412 BENGALI LITERATURE do with an entirely different theme and forming a group by themselves, represent a phase of song-writing of this period closely connected with the writing of the pas- sionate love-lyries. From individualistie and secular love- songs to the eestatic and personal expression of religious longing is but a step, the intermediate Devotional songs stage being supplied by the songs bearing upon the personal-impersonal theme of the loves of Krsna and Radha. But itis re- markable that while tappa-writers like Nidhu Babu, Sridhar Kathak or Kali Mirja often pass on from love- lyries to devotional songs, the writers of devotional songs like Ram Prasad or Kamalakanta, on the other hand, seldom condescend to the more mundane theme of per- sonal love-lyries. The most interesting bulk of these devotional songs relates to the worship of divinity under the special image of Sakti, although there are several এ to Sakti. songs which relate to other religious cults. Its origin must be traced to the recrudescence and ultimate domination of the Sakti-cult and Sakta form of literature in the 18th century, which in its turn traced its origin in general to the earlier /aztric form of worship. Ram-prasad, the greatest exponent of this kind of song-writing of this period, began his career however as the author of the conventional Aidyasvndar ; but even through the erotic atmosphere Rim-prasid ; his tran- sition from Bidyasun. Of this half-secular narrative poem, the dar to devotional devotional fervour of the Sakta-wor- "eee shipper expresses itself. The same may be said, although in a lesser degree, of Bharat Chandra who was also the author of a few devotional Sasta lyrics. But when Ram-prasad later on realised the superiority of his eestatie religious effusions as something more
