Page:The history of the Bengali language (1920).pdf/44

mental and spiritual powers, but they represent the Rakṣas and the Yakṣas as magicians and Māyāvīs, as invested with abiding authority over the elements. The reason is not far to seek. The aboriginal people who knew every part of their land in the hills and the forests, could appear suddenly and could escape unnoticed to places which were difficult of access to the conquering trespassers; moreover the rude tribes, who were unable to cope with the civilized intruders, took to some subterfuges which made their hostility to be dreaded in proportion to its secrecy. When the blow was struck in darkness, the awe-struck Aryans who had supreme contempt for the valour of their foes, were led to attribute it to supernatural or non-human, rather than to human agency. In any view of the case, knowledge on the part of the Aryans of the people of their country may be presumed. It has been just mentioned, that in the early Buddhistic literature, where detailed lists appear of many countries and peoples, the name Vanga is conspicuous by its absence ("Buddhist India" by Rhys Davids, pp. 23-29). The importance of this omission lies in this, that Buddha, who flourished towards the end of the 6th century B.C., had his activities mostly in Magadha which is not far off from Bengal. The story of Vijaya Simha, on the other hand, points to a pre-Buddhistic colonization of Bengal by the Aryans. How far we can rely upon the Sinhalese account, based upon a tradition merely, or rather upon a legendary account, that Vijaya Simha was a king of Bengal and that he led his victorious campaign into Ceylon the very year the Buddha attained his Nirvāṇa has not yet been critically discussed. It can, however, be asserted on the evidence of linguistic palæontology, that the early conquerors of their land went from the eastern Gangetic valley, and carried with them the speech which prevailed in Magadha at least during the 4th century B.C.