The Bul Movement

Fourteen Wikipedia Articles

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Contents
Articles
Baul

Vaishnavism

10

Lalon

19

Rabindranath Tagore

25

Rabindra Sangeet

52

Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity

58

Sahaja

62

Shashibhusan Dasgupta

66

Vaishnava-Sahajiya

67

Charyapada

71

Bhakti movement

78

Minstrel

81

Bengal

82

Syncretism

96

References
Article Sources and Contributors

103

Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors

105

Article Licenses
License

107

Baul

Baul
Music of Bangladesh
Genres

Classical
Rock
Hip hop
Specific forms

Religious music

Hamd
Naat
Shreekrishna Kirtana

Ethnic music

Agamani-Vijaya
Baul
Bhatiali
Bhawaiya
Dhamail
Gombhira
Kavigan
Maimansingha Gitika

Traditional music

Rabindra Sangeet
Nazrul Geeti
Lalon
Hason Raja

Media and performance

Music awards

Shilpakala Academy Award

Music festivals

Dhaka World Music Festival

Music media

Radio

Radio Foorti
Radio Today
Radio Amar
ABC Radio

Television

Channel 9
Banglavision
NTV
Channel i
Channel 16

Internet

AmaderGaan.com

Nationalistic and patriotic songs

National anthem

Amar Shonar Bangla

Other

Amar Bhaier Rokte Rangano

Regional music

Related areas

Bengal
West Bengal

Other regions

India
Pakistan

Baul

2
Baul (Bengali: ) are a group of mystic minstrels from Bengal.
Bauls constitute both a syncretic religious sect and a musical tradition.
Bauls are a very heterogeneous group, with many sects, but their
membership mainly consists of Vaishnava Hindus and Sufi
Muslims.[1][] They can often be identified by their distinctive clothes
and musical instruments. Not much is known of their origin. Lalon
Fakir is regarded as the most important poet-practitioner of the Baul
tradition.[2][3][4] Baul music had a great influence on Rabindranath
Tagore's poetry and on his music (Rabindra Sangeet).[5]
Though Bauls comprise only a small fraction of the Bengali
population, their influence on the culture of Bengal is considerable. In
2005, the Baul tradition was included in the list of "Masterpieces of the
Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity" by UNESCO.[6]

Tarundas Baul

Etymology
The word Baul has its etymological origin in the Sanskrit word Vatula
("mad", from vayu - "air" or "wind") and is used for someone who is
possessed or crazy. Bauls are an extension of the Sahajiya philosophy,
which in turn derives from the Nath tradition. They believe in living
the world as a half-sanyasi.[]
The origin of the word is Baul is debated. Some modern scholars, like
Shashibhusan Das Gupta have suggested that it may be derived either
Bauls performing at Lalon akhra in Kushtia,
from Sanskrit word vatula, which means "enlightened, lashed by the
Bangladesh
wind to the point of losing one's sanity, god's madcap, detached from
the world, and seeker of truth", or from vyakula, which means
"restless, agitated" and both of these derivations are consistent with the modern sense of the word, which denotes the
inspired people with an ecstatic eagerness for a spiritual life, where a person can realise his union with the eternal
beloved - the Maner Manush (the man of the heart).[7]

History
The origin of Bauls is not known exactly, but the word "Baul" has appeared in Bengali texts as old as the 15th
century. The word is found in the Chaitanya Bhagavata of Vrindavana Dasa Thakura as well as in the Chaitanya
Charitamrita of Krishnadasa Kaviraja.[8] Some scholars maintain that it is not clear when the word took its sectarian
significance, as opposed to being a synonym for the word madcap, agitated. The beginning of the Baul movement
was attributed to Birbhadra, the son of the Vaishnavite saint Nityananda, or alternatively to the 8th century Persian
minstrels called Ba'al. Bauls are a part of the culture of rural Bengal. Whatever their origin, Baul thought has mixed
elements of Tantra, Sufi Islam, Vaishnavism and Buddhism. They are thought to have been influenced by the Hindu
tantric sect of the Kartabhajas, as well as Tantric Vaishnava schools like the Vaishnava-Sahajiya. Some scholars find
traces of these thoughts in the ancient practices of Yoga as well as the Charyapadas, which are Buddhist hymns that

Baul

3
are the first known example of written Bengali. The Bauls themselves attribute their lack of historical records to their
reluctance to leave traces behind. Dr. Jeanne Openshaw writes that the music of the Bauls appears to have been
passed down entirely in oral form until the end of the 19th century, when it was first transcribed by outside
observers.[9]
The Bauls were recorded as a major sect as early as mid 18th century.
Regarding the origins of the sect, one recent theory suggests that Bauls are descendants of a branch of Sufism called
ba'al. Votaries of this sect of Sufism in Iran, dating back to the 8th-9th centuries, were fond of music and
participated in secret devotional practices. They used to roam about the desert singing. Like other Sufis, they also
entered the South Asian subcontinent and spread out in various directions. It is also suggested that the term derives
from the Sanskrit words vatul (mad, devoid of senses) and vyakul (wild, bewildered) which Bauls are often
considered.
Like the ba'al who rejects family life and all ties and roams the desert, singing in search of his beloved, the Baul too
wanders about searching for his maner manus (the ideal being). The madness of the Baul may be compared to the
frenzy or intoxication of the Sufi diwana. Like the Sufi, the Baul searches for the divine beloved and finds him
housed in the human body. Bauls call the beloved sain (lord), murshid (guide), or guru (preceptor), and it is in his
search that they go 'mad'.
There are two classes of Bauls: ascetic Bauls who reject family life and Bauls who live with their families. Ascetic
Bauls renounce family life and society and survive on alms. They have no fixed dwelling place, but move from one
akhda to another. Men wear white lungis and long, white tunics; women wear white saris. They carry a jhola or
shoulder bag for alms. They do not beget or rear children. They are treated as jyante mara or outcastes. Women,
dedicated to the service of ascetics, are known as sevadasis (seva, service+dasi, maidservant). A male Baul can have
one or more sevadasis, who are associated with him in the act of devotion. Until 1976 the district of Kushtia had 252
ascetic Bauls. In 1982-83 the number rose to 905; in 2000, they numbered about 5,000.
Those who choose family life live with their wives, children and relations in a secluded part of a village. They do not
mix freely with other members of the community. Unlike ascetic Bauls, their rituals are less strict. In order to
become Bauls, they recite some mystic verses and observe certain rituals.[10]

