List of banned bengali books professional#
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Taking the story and the matter in general from their great originals, they gave free scope to their own fancy, and in many places established a claim to originality. They did not attempt so much in one sense, yet they achieved something more. Their authors, Kásidás and Krittibás, were not mere translators of the great Indian epics. The principal productions of this school are the Bengali version of the Mahábhárata and the Rámáyana. This school constitutes the literature of Chaitanyaism, while the second we have to notice represents Bengali Pauranism. It could scarcely be expected that so immense a collection as this Vaisnavite storehouse should be of uniform merit, and one may well wish that nine-tenths of these songs had never been composed: but among the other one-tenth there are gems of rare merit, which in tenderness of feeling have never been surpassed by anything in Bengali literature, and barely equalled by the best writers of the present day. Doubtless early Bengali and early Hindi differed little, if at all, from each other, and the present divergence is due to the operation of phonetic change in the same vernacular spoken by different branches of the same race, which were separated from each other by the revolution which followed the breaking up of the great empire of the Guptas of Magadha, or by others which are now lost in the silent darkness of Indian history. Many of these songs are probably very modern, but others are undoubtedly the most ancient extant specimens of the Bengali language and in these the language is more like the Hindi of Tulsi Dás than the Bengali of the present day. But if the music is peculiar, the language is no less so. The effect, however, is often marred by the discordant sound of the cymbals and drums by which it is accompanied. These, in fact, profess to hold kirttan music in utter contempt, but it nevertheless possesses a sweetness and pathos not ordinarily found in Indian music.

List of banned bengali books professional#

The music to which they are set is peculiar, and is not ordinarily understood even by the professional musicians of Bengal. The present writer has in his possession a collection which contains more than three thousand of these songs, and he believes that there are other collections equally voluminous. They are still sung by bands of Bairágis and are popularly known under the name of kirttan.

They are exclusively Vaisnavite, and their songs either celebrate the amours of Krishna or the holiness of Chaitanya. The first in order are the lyric poets, at the head of whom must be placed Vidyápati. But, however uncertain their exact date may be, the literary productions of Bengal naturally group themselves into five separate classes, different in spirit and to some extent successive in order of time and if this be borne in mind, the want of exact dates need cause no difficulty in understanding the brief criticisms which follow. The Chaitanya Charitamrita is also one of the oldest Bengali books. Mukundarám Chakravartti, commonly known as Kabi Kankan, and the author of the Chandi poems, lived during the reign of Akbar. Vidyápati, whose lyrics are perhaps the finest in the language, is certainly one of the first. It is difficult to determine the date of the oldest Bengali writers, but probably few of their books are more than three hundred years old.

The names of Raghunandana and Jagannátha belong to very recent days. The great Bengali triumphs in the Nyáya philosophy and in law cannot be reckoned as falling within this period. In other departments the only distinguished Bengali name in the older Sanskrit literature is that of Kulluka Bhatta, the commentator on Manu. There is not one Bengali name which can compare with those of Kálidása, Mágha, Bháravi and Sriharsa. The only Bengali Sanskrit poet of any eminence was Jayadeva, and he does not stand in the first rank. The contributions of Bengal to that ancient Indian literature which still commands the respect and attention of European scholars, were few and insignificant. It is a Bengali writer, Babu Rajendralála Mitra, who has said that in ancient times Bengal was the Boeotia of India. The intellectual position of the Bengali among the races of India may be a prominent one at the present day, but in earlier times it was one of the lowest. By Hari Mohan Mukurjya, Calcutta: New Sanskrit Press.