THE EASTERN BENGAL BALLADS WITHA FOREWORI) BY THE RIGHT HON BLE LAWRENCE JOHN LUMLEY DUNDAS, EARL OF RONALDSII AY. Ÿ }ዳ”/) ኅ ് From a Review in the Oriental List, London (Jan.-March, 1924). 'Eastern Bengal Ballads : Mymensingh : Fellowship Lectures for 1922-24 in two parts. Ramtanu Lahiri Research In these two volumes Dr. Dineschandra Sen has for the first time made available, both for English and for Bengali readers, tem typical ballads (gathas) sung by professional minstrels in the district of Mymensing. The words of the ballads have been taken down in writing from the lips of those who sung them by one Chandrakumar De, Who has travelled into many out-of-the-Way places in East Bengal for this purpose. It was an extremely difficult task to which he sct himself; hic often found the professional singers whom he approached unwilling to disclose to a stranger the text of these songs, which had been handed to them as a private family possession; to recover the whole of a ballad he often had to make special journeys to several different places and to consult a number of different singers; and throughout his work he was handicapped by ill-health. It is to be hoped that the collaboration between him and Dr. Sen will continue and result in the preservation of many in OrC of those ballads, which are of immense value both to the student of folk-lore and to the philologist. 崛 The ballads nostly date from the 16th and 17th centur, and throw a flood of light oil the social, religious and political condition of Eastern Bengal The first volume ( Vol. 1, Part I) contains a valuable introduction by Dr. Sen, and an English translation (or more strictly paraphrase) of the ten ballads. There is also a separate introduction to each ballad. The rt II ) contains a Bengali introduction, the full d a number of footnotes explaining obsolete lustrations, and a literary map of in those days. second volume (Vol. I, Bengali text of each ballad, an Words and provincialistins. There are elevel il li حه of the ballads are severa interesting ٹEmbodied ith SOff1۹ .ingh ܥ n، ܀ Eastern Mymensing describing the twelve months of the specimens of “baramasi poems-P'
