Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/402

 Traces of Buddhistic influence; good poems in honour of Citala Devi, could be stance, which proves the Buddhistic origin of the worship of this goddess, as prevalent in Bengal, — Her form as made in clay, however, in this country — does not represent a Buddhistic conception. The © Brahmins have traced her back to the Vedas. They | consider the word ‘Taksan’ in the Atharva Veda, © and also another word ‘Apdevi,’ which occurs in — various places in Vedic literature as signifying the © goddess Citala. In the Skandapurana and in the Picchilatantra there are accounts of this goddess. But the block of stone, roughly representing a face, covered with vermilion and with brass points fixed on it, which the Doma Pandits carry from door to door, asking for offerings in the name of the deity, does not seem to own any kinship with the figure of the goddess artistically made of clay by Bengal potters. The latter is evidently a Hindu conception. Poems in honour of Citala Devi bear evident traces of Buddhistic influence. The goddess is described in one of them as riding on an ‘ w/uk’ or owl. The bird ‘w/w, which is sometimes trans- formed into a sage in Buddhistic tales, occurs fre- quently in the Canyapurana and in the Dharmaman- gals. This suggests that Citala Devi was con- nected with the Buddhists. In another poem on the goddess, the author (Nityananda) says that no found in Bengal, while in Udiya literature there was an abundance of such works which could be traced back to the very earliest times. The author describes how he took great pains to collect them from | Orissa and compile a Citala Mangala on their lines, iS in Bengali. Orissa was a strong-hold of Buddhism |