Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/980

 934 BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. [ Chap. The plant Tulasi is sacred with the Vaisnavas and the Bel tree with the Caivas. When regarded in the- light of simple devotion and as possessed of emblematic significance, these plants have a charm for the Hindus which is indescribable. When the pious wife lights the evening lamp at the foot of the sacred Tulasi, the darkness of evening yields to that quiet light glittering through the leaves, and the vermillion-marked forehead bends low in the act of making obeisance to the deity whose symbol it is, the small scene breathes poetry to the soul which feels in its presence as before some alter; but when the atrocious Brahminic code lays down ‘the great sinner who seeing a Bi/va tree ora ¢u/asi plant does not instantly bow down, will be sent to hell and be afflicted with leprosy,”* —the poetry and spirituality of the whole vanishes, and our mind revolts against such ordin- ances and feels strongly against Brahminic tyranny. The horrid hook-swinging festivity called the Chadaka, the custom of throwing children to the Sagara, human sacrifices offered to Kali and other atrocious ceremonies performed under the sanction and control of the Brahmins compelled our enlightened rulers to check them by enacting new laws, and if the missionaries were unsparing in their abuses of our religion and called us semi- barbarious, they were justifed in their condemna- | tion of the crimes that pervailed in the lower stratum of our society. সযাতি নরকং ঘোরং মহারোগেণ পাড্যতে ॥ Skanda Purana.
 * '' বিলং বা তুলসীং দৃষ্ট ন নমেদ্যো নরাধমঃ |