Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/1054

 1008 BENGAL! LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. [Chap. she had once possessed. She had once occupied the place of pioneer in Vernacular composition, but this has now passed completely out of our memory. The Battala-publishers have confined their attention to manuscripts of Bengali poems of comparatively later date, such as were available in the vicinity of Calcutta, and this fact has further helped to obliterate the memory of the early poems of Eastern Bengal until recent discoveries brought to light heaps of long forgotten manuscripts mainly from the houses of the rustics of that country. The third seat of Vernacular composition, which was perhaps one of the oldest, was North The Songs Bengal. The songs of the Pal Kings were first ince ane sung in the old capital of Gauda and its vicinity. Dharma. শী 4 ॥ ; সন Ramai Pandit composed his Manual of Dharma poems, worship in Bengali towards the end of the roth came from é & North century. He was born in the district of Bankura but Gengal. Gauda was his chief of field of work. The story of Lausen, to be found in the Dharma- Mangala, relates to the adventures and successes of the hero who was a nephew of the King, Darmapal H, and the incidents of the poem gather round the old capital of Bengal. The Darma-cult flourished under the patronage of the Pal Kings, and the Vernacular literature of this cult had, for its original home, the historic land where these Kings reigned. Summary. We thus arrive at the following conclusions :-— (1) Rada Deca in olden times was _ the favoured seat of the growth of Vais- nava ideas. Long before Chaitanya, she delighted in Vaishnava songs and in the study of the Bhagabata which