Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/125

II.] and the reactionary spirit has, perhaps for this very reason, taken an extreme form. Within the last ten years ইতিমধ্যে, সক্ষম, অজানিত, নিমগ্ন, নিরপরাধী, কলঙ্কিনী, গোপিনী, পথমধ্যে, পথভ্রান্ত, সৃজন, and similar words which were in every day use, have lost their status in the written language, because they have not been found to conform to the rules of Sanskrit.

Now Bengali is a highly artificial language. I quote here a Bengali hymn by Bhārata Chandra,—the great Bengali poet of the 18th century. One may take this as a piece of pure Sanskrit, and if written in Devnāgri characters it will be read by Sanskrit scholars all over the world as a Sanskrit poem. They will certainly be surprised to hear, that it is a Bengali poem, quoted from the Bengali work Annadā Maṇgala. This goes to shew to what an extent written Bengali has approached Sanskrit.

জয় শিবেশ শঙ্কর, বৃষধ্বজেশ্বর, মৃগাঙ্কশেখর, দিগম্বর। জয় শ্মশান নাটক, বিষাণবাদক, হুতাশভালক মহত্তর॥ জয় সুরারিনাশন, বৃষেশবাহন, ভূজঙ্গভূষণ জটাধর। জয় ত্ৰিলোককারক, ত্ৰিলোকপালক, ত্ৰিলোকনাশক মহেশ্বর॥"

One word more ought to be said here regarding this process of the resuscitation of words. Several European scholars have found fault with Bengali authors for writing in a high-flown artificial style, and for their tendency to use Sanskritic words in Bengali, in place of the corresponding current forms which are intelligible to the masses.

We must, however, proceed to enquire why such a style is daily growing in favour with Bengali writers, if it is so artificial. No one has power to