VI. ] BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. = 627 The poem Padmavati deals with a well-known episode in Indian history. The Emperor Alauddin of Delhi had heard of the wonderful beauty of Padmavati, queen of the Raja of Chitore, and demanded her for his harem. Bhim Sen, the Raja, who is called Ratnasen in the Bengali poem, treated “ ; ই The sub- this request with the contempt which it deserved, ject of the and the result was that for twelve years the ০ Emperor laid siege to Chitore. Bhima Sen was eventually defeated, and his queen sought death on the funeral pyre,—true to the traditions of Rajput women. This story had formed the subject of a poem by Mir Mahomed in Hindi which contains about 10,000 lines. The Bengali Padmavati by Alaol has about 10,500 lines. I have said that the classic taste, which made the Bengali poets of the 18th century revel in exag- gerated and high flown imageries, was indicated in the work of this Mahomedan poet, to such a considerable extent, that he may be said to have heralded the new epoch. Alaol rang the bell of the new age and the sound was caught by a host of other poets amongst whom Bharata Chandra was the most prominent. I shall here quote some passages from Algol’s Padmavati to show how his description owns kinship with those found in the Sanskrit and Persian poems already referred to by The new us, as also with the high sounding flourishes of style টি which characterise the Bengali poems that followed the age of Alaol.
- « The light that beams in the face of Padmavati
puts to shame the light reflected from a golden mirror.
- কনক মুকুর জিনি মুখজ্যোতি সাজে-__
দেখহ অপুর্ব রীত বদন উপরে।
