Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/426

The Babri. Kusumbha. The five Gaudas often under one Suzerain power. Pancha- Gaaudegwar The dialect of Eastern and Western Bengal. al 4 390 BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. [ Chap. till it touched the shoulders im curls. This is called the Babri—a fashion to which the Hindus stuck even till the middle of the r9th century. The poet Bharat Chandra of a subsequent age describes ‘ Kusumbha’ as a favourite food with 01৮৫. Present Bengali readers have no idea of what this word implies. In several editions of Bharat Chandra, the annotators observe silence as regards the passage, but in Rajputana, ‘Kusumbha’ is an article of luxury even now. It is a_ preparation of opium and milk which the Rajputs take on festive occasions. Thus a study of our old literature brings to our knowledge various points of community in language, habits, and modes of living amongst those different branches that all came from one common stock and settled in different parts of the country. This affinity can also be accounted for by the fact that politically the five provinces to which a_ reference has been made, often remartned under the same suzerain power. The title ‘Pancha Gaudeg¢vara’ or the ‘Lord of five Indies’ was assumed by the King who for the time being became ascendant among the five powers. In old Bengali literature we frequently come across the title Pancha Gaudecvara applied to petty chiefs by their protégés—the poets, but the ™“ word always recalls the high political significance ৩ it once possessed. It isa title akin to the Bret- walda of the Saxons. The literature of Western Bengal had many words which have passed out of the current dialect of that province but the use of them still lingers in