poems were highly rewarded by their patrons. One of the striking illustrations of munificent gifts made to a copyist is mentioned in my History of Bengali Language and Literature (p. 104). Enumerable instances of liberal gifts conferred on the poets may be cited. Occasionally, however, we meet with glorious examples of self-denial and true Brahmanic pride in the poets themselves. When an Emperor of Gour in the beginning of the fifteenth century offered to give Krittivāsa whatever he might seek as reward for translating the Ramāyaṇa, he said, “I do not accept any money from any one. Whatever I do, I do for glory alone". The Vaiṣṇava poets lived in the heaven of their own consummate bliss and emotional felicity and sang without any thought of earthly reward.
The joint hands of the rich and the gifted contributed to the development of our past Literature and it ill becomes us to overlook this precious heirloom. If we do not bestir ourselves by taking vigorous steps to preserve these works by publishing their contents, they will ere long be doomed to inevitable destruction. We must develop the resources of our knowledge by an intimate aquaintance with this valuable heritage, lest in the march of civilization we are found wanting, and awake late only to discover that our treasure is lost owing to inadvertence and folly. Surely there is great force in the words of Justice J. G. Woodroffe who says, “Those who can find nothing worth remembering or keeping of their own, had better write themselves out from the list of peoples".
5. The arrangement followed in this book and its contents.
This book contains sufficient material for ordinary purposes. There are, however, many works in our old literature each of which is of greater dimension than the present compilation. The Brihat Sārābalī alone contains 95000 verses. The smaller works count by hundreds. So the extracts given in this book, though enough to create curiosity and interest in the subject, are inadequate for the purpose of a critical and special study of our past literature from the historical, philological or literary points of view. But for the present if it is proved by this work that the subject is of sufficient interest, it will, I hope, draw workers into the field and if this result is achieved, the purpose of the present compilation will be served.
Something should be said about the arrangement of the poems and other writings contained in this book. The entire past literature of Bengal has not been viewed and treated as a whole from a chronological point of view. The writings belonging to particular subjects and religious cults have been classified and grouped together, and chronology has been observed