Concepts and practices

Baul

4
Baul music celebrates celestial love, but does this in very earthy terms,
as in declarations of love by the Baul for his bosh-tomi or lifemate.
With such a liberal interpretation of love, it is only natural that Baul
devotional music transcends religion and some of the most famous
baul composers, such as Lalon Fakir, criticized the superficiality of
religious divisions:
Everyone asks: "Lalan, what's your religion in this world?"
Lalan answers: "How does religion look?"
I've never laid eyes on it.
Some wear malas [Hindu rosaries] around their necks,
some tasbis [Muslim rosaries], and so people say
they've got different religions.
But do you bear the sign of your religion
when you come or when you go?[]
The famous Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore was greatly influenced
and inspired by Bauls. Here is a famous Rabindrasangeet (Tagore
song), heavily influenced by Baul theme:

Ektara, common accompaniment of Baul Gaan,

(Songs of Baul)

amar paner manush achhe prane

tai here taye shokol khane
Achhe she noyn-taray, alk-dharay, tai na haraye-ogo tai dekhi taye Jethay shethay
taka-i ami je dik-pane
The man of my heart dwells inside me.
Everywhere I look, it is he.
In my every sight, in the sparkle of light
Oh, I can never lose him -Here, there and everywhere,
Wherever I turn, he is right there! Their religion is based on an expression of the body (Deho Sadhana),
and an expression of the mind (Mana Sadhana). Some of their rituals are kept hidden[citation needed] from
outsiders, as they might be thought to be repulsive or hedonistic. Bauls concentrate much of their mystic
energies on the four body fluids, on the nine-doors (openings of the body), on prakriti as "nature" or
"primal motive force", and on breath Sadhana.

Baul

Baul music
The music of the Bauls, Baul Sangeet, is a particular type of folk song.
Its lyrics carry influences of the Hindu bhakti movements and the
suphi, a form of Sufi song exemplified by the songs of Kabir. Their
music represents a long heritage of preaching mysticism through songs
in Bengal, as in the Shahebdhoni or Bolahadi sects.
Bauls pour out their feelings in their songs but never bother to write
them down. Theirs is essentially an oral tradition. It is said that Lalon
Fakir (1774 -1890), the greatest of all Bauls, continued to compose and
sing songs for decades without ever stopping to correct them or put
them on paper. It was only after his death that people thought of
collecting and compiling his repertoire.

Baul singers at Vasantotsav, Shantiniketan.

Their lyrics intertwine a deep sense of mysticism, a longing for

oneness with the divine. An important part of their philosophy is Deha
tatta, a spirituality related to the body rather than the mind. They seek
the divinity in human beings.Metaphysical topics are dwelt upon in a
humble fashion and in simple words. They stress remaining unattached
and unconsumed by the pleasures of life even while enjoying them. To
them we are all a gift of divine power and the body is a temple, music
being the path to connect to that power.[][]
Bauls use a number of musical instruments: the most common is the
Parvati Baul
ektara, a one-stringed plucked drum drone instrument, carved from
the epicarp of a gourd, and made of bamboo and goatskin. Others
include the dotara, a long-necked fretless lute (while the name literally means two stringed it usually has four
metal strings) made of the wood of a jackfruit or neem tree. Drums like the duggi, a small hand-held earthen drum,
and dhol and khol; small cymbals called khartal and manjira, and the bamboo flute are also used. Ghungur and
nupur are anklets with bells that ring while the person wearing them dances.
A Baul family played on stage in London for The Rolling Stones' Hyde Park concerts in 1971, '72 and '78 in front of
thousands.[]

Baul

Rabindranath Tagore and the Bauls

Baul singers in performance at Santiniketan, India.

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The songs of the Bauls and their lifestyle influenced a large swath of Bengali culture, but nowhere did it leave its
imprint more powerfully than on the work of Rabindranath Tagore, who talked of Bauls in a number of speeches in
Europe in the 1930s. An essay based on these was compiled into his English book The Religion of Man:
The Bauls are an ancient group of wandering minstrels from Bengal, who believe in simplicity in life
and love. They are similar to the Buddhists in their belief in a fulfillment which is reached by love's
emancipating us from the dominance of self.
Where shall I meet him, the Man of my Heart?
He is lost to me and I seek him wandering from land to land.
I am listless for that moonrise of beauty,
which is to light my life,
which I long to see in the fullness of vision
in gladness of heart. [p.524]
The above is a translation of the famous Baul song by Gagan Harkara: Ami kothai pabo tare, amar moner manush je
re. The following extract is a translation of another song:

