Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/39

I.] was quite an unfit medium for conveying any serious or high thought.

The question is: how could the poor Vernacular of Bengal find recognition in the courts of the kings, inspite of this opposition of the Brahmins? Every Hindu Court gloried in keeping a number of Sanskrit scholars attached to it. From the time of Vikramāditya it grew to be a fashion with Hindu kings to keep learned companions, and they were generally picked men—finished masters in Sanskrit Poetry, Grammar and Logic, who revelled in the high flown style and in the niceties of rhetoric which abound in the latter-day Sanskrit works, such as Kādamvarī, Daçakumār Charita and Çri Harṣa Charita. The copperplate-inscriptions of the Pāl and Sen Kings of Bengal bear abundant proofs of the learning and poetical powers of some of these gifted men, whose contempt for Bengali was as great as was their scholarship in Sanskrit. How can we account for the fact, that the court of Kriṣṅa Chandra of Navadwipa,—a glorious seat of Sanskrit learning—where Hari Rām Tarkasiddhānta, Krisnānanda Vāchaspati and Rāmgopāl Sārbabhouma were the professors of Logic—where Vāneçwar Vidyālankāra won his laurels in Sanskrit poetry and Çiva Rām Vācaspati, Rām Ballabha Vidyāvāgiça and Vīreçwar Nyāya-Panchānana discoursed on philosophy,—such a distinguished seat of classical learning as Kriṣṅa Chandra's court could bestow its favours and titles on Bhārat Chandra and Rāmprasād—the Bengali poets of the eighteenth century? Not only Kriṣṅa Chandra, but many other Kings and Chiefs of Bengal, who preceded him, are described as having extended their patronage and favour to Rh