Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/662

 Syed Alaol. His father is killed, 1 ণ 622 BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE, [ Chap, in grossly sensual ideas. They descended from heaven to have a little taste of the mundane pleasures. The Sanskrit vocabulary and Sanskrit works of rhetoric became the chief sources of poetic inspiration; yet the period, by a strange irony of fate, was ushered in by one who was not a Hindu, as it would be natural to expect, but a Mahomedan. A Mahomedan writer arose with a mastery of the Sanskrit tongue, the like of which we rarely find among Hindu poets in the Bengali. literature. He was Syed Alaol, translator of Padmavata a Hindi poem written by Mir Mahammad in 1521 A.D. (b) Alaol—the Mahammedan poet who heralded the new age—His life and a review of his works. Alaol was the son of a minister of Samser Kutub, the Nawab of Jalalpur (in the district of Faridpur). When a youngman, he undertook a sea- voyage in the company of his father. The crew were attacked by Portuguese pirates, known in the country as Hermadas (from Armada). We havea line in the Chandi Kavya by Mukunda Rama des- cribing the great fear in which sailors held these Hermadas. ‘‘ Night and day the merchant plied his oars in fear of being overtaken by the Hermadas.”’* The father of Alaol was killed in a hand-to-hand fight with the marauders and our poet narrowly escaped a similar fate, and fled to Aracan where Magana Thakur, the Moslem Prime minister of the ruling Chief of the place, received him hospi- Kavi Kankana Chandi.
 * '' বাতি দ্িন বয়ে ষায় হান্মাদের ডরে।”