XXV
INTRODUCTION.
Balaram Das and so
also his
immediate successor. Jagannath
Das, have expressed their thoughts forcibly and gracefully in the simple Oriy a language of the people. They did not resort to those verbal jingles which characterize the poems of a later period. The use of sonorous words of Sanskrit origin, in the name of poetic diction, does not vitiate the simple style of the early poets. Balaram Das is not ashamed of using those words freely which soon after his time came to be regarded as vulgar, for the poet reckons himself as one of the common people of the country. Balaram Das, as a national poet, has sung for the people, and by making Orissa a miniature world by itself has taught his countrymen to love the land of their birth the Kailasa of far north has been located in Orissa and the Kapilasa hill of Dhenkan d has been made the Kailasa mountain even the hilly tracts of Orissa have been made to bear tlic footprints of Rama, and the forest tribes of the country have been arraigned as the camp-followers of Rama; in the Kiskindha Kanda, for instance, the rude tribes of Bamra and Bonai have been mentioned to be the soldiers recruited
by Rama. Besides the Kanta Koili and the Ramayana, Balaram Das is believed by some to be the author of the following booklets viz., ( ) Arjuna Gita, (2) Gaja Nistarana Gita, (3) Bedha Parikrama and
I
Mriguni Stuti. The work Kamala-Lochana-Chautisa composed by the poet in the Chautisa form, has not been notiotd either by Hunter or by Chakravartty the whole of this poem is inserted in this work of selections. Of the works marked above by Nos. 1 to 4 Bedha Parikrama contains only a few lines relating to the temple of Jagannath, and the booklets which bear the honorific title Gita, relate only to some Pauranic incidents to sing the efficacy of prayer to Visnu. Gaja Nistarana Gita is identical in form and spirit with the Mriguni Stuti the latter work being the best of the (4)
has been selected to represent this class of composition. Jagannath Das. cannot too highly speak of what Jagannath Das has done to raise his countrymen to a higher level of moral existence. No poet of old time enjoys so much of popularity as Poet Jagannath Das does. I know that in Orissa the name of Upend ra Bhanja is a name to conjure with, but the popularity of this writer of artificial amorous verses is quite of a peculiar nature and cannot be compared to what Jagannath commands. There is not a single Hindu village in Orissa where at least a portion of Jagannath Das's Bhagabata is not kept and daily recited. A few facts of his life should therefore interest the lot
—
readers.
His biographt^r, Divakara Kara, informs us that he comes respectable Brahman family of Kapilesvarapura-Sasana in the district of Puri, and the names of his parents are recorded as Bhagaban Das and Padma it is stated that he was born In the noon time on one Bhadra Sukla a^tami day, but the year has no*: been mentioned. As Jagannath v/as converted to Vaisnavism by Chaitanya Deva himself shortly after his arrival in Orissa in 1510, the poet was very likely born some time in the 9th decade of the 1 5th century. The father of the poet was a reader of the Puranas of
a
