Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/421

 IV. ] BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. 385 language on the model of Sanskrit grammar and 1 orthography. Mukundarama lived in _ this transition period ; he used provincial words which were latterly condemned as unworthy to finda place in decent literature, as often as he used Sanskritic. In the spelling of words also he favoured the Prakrita forms in use, as often as he adopted Sanskritic forms. The charge of mistakes in spell- ing cannot be laid at his door, as during his time old ways were not given up in our language, and the Sanskrit orthography was not yet fully adopted for the regulation of Vernacular writings. The five Gaudas or “‘five Indies” viz. Svarasvata _ The five (the Panjab), Kanyakuvja (Kanoja), Gauda Gaudas ; (Bengal), Mithila (Durbdhanga), and Utkala (Orissa) were formerly more allied to one another than they are now. We find the Bengalis to have been in close touch with the people of other parts of Aryya- varta. The old Bengali poems were known by the common name of Panchali. This word shews that we owe at least some forms of the old Bengali ১ in close metres to Panchala or Kanoja. Svarasvata or the touch with Bs, wet ; 17 one Panjab gave us its aka era which was adopted aa other. by the Bengalis, as it was by the people of other parts of India. The civilization of Bengal—the new learning, especially that of logic, which made the fo/s of Nadia famous throughout India, came from Mithila, when Magadha, its glorious days over, had ceased to give light to Eastern India. With Kalinga or Orissa, Bengal in the past was inseparably associated. Our prophet Chaitanya Deva counts more votaries amongst the Uriya people than in Bengal itself. So we find that the five Gaudas, 49