Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/922

 Contact with the west. The past ideal. 878 BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. ‘'[ Chap. literature is based—a literature which though neces- sarily lacking in originality, chiefly consisting as it does of translations and compilations, promises to rise to universal esteem under favourable circums- tances, when it shall have passed its noviciate in acquiring all that it can assimilate from the vast resources of occidental learning. (d) A new ideal in the country. In the chapter on the Pauranic Renaissance, we noticed how mythological stories, fraught with a spirit of noble martyrdom and _ sacrifice, had eleva- ted the minds of the people, and helped in spiritua- lising them. The Paurgnic revivalists had held the earliest torch to enlighten our masses after Buddhism had declined in the country. The efforts of the missionaries and European scholars in giving culture through the medium of Bengali, now again after a lapse of nearly 700 years, served to awaken the Bengali mind to the consciousness of new ideas, the ideal of western civilisation. It was as if the home-stayers of Bengal had suddenly left the precints of home and launched out into the wide world. Hitherto the highest and noblest ideas that had inspired the Hindu mind in Bengal had drawn their impetus from home and from domestic life. Obedience to parents, loyalty to the husband, devotion to brothers and sacrifices to be undergone for guests, servants and relations, had all been elevated into the highest virtues, and the Puranas had supplied inexhaustible examples, illustrating each of these qualities. Rama who left the throne and became an ascetic, and Visma, who