Page:History of Bengali Literature in the Nineteenth Century.djvu/454

 430 BENGALI LITERATURE a more congenial subject and greater scope for poetical treatment. Its essential theme is ee the time-worn yet eternally delightful Brndabana-lila of Sri Krsna beginning of Sri Radha’s ragodaya (dawning of love) to the final ras-lila. The work, written in a kabya form, is divided into thirty four Ullasas or chapters in which the whole course of Radha’s love is elaborately depicted with the rapture of a devotee and the enthusiasm of a poet. The first few chapters which described the germination (dhabankurodgama) and growth (4habaprakasa) of love in Radha’s heart and the first meeting of the lovers through the contrivance of Paurnamasi and Madhumangal—two unique creations of Ragunandan’s—are written with considerable skill and poetie spirit. It may be described, in a sense, as a systematic Baisuab Kabya. But in both these works, Raghunandan exhibits the same decadent tendency towards finical nicety and metrical dexterity, towards frigid coneeits, রা বজ of conventional images and_ elaborate metaphors, which marks all poetical writing, secular and religious, since the time of Bharat Chandra. Iv the narrative portions, Raghunandan is easy and natural enough and shows a considerable gift of quiet humour; but in his poetical description he affects, in common with his contemporary poets, an elaborate and artificial style. His weakness for the display of metrical skill, again, is very marked. Besides payar and tripadi, he makes use of a large variety of metres—ma/jhap, 1 For an appreciation of these chapters, see M, M. Haraprasad Sastri’s article in Narayan, 1322-23, vol. i, pp. 31-43 and pp. 638-648, Madhumangal, however, is not an original creation of Raghunandan’s but he was a more or less conventional figure of the bidugaka type, in the popular yatras.