th century), emphasizing devotion to Krishna.
Chandidas and Vidyapati enriched lyrical poetry with themes of divine love and human emotion.
Medieval narrative poetry blended mythology, folklore, and religious devotion.
Islamic influence contributed to Bengali literature through Persian-Arabic themes and Sufi writings.
17th–18th centuries saw translations and adaptations of Sanskrit epics like the Ramayana and Mahabharata.
Bharatchandra Ray Gunakor’s Annadamangal represented the peak of late medieval Bengali poetry.
Printing press and Fort William College (early 19th century) modernized Bengali prose.
Raja Rammohan Roy pioneered rationalist prose and social reform writing.
Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar standardized Bengali prose and enriched educational literature.
Michael Madhusudan Dutt introduced blank verse and modern epic poetry (Meghnad Badh Kavya).
Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay laid the foundation of the Bengali novel and nationalist writing.
Bengal Renaissance (19th century) stimulated intellectual, literary, and cultural transformation.
Rabindranath Tagore revolutionized poetry, fiction, drama, and music; won the Nobel Prize (1913).
Early 20th century modernists like Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay focused on social realism and human emotions.
Kallol movement (1920s–30s) introduced modernist and experimental writing.
Progressive and Marxist writers (1930s–40s) addressed class struggle and social injustice.
Post-Independence literature explored partition, urban life, and existential concerns.
Contemporary Bengali literature reflects globalization, identity, diaspora experiences, and new narrative forms.
If you want, I can also simplify this for school level, add dates, or turn it into exam-ready notes.
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