VI.] BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. 825 But those Brahmins, who did not soar so high in their fancied greatness and cared for the favour of the Rajas, acquired Bengali, Persian, Arabic and Hindusthani along with Sanskrit, and Bharata Chandra Ray Gunakara was a man of sound culture in all these tongues. In describing a con- versation between the Emperor Jahangir and Raja Man Sinha, our poet says :—
- “ Tt would be fit in the nature of things to give
the gist of the conversation, that took place between Raja Man Sinha and the Emperor in Arabic, Per- sian and Hindusthani, for it must have been carried on ina mixed language. I have studied these lan- guages and can write in them; but the account would scarcely be intelligible to ordinary people. Besides, by giving the discourse in different lan- guages [ should destroy the effect on the reader’s mind of my own poetry, and it would lose much of its simplicity. So I must be content with bor- rowing only occasionally, words from those langu- ages in my Bengali.” But though he curbed his desire in this instance to display his varied scholarship, he did not always use such discretion. He adopted a heterogenous
- " মানসিংহ পাতসার হইল যে বাণী।
উচিত যে পারশী, আরবা, হিন্দুস্থানী ॥ পড়িয়াছি সেইমত বর্ণিবার পারি । কিন্ত সে সকল লোক বুঝিবারে ভাবি ॥ ন। রবে প্রসাদগুণ না হবে রসাল । অতএব কহি ভাষা! বনী মিশাল ॥" [04
