Page:History of Bengali Literature in the Nineteenth Century.djvu/465

MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS 441 the 19th century. DasSarathi Ray was undoubtedly the greatest, if not the earliest, writer ০.6 the of the group, but it is not beyond doubt whether it was he who first modified its earlier form and set in the new fashion. Before DaSarathi we get the name of Gangaram Naskar who is sometimes regarded as the founder of this new type; and Guro Dumbo, who is taken 1) some to 17১9 & painchi/i—writer and not a Kabiwala, certainly flourished prior to Déasarathi. But of these earlier mysterious figures, nothing practically is known and no specimen of their production has come down to us. After DaSu Ray, came Sannyasi Chakrabarti, Nabin Chakrabarti, Rasik Ray, Thakur Das Datta, Gobardhan Das, Kesab Chanid, Nanilal, Jadu Ghos and a host of others who were more or less followers and imitators of DaSarathi Ray, their acknowledged head in the line. | The latter, therefore, may not be unfittingly deseribed as the great exponent and populariser, if not the originator, of painchali in its modern form. Thus, although widely prevalent in the beginning of the 19th century, we get no surviving specimen of puichili belonging to the period bet- The most flourishing : রর এ period of pamehali Ween 1800 and 1525, with which this falls outside our pre- volume is directly concerned ; for, sent scope. eon > : Dasu Ray himself was born in 1804 or 1805 and his imitators and followers belong to a period considerably later. Indeed, the most flourishing time of the modern paiichali was between 1825 and 1860, and there- fore, strictly speaking, it falls outside our period. It was a form of entertainment which began to be popular after the reputation of the Kabiwalas had been already on the decline ; paincha/i-literature should, therefore, be more 56