Maimansingha Gitika

Maimansingha gitika or Môemonshingha gitika is a collection of folk ballads from the region of Mymensingh, Bangladesh. They were published in English as Eastern Bengal Ballads. The primary theme of the ballads is love in its different aspects: pre-nuptial love, marital love and extra-marital love and the resultant family and social conflicts.

Chandra Kumar De and Dinesh Chandra Sen collected the songs, and Dinesh Chandra Sen was the editor; the collection was published by the University of Calcutta, along with another similar publication named Purbabanga-gitika.

It is assumed that some of the songs were composed between the late 16th century and early 18th century. In the course of time, the ballads underwent some transformation. The increasing use of Arabic and Persian vocabulary in some ballads indicate their periods of composition. Mansur Bayati, the Muslim poet among the composers, is believed to have composed "Dewan Madina" around the 18th century.

References

• Banglapedia article^{[dead link]}