Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/513

 ৮০ 7 - 1 V.] 9 BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. 477 earlier part of his reign. But the Brahmin families whose caste was polluted by being forced to take water from the hands of the Mahomedans stationed in the village of Pirulya, lost their status in Hindu society, and after more than four hundred years, the Tagore families of Calcutta, who represent a class of Pirulya Brahmins, as they have been since called, have to a considerable extent regained their social position. Jayananda gives a list of authors who had written accounts of Chaitanya Deva’s life before him, amongst which the works of Paramananda- puri, Gopal Basu and Gouri Das, mentioned by him, have not yet been recovered. We find it also mentionedin his work that Govinda Das, a black-smith by caste, followed Chaitanya Deva in his travels in Southern India. (d) Chaitanya Charitamrita by Krisnoa Das. By far the greatest of the biographers of Chaitanya Deva,—one who by his pure and lofty character, by his unique scholarship and _ no less by his hoary old age commanded the greatest respect of the Vaisnava community of the period, was Krisna Das Kaviraj of Jhamatpur in Burdwan. Born in 1517 of a poor Vaidya family, he was inured to hardships from his earliest childhood. His father Bhagiratha used to earn a small pittance by following the avocation which belonged to his caste viz. that of a physician. At his death Krisna Das was only 6 years old. He had a brother Cyama Das, 2 years his junior. Their mother Sunandg could find no way to maintain herself and her two children. But an end soon came to her care and The Pirulya Brahmins. Krista Das born 81৮11) Early misfor= tunes and Vaisnava influence.