LOWBORN PEOPLE’S LIFE IN SELECTED MEDIEVAL BENGALI LITERATURE: MANASAMANGAL AND CHANDIMANGAL KAVYAS IN CONTEXT/ মধ্যযুগের নির্বাচিত বাংলা সাহিত্যে অন্ত্যজ জনজীবন : প্রসঙ্গত মনসামঙ্গল ও চণ্ডীমঙ্গল কাব্য

Abstract

Literature mirrors the society in which it is written. The medieval Bengali literature is not an exception. The Mangal kavyas are one of the most significant subgenres of poetry written in Bengali during this era. The ‘Manasa Mangal’ and the ‘Chandimangal’ kavyas are the two of the most notable ones.  Following the common tradition of Mangalkavyas, they sing the greatness of Manasa and Chandi. The two kavyas mainly narrate the stories of two non-Aryan goddesses accepting the challenges for the upliftment of their status to that of the chief goddesses of the superior Aryan society. It is as if another kind of class struggle of the deprived people for equality and dignity. In Manasamangal goddess Manasa is dishonored repeatedly as low caste by the upper caste merchant Chand Sadagar. For this reason Manasa forms public opinion with the help of numberless people from the lower strata of society who somehow are also subjugated by Chand Sadagar. Manasa now leads these people. This struggle for gaining the social rights of equality and dignity under the leadership of Manasa succeeds in the end. The upper class has to submit to this combined strength of the deprived. In a similar way the ‘Banikkhanada’ of Mukundaram’s ‘Chandimangal’ depicts the struggle of goddess Chandi against dominant merchant Dhanapati. But Chandi’s is her own struggle against deprivation, no combined strength of class struggle works here. But in the ‘Byadhkhanda’ of the same the plot centres around the struggle of Kalketu as a person from the deprived class of society. He in his life of a hunter has to undergo many sufferings in the hands of the dominant class. Even when he achieves kingship he has to bow down to the upper class. He is unable to oppose his humiliations rather is compelled to surrender to them. The two Mangal kavyas also record several pitiful events of the oppression of deprived lowborn people as well as the dalits and portray their struggles of class consciousness that are flowing like undercurrents in the body of the main narratives.