Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/403

 এ 'V.] BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. | 367 till comparatively recent times, and Udiya literature, when properly explored, will, we hope, show even more traces of Buddhistic influence than old Bengali literature. . | But, like the Dharmamangals and other poerns of the Buddhistic cult, the Citalamangals also bear the stamp of the influence of the Hindu Renais- sance; and the Hindu writers, who undertook to write such works in later times, gradually gave them the shape of Pauranik poems. The story of King Chandra Ketu and the troubles he underwent, for declining to worship Citala Devi, with his eventual surrender of himself to the mercy of the goddess, by which he recovered his lost fortune and achieved other rewards, forms the subject-matter of these poems. ~The first poet of Citalamangala, on whose work we were able to lay our hands, was Daivakinandana. He wrote his poem about three hundred years ago. The father of Daivakinandana was one Gopal Das. The ancestors of our poet were formerly inhabitants of Hatinad in Burdwan, and the family latterly The next work, a voluminous one, was written by Nityananda settled in Vaidyapur in that district. Chakravarti, who was a Pandit in the court of Raj- narayana Ray, a Zamindar of Kacigaon in Midnapur. Of other works in honour of Citala Devi we may mention those by Krisnaram, Ramprasad and Can- karacharyya. (e) Laksmi Charita—or poems on Laksmi, the Goddess ‘ of Wealth. _to the very earliest times. The autumn is the season for harvests, and in an agricultural country like and of Hindu Renais-= sanice. The sub=- ject= matter. Daivaki- nandan and other poets.
 * The worship of Laksmi- may also be traced back