Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/656

 The political atmos- phere. Raia Krisna Chandra, 616 BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. [ Chap. another to gain the gadz, were events of every-day- occurrence in the courts of Indian noblemen. Raja Krisna Chandra of Navadwip by a stratagem which was highly praised, deprived his own uncle of his rightful ownership of the gad of Krisnagar. Krishna Chandra’s son Cambhu Chandra played a similar dodge and tried to usurp the possessions oi his father, by spreading a false report of his death. The Raja was thus going to be paid in his own coin. His agent at Agradwip in Burdwan by an equally unscrupulous action ousted the rightful owner out of the possession of that place and gained it for his own master. Inthe Courts of Serajuddulgh, the Nabab, plots of a far more important character were being formed fraught with consequences which were to change the history of the whole of India. It was not an age conspicuous for its appreciation of high ideas or of noble sentiments. “ Raja Krisna Chandra was hostile to the followers of Chaitanya.”’* He frustrated the efforts of Raja Rajavallava who had tried to obtain sanction of the Pundits of Bengal to the remarriage of Hindu widows of tender ages. Yet Krishna Chandra was the most important man of the period in the Hindu Society of Bengal. His Court had gathered round it some of the greatest Sanskrit scholars of the country. He appreciated merit, patronised literature, and encouraged art. The far-famed clay-models of Krisnagar and the fine cotton-industry of Cantipur owe their perfec- tion to the patronage of the Raja. The Raja was friendly to the English and it was he who first put the idea of overthrowing Serajuddulah by the help 7 Khitica Vameabali Charita P. 29.