Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/962

 918 BENGALI LANGUAGE?& LITERATURE. [Chap. Sarvamoda In ‘“ Sarvamoda Tarangini”’ written in 1850,— Tarangini. a work expounding theistic principles, we find “ACMA HASTA AMBIT] AKA ARSCOA SSI পাতা বিধাতাকে সব্বতোভাবে প্রণাম পুব্বক সব্বামোদতরঙ্গিণী নামক গ্রন্থ প্রকাশ করিতেছি ।'? Represen- The whole literature of the period abounds tative character ; চা : lost specimens of composition by untrained hands. with such absurd instances of pedantry. They are Those who were the natural leaders, so long ac- knowledged to be the masters of the vernacular style of composition,—at whose hands and by whose disinterested and. self sacrificing labour Bengah literature had flourished and attained distinction,— the Vaishnava and Cakta writers were ousted from the field, and in their place the Tol pundits, who knew nothing of our past literature, whose study was confined to Sanskrit, were called in to write Bengali books; the result was that their unwieldy style and its uncouth form struck a discordant note to the spirit of our language. Besides, the subject- matter which they chose was all upon the model of Kuropean books. This naturally failed to appeal to our masses unacquainted with the new spirit which was inspiring the authors of our modern prose. Modern literature thus lost that represen- tative character which the yellow leaves of the old Mss. had so pre-eminently possessed. A foreign plant was, as it were, engrafted on an old tree and it required years for the graft to grow and become a true and living branch of our literature. and the The old school had been a homogeneous 0168. link এ aif of i broken, '0n; one would hear the echoe of Vidyapati, who