Mangal-Kavya

Mangal-Kavya, literally poems of benediction, is a genre of Bengali religious narrative poetry composed roughly between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries, recounting the stories of indigenous deities of rural Bengal within the social setting of the Middle Ages. These deities are largely absent from classical Hindu literature, and the genre synthesizes Vedic elements with popular Bengali folk tradition, drawing an affinity to the cosmogonic hymns of the Rigveda while portraying its divine figures with human qualities, including flaws and emotions. Composed in the simple, rhyming payar couplet meter for oral performance and village recitation, and often sung as devotional bhajans during deity festivals, the genre divides into three principal categories, Manasa Mangal, Chandi Mangal and Dharma Mangal, alongside minor variants such as Kalika Mangal and Sitala Mangal.