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JULY, 1873.)
VAISHNAVA POETS OF BENGAL.
189
tom of representing by kh is seen; while, on the other hand, in the rejection of the aspirate and the putting d for dh, as also in the substitution of the labial vowel u for the a of the original Sanskrit, we see a distinct peculiarity of the modern Bengali (see my Comp. Gram.vol. I. p. 132).
After making every allowance, however, for the propensity to modernize, observable in the printed edition, it must be admitted that Chandi Das's language approaches nearer to the present Bengali than Bidyå patis. This may be accounted for by the greater learning of the former. His poetry is inferior to Bidy&pati's in sweetness and vigour, but superior to it in learning and accuracy. He probably used intentionally all the new forms of the language which were then coming into fashion, and it must be remembered that, though a Brahman, he was no courtly poet like his contemporary, but a man of humble rank, and, after his conversion to the new creed, one who identified himself with the people, and lived in a rural village in a part of the country far removed from the abodes of great men. He appears to have mixed up with the common rustic speech of the day as many big Sanskrit words as he could, being thus one in that line of Sanskritizers whose influence has been so powerful on modern Bengali. As an additional complication to the obscure problem of the origin of this language, must also be adduced the consideration that the Vaishnava creed came to Bengal from the upper provinces, into which it had been introduced from the South by the followers of Râ mânuja, especially R â mânand of Oudh, in 1850 A.D., and his disciple the celebrated Kabir. The tenets of the sect had been popularized by the poems of this latter, and the equally celebrated Oudh poet Sar Dâs, whose immense collection of poems, called the Sûr Sågar, might almost be mistaken for the writings of Bidyâpati, so identical are they both in the language employed and in the sentiments expressed. It is therefore not improbable that the Vaishnava poets of Bengal intentionally employed Hindi and semi-Hindi words and phrases; and this suspicion, which is unfor- tunately too well-founded to be overlooked,
throws a haze of doubt round Bidyâ pati's style. This is the difficulty which confronts the student of the Indian languages at every step in reading an old author : he is never sure how far the style employed is really a faithful representation of the language spoken by the poet's countrymen and contemporaries. This doubt prevents us from using these old materials with confidence, and detracts immensely from the value of any deductions we may make from them. In the Pada-kalpataru are contained numerous poems in pure Sanskrit by the celebrated poet Jayadeva; and two of Chaitanya's principal disciples, R & p and Sanatan, also only wrote in Sanskrit. It would not however be correct to infer that Sanskrit was spoken in their time. These two men were to Brindaban what Layard was to Nineveh, its discoverers. They went to Mathura, and, apparently guided by their own preconceived ideas only, fixed upon the sites of all places necessary to establish the Krishna-saga. They found out Braj and Govardhan and all the other places, and established temples and groves, and set on foot worship therein. They must certainly have been acquainted with the Hindi of these days to be able to do all that they did, and their habit of writing in Sanskrit is a mere learned caprice. But if they chose to write Sanskrit, Bidyâ pati may equally well have chosen to write in Hindi, or what he took for Hindi; and the only reason therefore for assuming some of his words and forms to be the origin of modern Bengali forms is that we can trace the regular development of each type from his forms down to the modern ones.
It seems for the above reason unnecessary to delay longer over this poet, whose style is inferior to that of Bidyâpati, while hie diction is less instructive. It was necessary to make some mention of him, on account of his reputation, but it is extremely difficult to find among his poems any that are fit for reproduction. One does not, it is true, write" virginibus puerisque," but even from a scientific point of view it is not advisable to plunge into obscenity unless there be some pearls in the dunghill worth extracting, and this I cannot say is the case with Chandi Dâs.
