IV. ]
BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE.
379
This contact of the popular faith with the new creed, that was being introduced, created a strange force, which is to be observed in a growing literary activity all over the country. Hindus did not destroy, but improved upon, what was left of Buddhism, and the literature of the Paurāṇik Renaissance, while showing an unmistakable rebirth of Sanskritic ideals, had a place reserved for popular creeds and also for the stories current in the country, which the Brahmanic School presented in a new and attractive garb.
Development not always the rule. But the whole of nature does not flourish at the same time; we find some buds turning into flowers, side by side with others that have withered; similarly, the stories of Chandī and Manasā Devi developed into poems of high literary excellence, but those of Rāy Maṅgal and Dhanya Purnimā Vrata Katha betray the early literary stage in which they were left,—doomed to premature decay. The worship of the sun which may be traced back to very early times, has attached to it, a number of poems whose chief exponents in Bengali were Dwija Kālidāsa and Dwija Rāmjīvan Vidyabhusana. Poems in honour of the sun. The poems in honour of the sun-god tell a story in illustration of his glory as is usual in works of this kind. In the poem of Rāmjīvana Vidyābhuṣaṇa (written in 1689 A.D.) we find descriptions of the oppression of the Hāḍīs by the sun-worshippers. The Hāḍīs were Buddhists and the incidents related of this oppression, couched in the form of a mythical story have reference, as I believe, to an actual fight between the Buddhists and the worshippers of the sun. At one time the worship of the sun formed the most important factor in the religious func-