Baul

7
My longing is to meet you in play of love, my Lover;
But this longing is not only mine, but also yours.
For your lips can have their smile, and your flute
its music, only in your delight in my love;
and therefore you importunate, even as I am.
The poet proudly says: 'Your flute could not have its music of beauty if your delight were not in my love. Your
power is greatand there I am not equal to youbut it lies even in me to make you smile and if you and I never
meet, then this play of love remains incomplete.'
The great distinguished people of the world do not know that these beggarsdeprived of education, honour and
wealthcan, in the pride of their souls, look down upon them as the unfortunate ones who are left on the shore for
their worldly uses but whose life ever misses the touch of the Lover's arms.
This feeling that man is not a mere casual visitor at the palace-gate of the world, but the invited guest whose
presence is needed to give the royal banquet its sole meaning, is not confined to any particular sect in India.
A large tradition in medieval devotional poetry from Rajasthan and other parts of India also bear the same message
of unity in celestial and romantic love and that divine love can be fulfilled only through its human beloved.
Tagore's own compositions were powerfully influenced by Baul ideology. His music also bears the stamp of many
Baul tunes. Other Bengali poets, such as Kazi Nazrul Islam, have also been influenced by Baul music and its
message of non-sectarian devotion through love.
Rabindranath Tagore was greatly influenced and inspired by Bauls. Here is a famous Rabindrasangeet (Tagore
song), heavily influenced by Baul theme:
Amar praner manush achh pran
Tai heri taye sakol khane
Achhe sh nayntaray, alk-dharay, tai na haraye-Ogo tai dekhi taye jethay sethay
Taka-i ami j dik-pan
The man of my heart dwells inside me.
Everywhere I behold, it's Him!
In my every sight, in the sparkle of light
Oh I can never lose Him -Here, there and everywhere,
Wherever I turn, right in front is He!
[11]

Bauls as described by Ramakrishna

From page 513 of the Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita:
"According to the Sakti cult the siddha is called a koul, and according to the Vedanta, a paramahamsa.
The Bauls call him a sai. They say, "No one is greater than a sai." The sai is a man of supreme
perfection. He doesn't see any differentiation in the world. He wears a necklace, one half made of cow
bones and the other of the sacred tulsi-plant. He calls the Ultimate Truth "Alekh", the "Incomprehensible
One". The Vedas call it "Brahman". About the jivas the Bauls say, "They come from Alekh and they go
unto Alekh." That is to say, the individual soul has come from the Unmanifest and goes back to the

Baul

8
Unmanifest. The Bauls will ask you, "Do you know about the wind?" The "wind" means the great
current that one feels in the subtle nerves, Ida, Pingala, and Sushumna, when the Kundalini is awakened.
They will ask you further, "In which station are you dwelling?" According to them there are six
"stations", corresponding to the six psychic centers of Yoga. If they say that a man dwells in the "fifth
station", it means that his mind has climbed to the fifth centre, known as the Visuddha chakra. (To
Mahendranath Gupta) At that time he sees the Formless."

Present status
Bauls are found in the Indian state of West Bengal and the
eastern parts of Bihar and Jharkhand and the country of
Bangladesh. The Baul movement was at its peak in the 19th and
early 20th centuries, but even today one comes across the
occasional Baul with his Ektara (one-stringed musical
instrument) and begging bowl, singing across the farflung
villages of rural Bengal. Travelling in local trains and attending
village fairs are good ways to encounter Bauls.
Every year, in the month of Falgun (February to March), "Lalon
Paban Das Baul at "Nine Lives" concert, 2009.
Smaran Utshab" (Lalon memorial festival) is held in the shrine
of Lalon in Kushtia, Bangladesh, where bauls and devotees of
Lalon from Bangladesh and overseas come to perform and highlight the mystics of Lalon.[12]
Palli Baul Samaj Unnayan Sangstha (PBSUS), a Bangladeshi organization, has been working to uphold and preserve
the baul traditions and philosophy for the last nine years. The organisation often arranges programmes featuring
folk songs for urban audiences.[13]
Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy often organizes national and international festivals and seminars, featuring the Baul
music and the importance of preservation of Baul tradition.
In the village of Jaydev Kenduli, a Mela (fair) is organized in memory of the poet Jayadeva on the occasion of
Makar Sankranti in the month of Poush. So many Bauls assemble for the mela that it is also referred to as "Baul
Fair".
In the village of Shantiniketan during Poush Mela, a large number of Bauls also come together to enthrall people
with their music.
For the last five years a unique show has been organised in Kolkata, called "Baul Fakir Utsav". Bauls from several
districts of Bengal as well as Bangladesh come to perform. The 6th Baul fakir Utsav will be held on 8 and 9 January
2011. The Utsav is a continuous 48 hour musical experience.
There are also the Western Bauls in America and Europe under the spiritual direction of Lee Lozowick, a student of
Yogi Ramsuratkumar. Their music is quite different (rock /gospel/ blues) but the essence of the spiritual practices of
the East is well maintained.[14]

Baul

Notes
[1] " Baul (http:/ / www. britannica. com/ eb/ article-9013814)" Encyclopdia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopdia Britannica Online. 4 Dec. 2007.
[6] Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity (http:/ / portal. unesco. org/ en/ ev. php-URL_ID=30973&
URL_DO=DO_TOPIC& URL_SECTION=201. html). UNESCO. 25 September 2005.
[7] Das Gupta, Shashibhusan (1946, reprint 1995). Obscure Religious Cults, Calcutta: Firma KLM, ISBN 81-7102-020-8, pp.160-1
[8] Das Gupta, Shashibhusan (1946, reprint 1995). Obscure Religious Cults, Calcutta: Firma KLM, ISBN 81-7102-020-8, p.160ff
[9] Openshaw, Jeanne. Seeking Buls of Bengal (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=YGDWuQ-wjB8C& pg=PA56& dq=history+ bauls&
ei=UDJcS8DFHqeOkATB3dS8Ag& cd=1#v=onepage& q=history bauls& f=false) p.56
[10] (http:/ / www. banglapedia. org/ httpdocs/ HT/ B_0355. HTM)
[11] (http:/ / www. scribd. com/ doc/ 19419965/ Bauls-of-Bangladesh) "Bauls of Bangladesh". www.scribd.com
[14] Helen Crovetto, Embodied Knowledge and Divinity: The Hohm Community as Western-style Buls, Nova Religio: The Journal of
Alternative and Emergent Religions 10, no. 1 (August 2006): pp. 69-95.

