Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/34

4 in the district of Hāzāribāgh and many of the Tīrthankaras, such for instance as Çreaṁgçunāth and Vāsupujya, were born in Bengal. The greatest of the Jaina Tīrthankaras—Mahavira spent eighteen years of his life preaching his faith in Rāḍa Deça (Western Bengal).

The country was for centuries in open revolt against Hindu orthodoxy. Buddhistic and Jain influences here were so great, that the codes of Manu, while including Bengal within the geographical boundary of Āryyāvarta, distinctly prohibit all contact of the Hindus with this land, for fear of contamination. Ānanda Tīrtha, the famous commentator of Aitereya Āraṅyaka, declares Bengal to be inhabited by Rākṣasas and Piçāchas. In fact it is probable, that Bengal was mostly peopled by the descendants of the early citizens of Magadah, hence Brahmanism could not thrive for many centuries amidst a people, who were the pioneers of Buddhism.

The Buddhist priests had already, in the latter part of the tenth century, begun to write books in Prākrita called the Gouḍa Prākrita. This Prākrita was called by the grammarian Kriṣṅa Pandit, who flourished in the twelfth century, as a form of Paiçāchī Prākrita or a Prākrita spoken by the evil spirits. The rules specified by him, in his celebrated grammar Prākrita-Chandrikā, as peculiar to our