Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/400

464 BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. [ Chap. is associated with the glory of an ancient Indian monarch, but it formed, besides, in the Pauranik age the very nucleus of the whole Indo-Aryan-civilisa- tion, The Aryans, here, as their numbers increased, apprehended that the strength and the compactness of their society would be lost, if they were scattered all over the country. Probably it was owing to this reason that they recommended their own men to settle and to erect dwelling houses and temples on the banks of the Ganges enjoining it to be an act of particular merit,—so that the whole Aryan popu- lation might form a compact community in the Gangetic valley. Those who lived beyond the pale of this blessed region were looked down upon by the dwellers in it and were, besides, required to travel all the distance from their homes, to come to the Ganges and bathe in its sacred waters to explate their sins. The object of this injunction was probably to keep outsiders in touch with the main society. The Ganges is beloved of the Hindus, not only on account of the glorious cities that adorn her banks,—not only because all that was sublime and beautiful in the past Hindu history, is, in some way or other, connected with her noble waters, but in a far greater sense, for the associations she carries, of ancient saints and sages who loved her and composed hymns to her glory. From Valmiki, the divine sage and poet, downwards, we have a host of these hymn-makers, and the Bengali hymn of Ajo- dhyaram only echoes sentiments already expressed thousands of years earlier. The Ganges was worshipped because the Hindus found in_ the majestic sweep of her course and in the sublime