Further reading

Enamul Haq, Muhammad(1975), A history of Sufism in Bangla, Asiatic Society, Dhaka.

Qureshi, Mahmud Shah(1977), Poems Mystiques Bengalis. Chants Bauls Unesco. Paris.
Siddiqi, Ashraf(1977), Our Folklore Our Heritage, Dhaka.
Karim, Anwarul(1980), The Bauls of Bangladesh. Lalon Academy, Kushtia.

Capwell, Charles(1986), The Music of the Bauls of Bengla. Kent State University Press, USA 1986. ISBN
0-87338-317-6.
Dimock, Edward C. (1989), The Place of the Hidden Moon: Erotic Mysticism in the Vaisnava-Sahajiya Cult of
Bengal, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago. ISBN 0-226-15237-5 ISBN 978-0-226-15237-0
Bandyopadhyay, Pranab(1989), Bauls of Bengal. Firma KLM Pvt, Ltd., calcutta.
Mcdaniel, June(1989), The Madness of the Saints. Chicago.
Sarkar, R. M.(1990), Bauls of Bengal. New Delhi.
Brahma, Tripti(1990), Lalon : His Melodies. Calcutta.
Gupta, Samir Das(2000), Songs of Lalon. Sahitya Prakash, Dhaka.
Karim, Anwarul(2001), Rabindranath O Banglar Baul (in Bengali), Dhaka.
Capwell, Charles (2011), Sailing on the Sea of Love THE MUSIC OF THE BAULS OF BENGAL, The University
of Chicago Press, Chicago. ISBN 978-0-85742-004-6
Sen, Mimlu (2009), Baulsphere, Random House, ISBN81-8400-055-3
Sen, Mimlu (6 May 2010), The Honey Gatherers, Rider Books, ISBN978-1-84604-189-1

References

Kuckertz, J (1975), "Origin and Construction of the Melodies in Baul

Songs of Bengal", Yearbook of the International Folk Music Council
7: 8591, doi: 10.2307/767591 (http:/ / dx. doi. org/ 10. 2307/
767591), JSTOR 767591 (http:/ / www. jstor. org/ stable/ 767591)

More than one of |author1= and |last= specified

(help).

Openshaw, J (2002), Seeking Bauls of Bengal, Cambridge University

Press, ISBN0-521-81125-2.
Capwell, C (1974), "The esoteric belief of the Bauls of Bengal",
Journal of Asian Studies, 33 (2): 255264.
Asiatic Society of Bangladesh (2003), Banglapedia, the national
encyclopedia of Bangladesh, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, Dhaka,
ISBN984-32-0576-6 More than one of |author= and
|last= specified (help).
Datta, R (1978), "The Religious Aspect of the Baul Songs of Bengal",
The Journal of Asian Studies, 37 (3): 445455.

Dimock, E (1959), "Rabindranath Tagore--"The Greatest of the

Bauls of Bengal"", The Journal of Asian Studies 19 (1): 3351, doi:
10.2307/2943448 (http:/ / dx. doi. org/ 10. 2307/ 2943448), JSTOR
2943448 (http:/ / www. jstor. org/ stable/ 2943448) More than
one of |author1= and |last= specified (help).
Openshaw, J (1997), "The Web of Deceit: Challenges to Hindu and
Muslim `Orthodoxies' by `Bauls' of Bengal", Religion, 27 (4):
297309.
Roy, BK (1977), Rabindranath Tagore: The Man and His Poetry,
Folcroft Library Editions, ISBN0-8414-7330-7.
Dalrymple, W (7 February 2004), "The song of the holy fools"
(http:/ / www. guardian. co. uk/ weekend/ story/
0,3605,1141492,00. html), The Guardian (London), retrieved 5
December 2006.

Baul

10

External links
Lalon Song's Archive (http://www.lalongeeti.com/songs/) Lalon Song's Archive
Parvathy Baul is a singer, painter and storyteller from West Bengal. Visit : www.parvathybaul.srijan.asia. (http://
parvathybaul.srijan.asia)
Baul Archive (http://www.baularchive.com) Extensive list of Baul/Fakir songs and interviews with over 100
video clips
Baul (http://www.banglapedia.org/httpdocs/HT/B_0355.HTM) at Banglapedia
PUNKCAST#522 (http://punkcast.com/522/) Video of Babukishan Das & Dharma Bums performing in NYC,
16 Aug 2004. (RealPlayer)
Baul- The Folk Music of Bengal (http://web.archive.org/web/20051123170600/userpages.umbc.edu/
~achatt1/baul.html) - Arghya Chatterjee: (Internet Archive)

