Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/103

II.] inspired only by holy love—a perfect picture of patient suffering and unflagging devotion.

In Bengali songs of Çiva, this last trait reaches a high stage of development, showing the peculiar bent of our vernacular genius in conceiving and idealising purely domestic subjects.

Kailāsa, the City of Çiva, is the abode of bliss, where gold and lead have the same value, where the tiger and the lamb, the mongoose and the serpent are friends, and drink from the same fountain, forgetting their natural enmity. The love, harmony and tranquility which pervade Mount Kailāsa, are all inspired by Mahadeva himself, whose holy dwelling-place is thus strangely unlike the heavens of other gods, glittering with gold and making the impression of the aggrandised capital of some worldly monarch.

If I am asked as to what is the chief basis of that Paurāṅik Hinduism which triumphed over Buddhism and has since ruled supreme in India, I should say Āchāra. This word, I find difficult to translate into English. It means rules for the guidance of every day-life to which every Hindu should conform; yet this definition does not fully express the idea. The word Āchāra refers only to the details of daily life and must not be confounded with questions of morality. A man may not be very moral, and still his life may be Āchāra-puta, or pure as regards the observance of the rules laid down by the Çastras.