Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/240

 210 BENGALI] LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. [Chap. book. Though mainly following the Sanskrit text of Vyasa, the poet is indebted to Kali Das’s Cakun- tala and to Bhatti Kavya, from which he culls many beautiful blossoms to adorn his tale. The fine poetical touch in—‘‘ There was no tank without its wealth of lilies, no lilies without bees, and no bees that did not hum under the enchantment of the honey,” —is evidently borrowed from a well-known passage in Bhatti Kavya. রে In the Drona Parva by Gapinath Datta, Drau- padi, the wife of the Pandavas, comes to the battle- field and fights. We do not find anything of this nature in the Sanskrit Epic. The author probably wrote from his imagination. Reet: In 1806 A.D. Rajah Prithvi Chandra of Pakur wrote a poem in Bengali named Gauri Mangal. The work is interesting to us for its preface, in which he takes a bird’s eye view of old Bengali literature, and gives us a list of some of the noteworthy Bengali writers, who had preceded him. He refers thus to the translations of the Mahabharata :— “Eighteen Parvas of the Mahabharata were rendered into Bengali verses by Kaciram Das and before him by Nityananda.” Nityanan. In Eastern Bengal, the Mahabharata by Sai- da Ghos’s. ৮78 - Mahabha- J@ya and by Kavindra Parmecvara once enjoyed rata. great popularity, but im Western Bengal Nitya- nanda Ghos’s Mahabharata was in high favour with the people until the advent of Kaciram Das. We know very little of Nityananda Ghos; but that Kaciram Das, whose Mahabharata yields to no Bengali book in its popularity amongst the masses excepting perhaps the Ramayana by Krittivasa,