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Vaishnavism (Sanskrit: , IPA:[i drm]) is one of the major branches of Hinduism along with
Shaivism, Smartism, and Shaktism. It is focused on the veneration of Vishnu. Vaishnavites, or the followers of the
Supreme Lord Vishnu, lead a way of life promoting differentiated monotheism, which gives importance to Lord
Vishnu and His ten incarnations.
The oldest religious text in Vedic, Rigveda, describes Lord Vishnu as the Supreme Deity in Vishnu Sooktham
(1.22.20):
om tad visnoh paramam padam sada pasyanti surayah
diviva caksur atatam
"Just as the sun's rays in the sky are extended to the mundane vision, so in the same way the wise and learned
devotees always see the supreme abode of Lord Vishnu."
tad vipraso vipanyavo jagrvam sah samindhate
visnor yat paramam padam
"Because those highly praiseworthy and spiritually awake devotees are able to see the spiritual world, they
are also able to reveal that supreme abode of Lord Vishnu."
Rigveda mentions the Supreme Lord 93 times. Other shlokas are devoted to his faithful servants, mentioned in the
scriptures as the limbs of Lord Vishnu. These minor deities include Indra, Surya, Rudra, Maruta, Vayu, Agni and
Manyu.
In general, the Vaishnava Agamas describe Lord Vishnu as the "supreme being and the foundation of all existence."
This is explained in Katha Upanishad 2.2.13: nityo nityanam cetanas cetananam/ eko bahunam yo vidadhati kaman,
"the Supreme Being, the Personality of Godhead, is the chief living being amongst all living beings and grants the
desires of all other eternal sentient beings"
Its beliefs and practices, especially the concepts of Bhakti and Bhakti Yoga, are based largely on the Upanishads,
and associated with the Vedas and Puranic texts such as the Bhagavad Gita, and the Padma, Vishnu and Bhagavata
Puranas.[][][1][2]
The followers of Vaishnavism are referred to as Vaishnava(s) or Vaishnavites. Awareness, recognition, and growth
of the belief has significantly increased outside of India in recent years. The Gaudiya Vaishnava branch[] of the
tradition has significantly increased the awareness of Vaishnavism internationally, since the mid-1900s, largely
through the activities and geographical expansion of the Hare Krishna movement founded by A. C. Bhaktivedanta
Swami Prabhupada in New York City in 1966, and more recently, through several other Vaishnava organizations
such as Pure Bhakti Yoga Society [3] of Srila Bhaktivedanta Narayan Maharaj [3], conducting preaching activities in
the West.[4]

Vaishnavism

13

Principal historic branches

Bhagavatism, early Ramaism and Krishnaism, merged in historical Vishnuism,[] a tradition of Historical Vedic
religion, distinguished from other traditions by its primary worship of Vishnu.[] Vaishnavism, is historically the first
structured Vaishnava religion as "Vishnuism, in a word, is the only cultivated native sectarian native religion of
India."[5] Although it is usual to speak of Vishnu as the source of the Avatar, this is only one of the names by which
the god of Vaishnavism is known. The other names include Narayana, Vasudeva and Krishna; each the name of a
divine figure with attributed supremacy, which each associated tradition of Vaishnavism believes to be distinct.[6]
For example, in the Krishnaism branch of Vaishnavism,[7] such as the Gaudiya Vaishnava, Nimbarka and
Vallabhacharya traditions, devotees worship Krishna as the One Supreme form of God, and source of all avatars,
Swayam Bhagavan, in contrast to the belief of the devotees of the Sri Sampradaya.[8]

Principal beliefs
An article related to

Hinduism

Hindu
History

Hinduism portal

Hindu Mythology
portal

Supreme God
The principal belief of Vishnu-centered sects is the identification of Vishnu or Narayana as the one supreme God.
This belief contrasts with the Krishna-centered traditions, such as Vallabha, Nimbaraka and Vallbha, in which
Krishna is considered as the Supreme Lord Vishnu. The belief in the supremacy of Vishnu is based upon the many
Avatars (incarnations) of Vishnu listed in the Puranic texts, which differs from other Hindu deities such as Ganesha,
Surya or Durga. According to many Vaishnavites, the latter are instead classified as demi-gods or devas. According
to Ramayana, Rama, the seventh incarnation of God Vishnu, is believed to have prayed to Shiva in Rameshwaram to
absolve any sins that he might have committed during his war against the demon king Ravana in Sri Lanka. To
worship Shiva, Rama wanted to have the largest lingam. He directed Hanuman, the monkey lietunant in his army to
bring the lingam from Himalayas. Since it took longer to bring the lingam, Sita (the wife of Rama) built a small
lingam, which is believed to be the lingam in the sanctum. The primary deity of the temple is Ramanathaswamy
(Shiva) in the form of lingam. There are two lingams inside the sanctum - one built by Sita residing as the main deity
called Ramalingam and the one brought by Hanuman from Kailash called Vishwalingam. Rama instructed that
Vishwalingam should be worshipped first since it was brought by Hanuman - the tradition continues even today.
However, Vaishnavites reject such claims quoting reasons from Valmiki Ramayan itself and also from other Vedic
texts.[9]

Vaishnavism

14

Lord Swaminarayan, founder of the Swaminarayan faith, differs with this view and holds that Vishnu and Shiva are
different aspects of the same God.[10]

Initiation
Vaishnavas although follow a process of initiation (diksha), given by a guru, under whom they are trained to
understand Vaishnava practices gives more importance to the acceptance of the Supremacy of Lord Vishnu by men
and women. At the time of initiation, the disciple is traditionally given a specific mantra, which the disciple will
repeat, either out loud or within the mind, as an act of worship to Vishnu or one of his avatars. The practice of
repetitive prayer is known as japa. The system of receiving initiation and training from a guru is based on injunctions
throughout the scriptures held as sacred within the Vaishnava traditions but is not mandatory:
"Just try to learn the truth by approaching a spiritual master. Inquire from him submissively and render
service unto him. The self-realized souls can impart knowledge unto you because they have seen the
truth."(Bhagavad Gita)[11]
"One who is initiated into the Vaishnava mantra and who is devoted to worshiping Lord Vishnu is a
Vaishnava. One who is devoid of these practices is not a Vaishnava."(Padma Purana)[12]
The scriptures specific to the Gaudiya Vaishnava group also state that one who performs an act of worship as simple
as chanting the name of Vishnu or Krishna can be considered a Vaishnava by practice:
"Who chants the holy name of Krishna just once may be considered a Vaishnava. Such a person is
worship-able and is the topmost human being."(Chaitanya Charitamrita)[13]

