পাতা:Vanga Sahitya Parichaya Part 1.djvu/২৯

ΙΝΤΙΚΟΙ) ΙΙΟΤΙΟΝ. 21 created by King Gopichänd's adopting the vow of Sannyās, when he was in the heyday of his youthful glory, was so great that these ballads found ready response everywhere throughout the whole of the Indian Peninsula. Kaviraja Durgānārayana Shāstri of Calcutta has collected a number of songs in Hindi and Urdu, from the Punjab, dealing with Gopichandra's deserting his palace. Poems and dramas are still written in the Maharatta country of which the subject is the embracing of the ascetic's vow by Gopichandra, the king of Bengal. As a further evidence of this still surviving interest in the incidents of the Bengali Prince's life, we refer our readers to the excellent picture showing the pathetic parting of Rājā Gopichandra from his wives Aduna and Paduna, drawn by the artist Ravi Varmă of Poona and sold all over India. The question now is how to account for the fact that these old songs of The suzerain power Bengal found access to all parts of Hindusthan in a of the Pal kings. comparatively early age. It is evident that they did so when these songs were in their rude early stage. None of the subsequent embellishments given to some of them by the Bengali poets of a later age have, as I have already said, been incorporated in the Hindi, Urdu and Uriyā versions. The songs travelled to other parts of India about the 10th century and have since been cut off from all connection with the main source from which they originally flowed. This undoubtedly brings us to the time of the Pål kings when some of them held suzerain power over a large part of India. The capital of these great monarchs was naturally the central place from which fashions and amusements were imitated in other parts of India. These songs must have gone to different countries at that early age, but with the curtailing of the political powers of Bengal monarchs during the time of the Sens, all channels that had connected Bengal with other parts of India giving her the proud position of a suzerain power, became closed. This accounts for the fact that the foreign versions of the tale were deprived of the rich embellishments contributed to the stories by the later Bengali poets. The renunciation of Gopichänd, which formed the subject of so many The reason of Gopi poems and was of such wide spread interest, was chandra's Sanyasa. accomplished by the wish of his mother Maynāmatithe dowager queen, and wife of Rājā Mānikchandra. What led the mother to send her only son away from the palace, to wander forth as an ascetic in the forest for twelve years, is a matter which seems shrouded in a mystery. On p. 100 of this book there is distinct mention of an intrigue between Maynāmati and the Sadhu Harisiddhyā, made by Gopichänd who openly charged his mother with infidelity to his deceased father King Mänikchandra. He even accused Maynāmati of having poisoned her husband at the