Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/239

 IV.] BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. — 209 (28) Bharata by Bhriguram Das. (29) 4২০৮৪060119 Parva by Dwija Ramakrisna. (30) Do by Bharat Pandit. (31) Mahabharata compiled by the order of Dharma M§nikya, king of Tippera. Of these writers Kavindra Parmecvyara, as we have said, translated nearly the whole of the Mahabharata, and amongst others,—Sasthivara, Ramecvar Nandi, Trilochan Chakravarty, Nityananda Ghosa, Nimai Das, Ballabha Dev, and Bhriguram Dasalso attempted to translate the whole of the epic. Translations, in those days, as I have said, were not closely re- stricted to the texts. Besides omissions and changes, stories and incidents were freely added to the poems by the writers. The Bengali recen- sions, as compared with the original of Vyasa, appear to be, in many respects, quite different poems. One would hardly find in many of these works a score of lines together which would conform to the Sanskrit text. The Ramayana and Maha- bharata were, so to speak, reborn in these Bengali recensions, which resembled the Sanskrit epic only as the child does its father. They offer many strik- ing points of difference which cannot be ignored. In the history of these differences is to be found the peculiar bent of the Bengali genius which, moulding the great epics in its own way, gave the Bengali recensions an air of originality of which we shall have to speak hereafter. Of the episodes translated from the Maha- bharata, the story of Cakuntala by Rajendra Das, who flourished in the middle of the 17th century, is one of the best that we have found in the whole af The origi nal & its transla- tions, Cakuntala by Rajen- dra Das.