Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/60

30 (O Govinda, my son, the highest act of religion is to abstain from destruction of life).

The popular notion of Buddhism in India holds this doctrine of অহিংসা as the most essential point in the religion of Buddha, about whom the poet Joydeva has said:—

The great exponent of the Dharma-cult in Bengal was, by general acceptance, Rāmāi Pandit—the reputed author of Çunya Purāṅa. The poems of Dharma-mangal also make mention of Rāmāi Pundit with great esteem. His hand-book of DarmaDharma [sic] Pujā, called the Çunya Purāṅa, has been edited by Babu Nagendranāth Vasu and lately published by the Sāhitya Pariṣada of Calcutta. Rāmāi Pandit was a contemporary of Dharmapāl II, who reigned in Gouḍa in the early part of the 11th century A.D. Rājendra Chol's rock-inscription (1012 A.D.), recently discovered at Tirumalaya, makes mention of this monarch. Rāmāi Pandit was born at Champāighāt—on the river Dwārakeçwar in the District of Bānkura. The year of his birth is not known, but he was born on the 5th day of the waxing moon, in the month of Vaiçākha, towards the end of the 10th Century A.D.

Bābu Nagendranāth Vasu, who edits the Çunya Purāṅa, accepts the account of Rāmāi's life furnished by his descendants, and takes him to be a Brahmin. The accnunt is full of fables and is scarcely entitled to credence. The descendants of Rāmāi Pandit, who still discharge the priestly