II.]
BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE.
81
years. The son of a Kulīna became by right a Kulīna. This contravenes the wholesome principle of rewarding the meritorious members of society, on which Vallāla Sen had wanted to base Kulinism. Kulinism thus became an artificial institution, but it had one aspect which still evoked the greatest sacrifices, by developing a peculiar instinct of family-honour. The Kulīnas and the non-Kulīnas of a community were often bound together by marriage-ties. The sacrifising spirit of the Kulīnas.There were, however, many orthodox families in Bengal who would on no account recognise such relationships. They were prepared to sacrifice every earthly consideration, even their lives, to guard the purity of their Kaulīnya status or Kulīnism. The lay men of different communities on the other hand never lacked patience in their efforts to persuade such orthodox Kulīnas to marry with them, by offering huge sums of money. We find that a scion of the Vaidya Gaṅa family of Tenāi in Faridpur was persuaded to marry a girl of the Dāsarā Dutt family on a dowry of sixty-four villages in the subdivision of Mānikgañja in the District of Dacca. The ancestors of the Naikaṣya Kulīnas amongst Brahmins of the present day passed through tests and sacrifices such as only martyrs in a great cause would be supposed capable of undergoing. We find one of the lay Vaidyas coming to Senhātī to induce a Kulīna of that caste to form a matrimonial alliance with him, and persevering in his attempts, inspite of repeated refusals, till some banyan trees, planted by him on the banks of the river Bhairava on his first landing at the place, grew so large as to give shade to travellers,—when at last the Kulīna agreed to give a daughter of his family in
