Dutt, Romesh Chunder: The literature of Bengal: being an attempt to trace the progress of the national mind in its various aspects, as reflected in the nation’s literature from the earliest times to the present day ; with copious extracts from the best writers (Calcutta, 1877)

44 LITERATURE <9F BENQjiL.

V ' \

•will then perhaps be Asserted that the Bengali language
is derived from the Sanskrit direct, and has no connexion
with the Prakrita !

The reader will be greatly mistaken if he Carrie's
away the impression that we are imitating the Sanskrit
style. We have shewn in another chapter that the re-
verse is rather the case ; our notion's, our ideas, our ways
of thinking, our style of writing are day ky fiay diver-
ging from the classical Sanskrit model, and tending to-
wards tffe European. It is words only .that we are
borrowing from the Sanskrit. Thus, at the same time, we
are borrowing from two widely different sources.

CHAPTER IV.

BlDYAPAT* THAKUR AND CHANDIDAS THAKUR.

The student, as we have had occasion to remark else-
where, who peruses with pleasure the polished works of
Vidyasagar or Bankim Chandra, oi recites the stirring
lays of Madhusudan or Hem Chandra, will scarcely
suppose that the stream of Bengali literature, which has
only in recent days attained such purity and expanse,
began to flow as early as the fourteenth century of the
Christian era. He will scarcely think that a century
and half after the conquest of Bengal by Bukhtiar
Khiliji, and a century and a half previous to the inva-
sion of India by the great Baber, were seen the first
glimmerings of that literature which has in our days