Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/157

 IYI. ] BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. = 127 distinctive characteristic of Indian thought. It hasa A tendency constant tendency towards idealization. The river এগার Jumna and the village Vrindavana will be found tion on any Indian map. They are sanctified in the eyes of ordinary Vaisnavas. To them Krisna lived in the flesh and sported with the milk-maids in the groves of Vrindavana, ever hallowed by the love- - making of the Divine shepherd. But the gross aspect changes,.the whole matter becomes abstract, in the eyes of an enlightened devotee. To him the human mind is Vrindavana, and there the enternal play of the Divine love—the 'নিত্যলীল1'__15 ever going on. Radha was married to Ayan Ghosh but she belonged to Krishna, as our souls, though bound to this world, repudiate these bonds on their spriritual awakening, and cling to God alone. I may give an instance of this spiritualization Anexample. of ideas even by rural and illiterate people in 2 Bengal. In 7894) 1 was residing in Tippera. It nan. was early in June ; the clouds had gathered on the horizon, and round the Cataratan Matha of Comilla they had made the darkness of night a shade more black. An _ illiterate Vaisnava devotee, an old man of seventy, was singing the following song of Chandi Das, playing on a lute made of a long gourd.* “Dark is the night and thiek are the clouds, ‘“How could you, my beloved, come by the path in such a night ? কেমনে আইলা বাটে । আঙ্গিনার মাঝে, বধুয়া ভিজিছে, দেখে যে পরাণ ফাটে ॥
 * এ ঘোর রজনী, মেঘের ঘটা,