Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/665

 a BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. (625 of the latter, eclipses nearly all the other poets of Bengal in his profuse use of Sanskritic terms. For a Moslem writer to have the credit of importing the largest number of Sanskritic words into a Bengali poem and thus heralding an age of classical revival, is no small achievement, and we are bound to admit that none of the Hindu poets of the age in which he lived, was in this respect, a match for him. Alaol has given descriptions of the religious cere- monies of the Hindus, their customs and manners _with an accuracy and minuteness which strike us as wonderful, coming as they do from the pen of a Mahomedan writer. He has given a classification of feminine emotions in all their subtlest forms as found in the Sanskrit books of rhetoric, in the por- traiture of such characters as Vasakasajja, Khandita, _Kalahantarita, and Vipralavdha. He has represent- ed the ten different stages of separation from a 19৮6 (বিরহের wt WA), closely following the rules laid down in Sahityadarpana and in Pingala’s works on rhetoric. He has discoursed on medicine in a manner which would do credit to a physician versed in the Aurvedic lore. He has, besides, shown a knowledge of the movements of the planets and their influence on human fortune worthy of an expert astrologer. In his accounts of the little rituals connected with the religious ceremonies of the Hindus such as the Pracastha Vandana, he dis- plays a mastery of detail which could only have been expected from an experienced priest. He has, besides, described the rules of long and short vowels, the principles’ 44, 944 etc. by which the various Sanskrit metres are governed, and quoted Sanskrit 79 The Sans- kritic style andthe Hindu spirit.