Attitude toward scriptures

Vaishnava traditions refer to the writings of previous acharyas in their respective lineage or sampradya (see below)
as authoritative interpretations of scripture.[] While many schools like Smartism and Advaitism encourage
interpretation of scriptures philosophically and metaphorically and not too literally,[citation needed] Vaishnavism
stresses the literal meaning (mukhya vitti) as primary and indirect meaning (gaua vitti) as secondary: skhd
upadesas tu shrutih - "The instructions of the shruti-shstra should be accepted literally, without fanciful or
allegorical interpretations."[][14]

Vaishnava sampradayas
Within Vaishnavism there are four main disciplic lineages
(sampradayas),[15] each exemplified by a specific Vedic personality.
The four sampradayas follow subtly different philosophical systems
regarding the relationship between the soul (jiva) and God (Vishnu or
Krishna), although the majority of other core beliefs are
identical.[][4][][]
Lakshmi-sampradaya
Philosophy: Vishishtadvaita ("Qualified Monoism"), espoused
by Chidachida Visishtam Ramanujacharya
See Sri Vaishnavism,
Swaminarayan.

Vaikhanasa,

Ramanandi

Sect,

Vaishnavite Brahmin students at a theological

seminary in Tanjore. Source:The National
Geographic Magazine, Nov 1909

Brahma sampradaya
Philosophies: Dvaita ("dualism"), espoused by Madhvacharya, and Achintya Bheda Abheda (literally
"inconceivable difference and non-difference").
Rudra sampradaya

Vaishnavism
Philosophy: Shuddhadvaita ("pure nondualism"), espoused by Vishnuswami and Vallabhacharya.
Kumara-sampradaya
Philosophy: Dvaitadvaita ("duality in unity"), espoused by Nimbarka.[]

Vaishnavism in South India

Broadly, Vaishnavas in South India can be classified as Brahmins and non-Brahmins.
Among the Brahmins the main groups are:
1. The Iyengars, who follow the Sri Vaishnava Vishistadvaita philosophy of Asuri Ramanujacharya. The Iyengars
are further divided into the Vadakalai-i.e. the northern school, and Thenkalai or southern school. Both these sects
adhere to the Pacaratra agama, in temples.
These two sects evolved about 200 years after Ramanuja and differ on 18 points of doctrine. The founder of the
Vadagalai sect is Swami Vedanta Desika, and the Tengalai sect is Swami Pillai Lokacharya. But both schools have a
common Guru Parampara prior to the division. The Sri Vaishnavas use both the Sanskrit veda as well as the Tamil
divyaprabandham in temple worship.
1. The Madhvas, who follow the Sadvaishnava Dvaita philosophy of Madhvacharya.
2. The Vaikhanasas, who are primarily an ancient community of temple priests, who use the Vaikhanasa Agama in
temple worship. They use Sanskrit exclusively in temple worship.
Among the non-Brahmins, sections of various communities like the Chettiars and Mudaliars (Thuluva Vellalars)in
Tamil Nadu and sections of the Kammas, Padmashalis, Reddys, Rajus and Haridasus in Andhra Pradesh and so on in
other states are known as Vaishnavites. Some groups tend to be vegetarians like the Brahmins.
In temple worship, a Vaikhanasa temple (like Tirumala), a Madhva temple (like Udupi), a Tengalai Iyengar temple
(like Melukote) and a Vadagalai Iyengar temple (like Ahobilam) all have distinctly different rituals and customs with
priests of that particular denomination who perform the worship. However all temples are popularly visited by all
Vaishnavas as lay worshippers, as also members of various other denominations.
In Kerala, some communities call themselves Vaishnavas, especially the pisharodies and Gauda Saraswatha
Brahmins and Embranthiries who settled in Kerala at a later phase of Brahmin Settlement. The Sagara Brahmins in
and around Thiruvalla Sree Vallabha Vishnu Temple are also referred to as Vaisnavas accepting the Supremacy of
Lord Vishnu.

15

Vaishnavism

16

Other branches and sects

The Ramanandi movement, begun by Ramananda.
Mahapuruxiya Dharma, espoused by Sankardeva.
Vaisnava-Sahajiya, a tantric school.

Tilaka styles
Vaishnavas mark their foreheads with tilaka, either as a daily ritual, or on special
occasions. The different Vaishnava sampradayas each have their own distinctive style of
tilaka, which depicts the siddhanta of their particular lineage. The general tilaka pattern is
of a parabolic shape resembling the letter U or two or more connected vertical lines on and
another optional line on the nose resembling the letter Y, which usually represents the foot
of Vishnu and the lotus flower.[16]

History
The worship of Vishnu was already well developed in the period of the Itihasas.[17]
Hopkins says "Vishnuism, in a word, is the only cultivated native sectarian native religion
of India."[5] Vaishnavism is expounded in a part of the Mahabharata known as the
Bhagavad Gita, which contains a dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna. In this dialogue,
Krishna plays the role of Arjuna's charioteer.

