356 M. M. Chakravarti— Language and literature of Orissa. [No. 4, 
external events on human feelings and thoughts was not often painted 
in a careful or powerful fashion. On account of the low view of women, 
obscene descriptions crept in, descriptions which would not he tolerated 
in any modern works. All these defects were intensified in the Oriya 
poems. Obscenities were multiplied. The hero becomes an unnatural 
man, selfish, exclusively bent on gratifying his sensual passions, and 
bursting into tears or passionate outbursts at slight obstacles. The 
heroine is painted -with the same brush, impatient, without any self- 
restraint or self-sacrificing spirit so well-known in Indian wives and 
mothers, and as much inclined as the hero to gratify the physical desires. 
In truth the Oriya poets busied themselves so much with polishing and 
decorating the outer frame, that they quite neglected to develop the 
inner spirit. 
Dinakrsna Dasa. 
With these general remarks, I now proceed to discuss the poets 
individually. The earliest poet is Dinakrsna Dasa. Very little is 
known about him. According to traditions gathered at Purl, Dina¬ 
krsna is older than Upendra Bhanja. The latter’s Baidehisabijasa is 
said to have been modelled after Rasakallola; and when the similarity 
was pointed out to Upendra by his father, he composed his well-known 
poem Labanyabati. A couplet is repeated in which Dinakrsna ques¬ 
tions as an elder poet, and Upendra replies obediently as a younger 
poet. A pair of couplets are repeated in which Upendra Bhanja 
refers with respect to Dinakrsna. 1 A consideration of the style and 
the subject-matter lends support to this traditional priority of Dina¬ 
krsna. Upendra Bhanja flourished about the end of the seventeenth 
century; Dinalqsna’s date might therefore be taken as the third quarter 
of that century. He cannot be much older. For apart from tradition, 
his Rasakallola refers to Rukmani Cautisa which is evidently based on 
Jagannatha Dasa’s Bhagabata—a work of the second quarter of the 
sixteenth century. This fact points to a difference of at least one 
hundred years between Jagannatha Dasa and the author of Rasakallola. 
1 tf^T I 
I 
qra ii 
“ Birabara Upendra, raising his arms, deems none a real poet under the sun. 
I pay my obeisance at the feet of Jayadeva and Dinakrsna, but put my left leg on 
the heads of all the other poets.” 
