Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/613

 V. | BENGAL] LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. হও O Lord.” This may look odd, but one thing ought to be borne in mind in order to understand the situation. Faith in the incarnation of God was the dominant idea of that age in Bengal. If it were. possible for us to realise the psychological condition of a soul who fervently believed that the person before him was God himself,—God who created the universe—the all merciful divinity in human flesh before him—what else could be do than sing his praises in devout worship as Viravahu or Tarani Sen did. In Bengal the peoples’ mind at the time was full of the God-man Chaitanya who had passed away like a heavenly vision. Jagail, Madhai, Bhilapantha, and Naroji, great moral wrecks who could not resist the spell of his faith The infi- and became converts to the creed of love,—gave dels as
 * . Rak sasas

shape to the character of the Raksasas of the and Rama ববির SI ATTA me _ as Chai- Ramayana and the old mythology revived by anew “tanya, touch of living history. The infidels figured as demons, and the battle-field was transformed into the scene of their reformation. The great person- ality of Chaitanya with his overflowing faith in God figured as the incarnation of Vishnu and modelled the Rama of old Valmiki in a new shape. Thus the material of the epic was curiously recast to form a new page of history, and all the incongruities and oddities which may strike us, become clear when we understand why the Ramayana in this garb attracted the people of Bengal,—the change being form a battle-field to the Saxkritana ground, from animosity to love, from fiction to reality. In the songs of Uma which form a part of Cakta literature, we find one poet®* describing her as
 * Rama Prasada Sen,