( 13 ) them in their ordinary moments. Those words are the mantra which he was born to reveal and of that mantra he is the seer. * What is it for which we worship the name of Bankim to-day ? What was his message to us or what the vision which he saw and has helped us to see 2 He was a great poet, a master of beautiful language and a creator of fair and gracious dream-figures in the world of imagination ; but it is not as a poet, stylist or novelist that Bengal does honour to him to-day. It is probable that the literary critic of the future will reckon “Kopal Kundala,” “Bishabriksha” and “Krishna Kanta's Will” as his artistic masterpieces, and’; speak with qualified praise of “Devi Chaudhurani "Ananda. math" “Irishna Charitra’’ or “ Dharmatatwa." Yet it is the Bankim of these latter works and not the Bankim of the great creative masterpieces who will rank among the Makers of Modern India. The earlier Bankim was only a poet and stylist—the later Bankim was a seer and nation-builder. But even as a poet and stylist, Bankim did a work of supreme national importance not for the whole of India or only indirectly for the whole of India, but for Bengal which was destined to lead India and be in the vanguard, of national development. No nation can grow without finding a fit and satisfying medium of expression for the new self into which it is developing without a language which shall give permanent shape to its thoughts and feelings and carry every new impulse swiftly and triumphantly into the consciousness of all. It was Bankim's first great service to India that he gave the race which stood in its vanguard such a perfect and satisfying medium. He has been blamed for corrupting the Poity of the Bengali tongue; but the pure Bengali of the old poets could have expressed nothing but a conservative and unt. progressing Bengal. The race was expanding and changing,
