Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/410

 The poems look like Chandi- Mangals. Sahadeva Chakra- varty, 1740 A.D. 374 BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. [ Chap.) with remorse that my life has been spent in vain.) — [ did not recite the name of Ram, nor did I offer prayers to the gods or worship Brahmins and — Vaisnavas. I did not minister to the wants of my old parents. Surely Providence was against me.” Hote The worshipping of Brahmins referred to in | this speech of Caka asif it were a highly meritorious act, for omitting which he became repentant at the ] hour of death, evidences how far the poems were Hinduised ; in fact Dharma Thakur is thrown into the back ground in these poems and in his place the goddess Chandi has become conspicuous. The poems in fact look like those belonging to the Cakta- Cult. But by far the best poem on Dharma Thakur, though not so popular as Ghanar4m’s Dharma Mangal, is the one written by Sahadeva Chakravarti in 1740. This writer does not, like his predeces- sors, treat the subject of Lau Sen’s heroic achieve- ments.’ His poem has retained more Buddistic elements than any other work of the kind that we have come across. I give below a descriptive list of its cantos :— 1. Hymnsin praiseof Dharma Thakur, Bhagavati, Laksmi, Sarasvati, Chaitanya, Tarakegvara, ete. z. Salutations oftered to Jiva and other con- temporary poets and to the author's parents. 3. An account of creation, how Brahma, Visnu, and (7৮৪ came into existence. The marriage of Civa. His agricultural operations in the field called Kamada. Chandi appears as a Vagdini woman in disguise. Civa and Chandi catch fish. Civa returns to iSailasha with products of the harvest,