tradition was that the night of his death he worshipped Kālī and composed the song, 'Tārā, do you remember any more.'[1] Then he died singing, like Saxon Caedmon; with the conclusion of the lyric, his soul 'went out through the top of his head,' and passed to the World of Brahman, whence there is no return to this wearisome cycle of births and deaths. But Dr. Dineshchandra Sen, the historian of Bengali Language and Literature, tells me he has ascertained that Rāmprasād, following in a trance the clay image of Kālī, when it was thrown into the Ganges, on the Kālī-pūjā day, was drowned. He adds, 'The old men of our country, altogether devoid of any historical sense, created fables out of anything they could lay their hands on, in the poems themselves, for lack of reliable information. The Sanskrit poetic canons have laid it down that unfortunate events in the life of a great man should not be narrated. Thus, the true accounts of the death of Chaṇḍīdās, who was killed by the order of an Emperor of Gaur, of Chaitanya, who died of an inflammatory fever caused by a sore, of Godādhar, who was burnt alive by the Muhammadans, have not been recorded by our biographers, and the truth has been hidden by wild legendary fables.'
Rāmprasād's works, other than his Śākta songs, are the Bidyāsundar (Vidyāsundara) Kālīkīrtan,[2] Śivasahkīrtan and Kṛishṇakīrlan: the last three are very short, a few pages. The theme of the Bidyāsundar is an old Bengali story. The Rājā of Burdwan had a daughter[3] famous for her learning and her beauty. He vowed she should not wed anyone but her superior in learning. The Rājā of Kāñchī's son obtained access to her, married her by the so-called 'Gāndharva'[4] rites—
- ↑ See No. LXV.
- ↑ Kīrtan means a processional song or hymn. Two pieces from the Kālīkīrtan (LXXXIX and XC) are given in this book.
- ↑ Her name was Vidyā (learning) and her lover's Sundara (beautiful).
- ↑ The marriage which took place between Dushyanta and Śakuntalā, in Kālidāsa's play, and between Arjuna and Chītrāṇgada, in Tagore's.
