Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/775

 VI.] BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. — 733 excelled in the Chandi yatra and the Manasar Bhasana vatra respectively. But we have not yet named the greatest yatra- wala that Bengal has ever seen. We have re- The great-
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served a notice of Krisna Kamala Gosvami for the them,— £ Krisna more elaborate treatment that he deserves at our Kanata hands. his life. Krishna Kamala was born in 1810 at Bhajanghata in the district of Nadia. He belonged to one of those few families of Vaidya Gosvamies in Bengal who claimed Brahmin disciples. Krisna Kamala’s great ancestor Sada Civa, a friend of Chaitanya Deva, was reputed for his great piety. Krisna Kamala received his first lessons in Sanskrit gram- mar at Vrindgvana, where his father Muralidhara had taken him when only six years of age. He was a handsome boy, and by his pleasing manners attrac- ted the notice of a millionaire who desired to adopt him as a son, and make him the heir to his vast fortune. On this, Muralidhara fled from Vrindavana with his son, who was then only twelve years old. Returning home, Krisna Kamala to please his mother Jamung Devi, wrote a melodrama on Chait- anya which greatly pleased the village people of His poems. Bhajanghata, who marked the author as a young pro- digy. When in his twenty-fifth year, his father died, and the poet left Bhajanaghata and came to Dacca with his patron and disciple Rama Kicore. He com- posed his great yatra poem, the Svapnavilasa in 1835. It was at once taken up and played by the amateur parties of Dacca. The success, this work attained, was unique. The songs of Svapnavilasa