38 INTRODUCTION. “Lälitavatära' in the Bengali Shunya-puräja, a book written in the 10th century. This reminds us of the Lalita-Vistara—the earliest standard biography of the Buddha. The Shunya-purāna states that, “The god Dharama is greatly honoured in Ceylon”. Dharma is represented as protesting against the Vedic sacrifices. Curiously this line of the book—“gooste §§ food o-accords exactly with the one in the hymn to Buddha by Jaydeva in his Gita-Govinda. The theory of the Void—off-which was propounded by Nāgārjuna in the 1st century A.D. is also the favourite creed of the worshippers of Dharma and in the Shunya-purāna and Dharma-mangala poems one will constantly come accross these Buddhistic doctrines. As I have fully stated all these in my History of Bengali Language and Literature, I refrain from repeating here other arguments in favour of the conclusions arrived at by Mahāmahopadhyāya Haraprasāda Shāstrī and now accepted by other scholars. 11. The Bhakti-Cult. The revival of Hinduism in Bengal dates from the 8th century when a Bengal monarch found it necessary to bring into his country five good Brāhmins versed in the Vedas from Kanoja. The country was at the time full of Tântric worship and Buddhistic ideas, the Buddha having been transformed, as I have already stated, to the god Dharma. Songs and festivities in honour of Dharma were the craze of the rural people. The “Dharmer Găjana” was one of the great festivities of these worshippers. On pp. 156161, I have given extracts from the manuals that expound the rituals of the “Găjana” which in later times had often put Shiva in the place of Dharma. When an institution degenerates, the rituals and outward forms of worship carry an exaggerated value, as the ideas that ruled them gradually fall into the background. The revival of Hinduism warred against these forms of worship, and gave precedence to faith and to the sentiment of worship. They sometimes overdid their part; it is a common thing to find in the Pauránic literature, which undertook to expound Brähmanic views on religion after the Hindu revival, such sentiments as, “If a man utters the name of God in reverent faith even once, that will expiate all the sins committed by him in his whole life”, “If a man bathes in the Ganges but once, no sin will remain in his body.” These ideas only prove that the revivalists emphasised Bhakti or the spiritual sentiment of worship in the place of outward forms and rituals which had hitherto found much favour with the populace. But the ideas took a long time in fixing their roots in the lower stratum of society. By the end of the 14th century the people had accepted them, and Buddhism had evidently fallen into disfavour and showed a marked decadence. The translations of the epics and many Sanskrit works of the
