Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/1050

 {004 BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. [ Chap. | when Brahmanic influence had not yet commenced. Eastern As I have already said, the chief actors in the 2 drama of these stories belong to the mercantile of Renais- sance, classes and some of them are of even humbler origin. The Brahmin has hardly any function to discharge in them. ‘Though after the Hindu Re- naissance, these stories were recast by the Brah- mins and worked out from mere popular fables into poems of great beauty, their original ground-work, with its traditions of a society which is anterior to that built up by Brahmanical influence, remains unchanged. The earliest writer of Manasa-mafigala, that we have yet been able to trace, was one Hari Dutta. He lived in Mymensing, or somewhere in its vicinity, more than six hundred years ago. Narayana Devaand Bijaya Gupta came after him in the 15th century and latterly Sasthibara and Ganga Das, father and son, wrote Manasa-mangalas, which the subsequent poets of the Manasa cult of east and west alike imitated. These early poets were all of Eastern Bengal. We must remember that the tale of Manasaé Devi is of much older date than even six hundred years. In this country earlier efforts are always lost when a gifted suc- cessor assimilates and embodies the best features of his predecessors’ works in his new poem. Thus nearly a dozen early poems of the Mahabharata, written before Kaci Das, were all forgotten by the people, until quite lately, these works were again brought to the notice of the public by scholar- ly research. he earlier poets of the Manasa-cult all wrote their poems in Eastern Bengal; and these supplied inspiration to the poets of the western districts ina subsequent age. MKetakadas