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186
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(JULY, 1885.
occurrence, Bangali was the standard language itself up like a modest creeper, and the dialect, of the country."
which up to this time had been only a vehicle There are some who maintain that the of common talk, two hundred years subseBangali language dates from the time of the quently took a new form, and commenced to PÅla" kings.
trickle forth like honey in the writings of a The PÅla kings were Buddhists, and new line of poets. Mahipala was the most powerful of the line. Bengal, it is true, was ruled by the MuhamOwing to their power, and the oppression inadans, but the Muhammadan language, and displayed by them, the Brahmans of Bengal the Muhammadan faith never succeeded in were compelled to desert the country. It is entering the homes of the Bangalis. The not improbable that ander such a race of kings timid Bangali attended the funeral pyre of his the sacred tongue should have been held in freedom without & pang, but no persecution small esteem, and that in their time the could induce him to be a traitor to his Hind Bangali language took its present form.
religion and his Hindû customs. The NorthBat, be that as it may, we have proved this, Western provinces were directly under the that in Bengal for many centuries the Sans- feet of the emperor of Dehli, and there the kpit language was held in especial honour, that speech of the people speedily became more or up to the end of the twelfth century learned less adulterated with Arabic and Persian men used Sanskțit as the ordinary means of words, but our ancestors adopted but few communication, in the ordinary affairs of Persian forms, and hence their dialect became common life; and that if any old master had a little modified by the invasion, Bangali had book to write he wrote it in that language. departed little from its Sanskpit original, and Before the 12th centary no master ever had gradually it bocame a well-known and harmorecourse to the dialect of the vulgar in compos- nious language; and at length, in the court of ing a work dedicated either to amusement or to king Siva-Simha, Vidyâpati took the strains instruction. On the other hand, the Prakrit of the Cita-Gåvirda, sung so many years used by the common people in ordinary con- before the Muhammadan conquest, by the side versation became gradually altered in the of the waters of Ajay a, as they purled past ninth and tenth centuries, and under the rule Kenduvilva, and created a new and wonof the Buddhist Påla kings took a new form drous kind of lay." not essentially different from modern Bangali. The Afghans and Pathans had conquered Subsequently, under the Sanskrit influence | Bengal and Bihår; but' while good fighters of the Sena kings, this dialect received small they were wanting in intellect, and were encouragement, and Sanskrit, regaining its lost compelled to allow the burden of government ascendancy under the favouring influence of of their subjects to remain in the hands of the the dynasty, acted as a powerful drag upon its Hindås. These Hindu kings, as long as they development. But when once the field of acknowledged their submission to the Mughals Bengal was touched by the hand of the by the payment of an annual tribute, were Muhammadans, Sanskrit civilization closed practically independent. In some places the
16 The author here disonaRER the question of the Alphabet of the BrAhmans of Mithila, which is practically the mame as that of Bengal. He assumes that the Maithile Brahmans borrowed it from Bengal and on this supposition he founde arguments to prove that this borrowing must have takon place before the Muhammadan conquest. As, however, the basis of the argument is an assumption, and as the Maithils Brahmaos contend that the Bangalla borrowed the alphabet from them, it has not been thought necessary to translate this portion of the original, more especially as the subject is of small importance, and hardly comes within the scope of the present article.-G. A. G.)
11 It is impossible to say exactly when the PAla kings reigned. It is known that they were Buddhista, and there are traditions that they were in the habit of diverting Brahmans of the sacred thread. on sooount of which Bengal became deserted by them. It is said that for that reason Adiśüra was subsequently com
pelled to import Brahmans from Kanyakubja into Bengal. From the various inscriptions on copperplates found relating to them, it appears that Déva Pila. and Raja PALA, or rather Rajya Pala,-G.A.G.] were very great kinga. The name of Maht PAla is even more widely celebrated. In the year A.D. 1026 he established the Buddhistic religion in Bandros itself. In Dingjpur there is a tank, which is still called that of Mahipala, and to the present day there is proverb current:धानभान्त महीपालेर गीत, the song of Mahipala at paddy hunking, i.e. trying to do two things at once. - The principal town of the neighbouring district of Rangpur is also called Mahigan.-G. A. G.)
[It should be remembered that Vidy Apati wrote in Maithili, which in those days was as distinct from Benghll as it is now. This is evident from perusal of the works of Chandi Ds, a contemporary of Vidyapati, who wrote in pure Baugalt.-G. A. G.]
