Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/249

 bes) BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. 289 We know every little of the life of Kaciram Das. It is said that he was a school-master in the village of Awashgarah in the district of Midnapore ; and that the above village having been an important resort of the Pandits and Kathakas, who recited the Puramas in the house of the local Raja, Kaci Das first conceived the desire to undertake a translation of the Mahabharata in their learned company. In Singi, the native village of the poet, there is a tank, which is called ¢+t 4% after him. We are in possession of several dates which have a bearing on his time. The year in which “ Jagat Mangal” was written by his brother Gadadhar has already been referred to. We know of a manus- cript of Kagiram Das’s Mahabharata in the hand- writing of Gadadhar; it was written in the year 1632 A.D. Nanda Ram Das, made a deed of gift to his family priest in 1678 A. D. This must have been drawn up after Kagi Das’s death, as during the lifetime of his father, Nanda Ram could not possibly have made a gift to the priest—a duty generally devolving upon the head of the family. From these dates we may safely conclude that Kaciram Das was born towards the latter part of the 16th century and lived till the middle of the seventeenth. At the instance of some young men of the village Singi, the Vangiya Sahitya Parishat of Calcutta is shewing great activities in raising subscriptions for erecting a suitable memorial in honour of the poet in his native village. Kaciram Das’s Mahabharata and Krittibasa’s Ramayana are the two books which have been, for some centuries, par excellence, the great educative agencies of Bengal. What may appear as incone Date and other particu- lars. A meimo- rial in honour of the poet.