Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/41

I.] wonderful influence which they exercised in moulding the religious and domestic life of the Hindus, and they naturally felt a desire to be acquainted with the contents of those poems. The Pāthān Emperors and Chiefs could not have the great patience of the Hindu Kings who were inspired by a religious zeal to hear the Brahmin scholars recite Sanskrit texts and their learned annotations, step by step, requiring the listeners many long years to complete a course of lectures on the Rāmāyaṅa or the Mahābhārata. They appointed scholars to translate the works into Bengali which they now spoke and understood. The first Bengali translation of the Mahābhārata of which we hear, was undertaken at the order of Nasirā Sāhā, the Emperor of Gauḍa who ruled for 40 years till 1325 A.D. This translation has not yet been recovered, but we ﬁnd mention of it, in another translation of the epic made by Kavīndra Parameçwara, at the command of Parāgal Khān, the governor of Chittagong. Nasira Shāh was a great patron of the Vernacular of this country. The poet Vidyāpati dedicates one of his songs to this monarch and in another, speaks with high respect of Sultan Guisuddin.

The name of the Emperor of Gauḍa who appointed Krittivāsa to translate the Rāmāyaṅa, is not known with certainty. He might be Raja-Kaṁsanārāyaṅa or a Moslem Emperor, but even if