Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/33

I.] the Buddhistic faith and conducting commercial transactions. The well-known story of how prince Vijay Siṁha, son of King Siṁhabāhu of Bengal, migrated to Ceylon with seven hundred followers and established his kingdom there in 543 B.C. is narrated in Mahāvaṁça and other Buddhist works. Buddhism flourished in Ceylon under the patronage of the kings of the Siṁha dynasty— and the island is called 'Siṁhal' after them. The Ceylonese era dates from the commencement of the reign of Vijay Siṁha. The citizens of Champā in Bengal had already, in a still earlier epoch of history, founded a colony in Cochin China and named it after that famous old town. About the middle of the ninth century, Dhīmān and his son Bit Pālo, inhabitants of Vārendra (North Bengal), founded new schools of painting, sculpture and works in cast metal, which stamped their influence on works of art in Nepal, from whence the art of the Bengali masters spread to China and other Buddhistic countries.

In Bengal new ideas in religion have ever found a fit soil to grow upon, and it is interesting to observe, that out of the twenty-four Tīrthankaras (divine men) of the Jains, twenty-three attained Mokṣa (salvation) in Bengal. The place of their religious activity was Samet-çekhara or the Pārçvanāth hills