Page:History of Bengali Literature in the Nineteenth Century.djvu/418

 394 BENGALI LITERATURE An accurate and exhaustive collection of Nidhu Babu’s tappas has not yet been published. A year before his death was published his Gifaratua Grantha,' which purported to be a complete collection His Gitaratna Gran- tha how farauthentic | : at. and reliable. in which the author states his inten- of his songs. It contains a preface tion of publishing a correct edition of his songs which had circulated in various forms. A revised edition of this work with a short sketch of Nidhu Babu’s life (compiled chiefly from Samad Prabhakar) was published in 1868 by his son Jaygopal Gupta. This edition does not differ materially from the first; the only additions take the form of 7 ahhdai songs, one brahma-sangil, one syamabisayak git and one Janibandang. There are numerous inferior editions ? 1 It contains 141 pages, of which pp. 1-8, in the copy possessed by the Sahitya Parisat Library, are wanting. The title-page says: ্ীত্রীরামঃ। শরণং | গীতরত্ব গ্রন্থ শ্রীরামনিধি গুপ্ত রচিত গৌড়িয় সাধুভাষায় নান প্রকার ছন্দে রাগরাগিনী সহিত শঙ্কোলিত হইয়া সন ১২৪৪ শালে কলিকাত৷ বিদ্বন্মোদ প্রেষে মুদ্রিত হইল ॥ এই পুস্তক শোভাবাজার ৬নন্দরাম সেনের ইষ্ট্রিটে নং ২* বাটিতে অন্বেষণ করিলে পাইবেন | 2 In 1252 B.S. (1845) Krsnananda Byds Ragasagarin his encyclo- pedic anthology, Sangit-raga-kalpadrum gives a collection of Bengali songs in which he includes more than 150 tappas of Nidhu Babu mostly taken from Gitaratna (31 Ed.) and arranged almost in the same order. In 1257 B.S. (1850) an edition (marked as 3rd edition) of Gitaratna was published from Battalaé but it contains numerous doubtful songs taken from other sources, the genuineness of which however is extremely questionable. In 1293 (1886) was published Bangiya Sangit-ratnamala or Kabibar Nidhu Babur Gitabali a very uncritical collection compiled by Aéutos Ghosal (from 55 College Street, Hindu Library, Calcutta). It contains about 160 songs ; but in order to make the collection attractive, songs from different sources are passed off as Nidhu Babn’s. The same remarks apply also to the more recent edition (2nd Ed. 1303) of Nidhu Babu’s songs published by Baisnab Charan Basaék from Battala entitled Gitabalt or Nidhu Babur (Ramnidhi Gupter) Yabatiya Gitasamgraha. Besides these, selections