332 
M. M. Chakravarti— Language and literature of Orissa. [No. 4, 
Notes on the language and literature of Orissa , Parts III and IV0 — By 
Babu M. M. Chakravarti, Deputy Magistrate, Gaya. 
[Read December 1897.] 
Part III. Oriya Songs and religious Poems. 
In Part II. I ha,ve given some glimpses of the Sanskrit com¬ 
positions in Orissa during the mediaeval Hindu rule. The vernacular 
compositions began to flourish from the close of this Hindu rule. 
This change was brought on through various causes. The first cause 
lay in the study of Sanskrit itself. Sanskrit drifted more and more 
from the colloquial speeches, and a study of the Sanskrit language 
came to mean years of hard labour. The elaborate and minute 
analysis and classification of Sanskrit grammars and rhetorics proved 
a heavy burden for ordinary readers, and the study of Sankrit litera¬ 
ture became more and more unpopular among the leisured classes. 
If reading of Sanskrit works was found to be troublesome, the writing 
of works in that language was found to be still more so. The non- 
Brahmin scholars continued to study Sanskrit literature on account 
of its high cultivation, but for compositions they turned their attention 
to the simple and familiar vernacular. 
In Orissa this tendency was aided by its close connexion with 
Telirjgana. By the 14th and 15th centuries the language of Teliijgana, 
i.e., the Telugu, had been well developed and an abundant Telugu 
literature had been produced. Through trade and through dynastic 
influences, Telugu songs, Telugu poems and Telugu grammars came 
to be well known in the southern part of Orissa. The leisured classes 
saw that the vernaculars were capable of being well-developed, and 
in this respect Telugu literature served as an excellent model. Thus 
a number of the non-Brahmin scholars took to cultivation of their 
spoken speeches. 
A further help in this direction was received from the spread of 
1 Parts I and II are published in Journal Part I, 1897. 