A Sri Vaishnava
Thenkalai tilaka

Many of the ancient kings, beginning with Chandragupta II (Vikramaditya) (375-413 CE)
were known as Parama Bhagavatas, or Bhagavata Vaishnavas.[18]
Vaishnavism flourished in predominantly Shaivite South India during the seventh to tenth centuries CE, and is still
commonplace, especially in Tamil Nadu, as a result of the twelve Alvars, saints who spread the sect to the common
people with their devotional hymns. The temples which the Alvars visited or founded are now known as Divya
Desams. Their poems in praise of Vishnu and Krishna in Tamil language are collectively known as Naalayira (Divya
Prabandha).[][]
In later years Vaishnava practices increased in popularity due to the influence of sages like Ramanujacharya,
Madhvacharya, Nimbarkacharya, Vallabhacharya, Vedanta Desika, Manavala Mamunigal, Surdas, Tulsidas, eknath,
Tyagaraja, and many others.[][][][]

Vaishnavism

17

In his The Religions of India, Edward Washburn Hopkins presents

an accepted distinction as to the assumption that Vishnuism is
associated with Vedic brahmanism, and was part of brahmanism.
Krishnaism was adopted much later, and it is for this reason,
amongst others, that despite its modern iniquities Shiva has
appealed more to the brahmans than Krishna. It's only later that
Vishnuism merged with Krishnaism.[19]
Large Vaishnava communities now exist throughout India, and
particularly in Western Indian states, such as western Madhya
Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat. Important sites of pilgrimage for
Vaishnavs include: Guruvayur Temple, Sri Rangam, Vrindavan,
Mathura, Ayodhya, Tirupati, Pandharpur, Puri, Mayapur,
Nathdwara and Dwarka.[20]
[]

Since the 1900s Vaishnavism has spread from within India and is
now practiced in many places around the globe, including
America, Europe, Africa, Russia and South America. This is

Krishna murti (left) with Radha

largely due to the growth of the ISKCON movement, founded by

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada in 1966.[21][][22] Bhaktivedanta Manor, Watford, England

Puranic epics
Two great Indian epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, form an important part of Vaishnava philosophy,
theology, and culture.
The Ramayana describes the story of Rama, an avatara of Vishnu, and is taken as a history of the 'ideal king', based
on the principles of dharma, morality and ethics. Rama's wife Sita, his brother Lakshman with his devotee and
follower Hanuman all play key roles within the Vaishnava tradition as examples of Vaishnava etiquette and
behaviour. Ravana, the evil king and villain of the epic, plays the opposite role of how not to behave.
The Mahabharata is centered around Krishna and details the story of a dynastic war between two families of cousins,
with Krishna and the Pandavas, five brothers, playing pivotal roles in the drama. The philosophical highlight of the
work is the chapter covering a conversation between Arjuna and Krishna prior to the final battle, individually known
as the Bhagavad Gita. The Bhagavad Gita, though influential in most philosophies of Hinduism, is of particular
importance to Vaishnavas because it is believed to be an accurate record of the very words spoken by Krishna
himself. Both works are often re-enacted in part as dramas by followers of Vaishnavism, especially on festival days
concerning each of the specific avatars. The Bhagavad Gita is widely studied as a theological textbook and is
rendered in numerous English translations and world languages.

Academic study
Vaishnava theology has been a subject of study and debate for many devotees, philosophers and scholars within
India for centuries. In recent decades this study has also been pursued in a number of academic institutions in
Europe, such as the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, Bhaktivedanta College and Syanandura Vaishnava Sabha, a
moderate and progressive Vaishnava body headed by Gautham Padmanabhan in Trivandrum which intends to bring
about a single and precise book called Hari-grantha to include all Vaishnava philosophies.

Vaishnavism

References
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]

Heart of Hinduism - Vaishnavism (http:/ / hinduism. iskcon. com/ tradition/ 1201. htm)
Explanation of different scriptural texts within Hinduism (http:/ / www. hinduism. co. za/ vedas-. htm)
http:/ / www. purebhakti. com/
Contemporary Theological Trends in the Hare Krishna Movement (http:/ / web. uni-marburg. de/ religionswissenschaft/ journal/ diskus/
knott. html) "Until the last fifteen years or so, there had been a lack of scholarship in the West on Vaishnavism, and this was seen by Hare
Krishna devotees as a situation which must be changed."
[5] Hopkins,The Religions of India, p.690
[6] p. 4
[7] Review: by Kenneth Scott Latourette (http:/ / www. jstor. org/ pss/ 2753385) India and Christendom: The Historical Connections between
Their Religions. by Richard Garbe; Lydia Gillingham Robinson Pacific Affairs, Vol. 34, No. 3 (Autumn, 1961), pp. 317-318.
[8] Page 1Ramanuja and Sri Vaisnavism (http:/ / www. sanskrit. org/ www/ Ramanuja/ Ramanuja& vaishna. html) "In general, the Vaishnava
Agamas describe Lord Vishnu is the Supreme Being and the foundation of all existence."
[9] There was a Vaishnavite scholar cum researcher named Puthur Krishnaswamy (Pen name-Sudarsanar) who rejected this idea in his book
titled "Ramalinga prathistai" (http:/ / www. ramanuja. org/ sv/ bhakti/ archives/ oct97/ 0087. html).
[10] According to this site, (http:/ / www. kakaji. org/ shikshapatri_verses. asp?catid=viewAll), verses 47, 84, of their scripture, Shikshapatri,
states, "And the oneness of Narayana and Shiva should be understood, as the Vedas have described both to be brahmaroopa, or form of
Brahman, i.e., Saguna Brahman, indicating that Vishnu and Shiva are different forms of the one and same God.
[11] Bhag Gita 4:34 (http:/ / www. bhagavadgitaasitis. com/ 4/ 34/ en)
[12] Caitanya Caritamrta: Madhya-lila, 15.106, 16.72, 16.74 (http:/ / bvml. org/ SGK/ 03. html)
[13] Chaitanya Charitamrita: Madhya-lila, 15.106 (http:/ / bvml. org/ SGK/ 03. html)
[14] Jiva Goswami, Sandarbha 29.26-27
[15] The Sampradaya of Sri Caitanya, by Steven Rosen and William Deadwyler III (http:/ / content. iskcon. com/ icj/ 4_1/ satya_rsd. html) "the
word sampradaya literally means 'a community'. A text from the Padma Purana quoted widely in Vaisnava writings speaks directly about these
authorised communities. It says that 'Those mantras which are not received within a sampradaya are fruitless; they have no potency'. The text
then specifically names the sampradayas. 'In the Kali-yuga, there will be four sampradayas.' we are talking about Vaisnava sampradayas
'They are the Brahma Sampradaya, originating with Brahma; Sri Sampradaya, starting with Laksmi; Rudra Sampradaya, starting with Siva;
there's another one starting from Sanaka and the others, the Kumaras'. Those are the four recognised Vaisnava sampradayas."
[16] britannica.com Vaishnavism (http:/ / www. britannica. com/ eb/ topic-621641/ Vaishnavism)
[17] britannica.com (http:/ / www. britannica. com/ eb/ article-9074641/ Vaishnavism)
[18] p.36
[19] Hopkins,The Religions of India, p.530 "When, however, pantheism, nay, even Vishnuism, or still more, Krishnaism, was an accepted fact
upon what, then, was the wisdom of the priest expended?"
[22] Prabhupada - He Built a House, Satsvarupa dasa Goswami, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1983, ISBN 0-89213-133-0 p. xv

