1898.] M. M. Chakravarti— Language and literature of Orissa. 339 
time, but the earliest ones are lost. The existing* works cannot be 
put before the 16th century A.D. 
The chief religious poems in current use are :— 
(1) The frimad-bhagabata of Jagannatha Dasa. 
(2) The Ramayana of Balarama Dasa. 
(3) The Mahabharata of Sarala Dasa. 
(4) The Harivann^a of Acyutananda Dasa. 
Generally speaking, these poems are not literal translations but 
summaries and free adaptations of the Sanskrit original. The verses 
are usually simple and unornamented; the details are lengthy and 
tedious. Though they contain occasional passages of good descriptions 
and fine sentiments, they cannot be ranked high as literary compositions. 
Their importance lies firstly in the fact that they have supplied the bulk 
of religious and mythological informations to a strongly religious people 
from generations to generations. They have influenced all castes and all 
ages. By children their stories are heard with rapt interest; by adults 
they are learnt and talked about; by women and old men they are 
listened for days and months devoutly and patiently as the passport to 
some worldly good or heavenly bliss. Secondly, they form important 
land marks in the development of the Oriya literature. Before their 
time the Oriya was a rude uncouth dialect, poor in ideas, poor in words. 
These religious authors nursed it, imported words into it or coined 
words for it, and gave it some polish. They showed that the Oriya 
language could be made fit for expressing complex thoughts and abstract 
feelings, and by their own inperfect efforts made it capable of being 
utilised in various kinds of versifications. They .prepared in fact the 
way for the later Oriya poets Dinakrsna Dasa, Upendra Bhanja, and 
Abhimanyu Samantasiriighara. Any sketch therefore of the progress 
of the Oriya intellect would be materially incomplete if it fails to give 
some accounts of these old religious poems. 
The most influential of these has been the Qrimad-bhagabata or 
briefly the Bhagabata. Very little is known about it and its author. 
The work itself gives no clue to its time excepting the fact that it must 
be later than pridhara Svami, much later because his name is referred 
to with high veneration. 1 (^ridhara Svami was a Gujarati Brahmin 
1 fassn; I II II 
| ) II II 
rTFztaT % I 31% 11 V* II 
MS. Bhiigabata, 12th Skandha, 13th Adhyaya. 
“The Brahmin by name Qiudhara was born in Kaliyuga. The Bunina 
Bhagabata has glokas eighteen thousand. Its tiled in thousands one-fourth (of the 
Purana), £!rldhara has expounded in writing.” 
