844 BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. [ Chap. ages also along with poetic used to be sung or chanted. This is substantiated by the fact that the genealogical accounts of the noble families of the Hindu community in Bengal used to be chanted by Kulacharyyas, though a considerable portion of them was written in prose. The Kathakatas even in our own day show unmistakably how prose pass- ages may be used for the purposes of vocal music. Most probably it was owing to this adaptability of prose to the purposes of song, as found in Bengali, that they called it 44@j B4¥—the prose metre. The authors of early prose in many cases used to in- clude their bzanita or signature in the same form in which they did so in their poetical compositions. The last lines of the passage from Kamini Kumara quoted above run as follows :—
- Kali Krisna Das (author of the poem Kamini
Kumara) says that Rama Vallabha in course of time became so clever and practised a hand at the art of preparing tobacco, that he would not wait till his full name was pronounced. As soon as ‘Rama’ came out of Kamint’s lips, Rama Vallabha was ready with his tobacco.” When a whole paragraph was finished the sign of punctuation was 11; but after the completion of the sentence, the sign generally used was 1.
- কালীরুষ্ণ দাস বলে, পশ্চাৎ রামবন্তুভের এমনি কস্ত হইল
যে, কামিনীকে আর পঞ্ট রামবল্পভ বলিতে হয় ন1, 'রাম' বলিব। মাহেই রাশবল্লুত তামাক সাজাহয়। মজুত ॥.
