Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/378

. Finished his poem in 1589 A. D. The con- tents. 342 BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. [ Chap. Kavya in 1589 A.D. when Mansimha was the governor of Bengal; the poet refers to Mansimha with great regard in the introductory canto of his work. His poem is divided into three parts; besides the usual preliminaries in which he offers hymns to various gods and goddesses, he gives an account of himself and of his native village of Damunya. Of the three main chapters, the first is devoted to Civa; this is evidently that first production, to which he refers in his account of Damunya. The sacrificial ceremony of Daksa, the catastrophe that befell him, the death of Sati who was re-born as Uma, and the austerities she passed through in her new life, with the object of regaining Civa for her husband, the killing of Madan by the fires of Civa’s third eye, the bewailings of Rati, the wife of Madan (full of tender pathos ; such as “let the years that I might have lived be added to your lite, my dear husband, do you live for ever, letting me die here at your feet”) the marriage, the various domestic scenes in Kailash, the dispute between Civa and Uma, and the worship of Civa by Indra and so forth, form the subject-matter of the first canto. The second canto gives the story of Kalketu the hunter, and the third that of the merchant-princes Dhanapati and Crimanta. The works of Mukundar§m contain in all more than 25,000 lines and a considerable portion of this has been rendered into English verse by Prof, EK. B. Cowell. ! {