BLiterature-Apratim

4
The Turkic Age (13 th – Mid 14 th Centuries)
The Turkic general Bakhtiyar Khilji conquered Gaur in 1203. A fear of their
invasion had haunted the rulers’ and the common people’s mind since before. After
conquering the province, the Turks ruled it for nearly one and a half century.
Bengal’s antique cultural progress was obstructed by this unexpected and shocking
invasion by barbaric foreigners. Bloodshed, torture, harassment, forced conversion,
looting and destruction of scripts, sculptures, temples and properties followed.
Bengal’s cultural world was totally submerged by frustrating darkness; the soul of the
Bengali nation was in fact wounded and paralyzed.
As a result, probably no literature was produced in that era; and even if
produced, those have not come to our hands. Literary practice in this province had to
wait for another century. Yet some hold the idea that the medieval poet Ramai
Pundit wrote Shunyopuran in the 13 th century; but their opinion is not supported by
linguistic evidence.
The Turkic rulers began to marry native girls; as a result, a new race called
Bengali-Turkic emerged. Thus the Turkic Muslims were slowly integrating in the
mainstream of Bengali society. History gave the hint that they would make effective
role in Bengali culture in the next century.
The Sultanate (Mid 14 th –15 th Centuries)
In course of time, the alien brutes were slowly merging with the native people
of our province. The rulers even started patronizing our art and culture. Thus, since
the 14 th century, literary pursuit had a rebirth under patronage of the independent
sultans.
The historians recognize Fakruddin Mubarak Shah as the first sultan of
Bengal. He declared himself as a distinctive monarch in 1338. Thereafter many
feudal lords ruled the Bengal Sultanate until it was merged with the Mogul Empire in
the early 17 th century. But it is noteworthy that the sultans’ reign in literature lasted
only till the 15 th century; afterward it came under the influence of the Chaitanya
movement.
Poetical works of the era were quite creative, besides free translations of
Sanskrit texts. Although poets had no common trend, the age holds the features that
sultans and rajas patronized many of them, and a new language which was not more
than a dialect before, became the vehicle of literature.
Sultan Shamsuddin Ilias Shah, Raja Ganesh, Raja Shiva Singha (King of
Mithila), Sultan Ruknuddin Barbak Shah, Sultan Hussain Shah and some other
monarchs patronized Bangla literature.
Baru Chandidas’s Sree-Krishna-Kirtan is the first ever surviving work of the
period. It is considered a masterpiece of the Middle Ages.
Krittibas Ojha, patronized by either Raja Ganesh or Sultan Ruknuddin Barbak
Shah, wrote Sree-Ram-Panchali based on the Sanskrit epic Ramayana. Rama had
less popularity than Krishna in medieval Bengal. That is why literature on Rama did