Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/370

 334. BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. [ Chap. — ] দা The ASta- These two stories form the subject matter of all ee poems on Chandi. In the Chaitanya Bhagbata, a work to which we have already alluded, we find that these devotional epics were generally sung at night. They were generally allowed to take eight — nights. Hence a poem in honour of Chandi was divided into eight parts, or Astamangala, each part being sung ina night. The poems must have been fairly long, to engage the audience for eight successive nights. 1. & 2. We have also a few short poems on Chandi which seem to be the earliest known specimens of such poetry. One we find with the sig- nature of Dwija Janardana, and another with that of Manick Dutta. The latter refers to the temple of Dvaravasini in Gouda. Dvaravasini was worshipped দি with great pomp by the Hindu and Buddhist kings Dutta, of Gouda. With the fall of their power, the temple of the goddess, where hundreds of pilgrims from different parts of the country flocked to offer prayers, became deserted and eventually in the 16th century, was reduced to a_ heap of bricks. Manick Dutta refers to the flourishing conditien of this temple which must have belonged to an age not earlier than the 13th century. His poem also gives an account of creation on the lines of the Cunya Purana, with obvious traces of Buddhism. We must remember that the later writers of poem on Mangala Chandi tried to identify this goddess with Chandi as described by Markandeya, but ori- ginally she had no connection whatever with the ee elite hie ‘ Pauranic deity. Mangal Chandi was a popular deity worshipped inthe villages by the rustic people, mostly women, and the Pauranic element introduced