External links

Vaishnavism (http://www.vaishnavism.info/) (Tradition of Hinduism)

Vaishnavism (http://hinduism.iskcon.com/tradition/1201.htm) (Heart of Hinduism)
Who is Vishnu? Vaishnava FAQ (http://www.dvaita.org/docs/srv_faq.html) (dvaita.org)
Nathamuni-Alavandar.org - Dedicated to Shriman Nathamunigal and Shri Alavandar (http://
nathamuni-alavandar.org/)
Portal for Vaishnav (http://vaishnavparivar.info) An Exclusive Portal dedicated to Vaishnavism
Portal for Vaishnavism eClass (https://sites.google.com/site/vaishnavismeclass/) Online elearning of Divya
prabandham by themes.
(http://www.ramanuja.org/sv/bhakti/archives/oct97/0087.html) Sudarsanar refutes the idea of Ramalingam

18

Lalon

19

Lalon
Fakir

Lalon

Sain/Sai, Shah
, (from Persian )

Lalon's only portrait, sketched during his lifetime by Jyotirindranath Tagore.

Born

c. 1774
Kushtia, Bengal (present-day Bangladesh)

Died

17 October 1890
Cheuriya, Kushtia, Bengal

Resting place Cheuriya, Kushtia, Bengal

Knownfor

Baul music

Influencedby Siraj Sain

[1][2]

Influenced

Rabindranath Tagore,

Spouse(s)

Bishkha

[3]

Kazi Nazrul Islam,

Gagan Harkara, Allen Ginsberg

Lalon (Bengali: ) also Lalon Sain, Lalon Shah, Lalon Fakir or Mahatma Lalon Fakir; (c. 17741890),[4][5]
was a Bengali Baul saint, mystic, songwriter, social reformer and thinker. In Bengali culture he has become an icon
of religious tolerance whose songs inspired and influenced many poets and social and religious thinkers including
Rabindranath Tagore,[1][2][6][7] Kazi Nazrul Islam,[3] and Allen Ginsberg - though, as he "rejected all distinctions of
caste and creed",[1] he was both praised and criticized in his lifetime and after his death.[8] His disciples mostly live
in Bangladesh and West Bengal. He founded the institute known as Lalon Akhdah in Cheuriya, about 2km. from
Kushtia railway station. He is also regarded as the founder of the Baul music.

Lalon

20

Early life
They are curious to know what Lalon's Jt (an Indian term used for distinction of caste and creed and subsequent discrimination among
people) is,
Circumcision tells a Muslim from others,
But what is the mark of his (Muslim) woman?
The Brahman is known by his thread,
How do I tell who is a Brahmani (Brahman woman)?
Lalon

There are few reliable sources for the details of Lalon's early life as he was reticent in revealing his past, though
there has been considerable speculation about his physical appearance, religious background etc.[9] One account
relates that Lalon was born of Hindu Kayastha parents and that, during a pilgrimage to Murshidabad with others of
his native village, he contracted smallpox and was abandoned by his companions on the banks of the Ganges, from
where Malam Shah and his wife Matijan, members of the weaver community in a Muslim-populated village,
Cheouria, took him to their home to convalesce.[10]
They gave Lalon land to live where he founded a musical group and remained to compose and perform his songs,
inspired by Shiraj Sain, a musician of that village.

Philosophy
Everyone asks, "What Jt does Lalon belong to in this world?"
Lalon answers, "What does Jt look like?"
I've never laid eyes upon it.
Some use Malas (Hindu rosaries),
others Tasbis (Muslim rosaries), and so people say
they belong to different Jts.
But do you bear the sign of your Jt
when you come (to this world) or when you leave (this world)?
[]

Lalon

[Edited to give a better translation]

Lalon was against religious conflict and many of his songs mock identity politics that divide communities and
generate violence. He even rejected nationalism at the apex of the anti-colonial nationalist movements in the Indian
subcontinent. He did not believe in classes or castes, the fragmented, hierarchical society, and took a stand against
racism. [see Jti]
Lalon does not fit the "mystical" or "spiritual" type who denies all worldly affairs in search of the soul: he embodies
the socially transformative role of sub-contintental bhakti and sufism.
He believed in the power of music to alter the intellectual and emotional state in order to be able to understand and
appreciate life itself. The texts of his songs engage in philosophical discourses of Bengal, continuing Tantric
traditions of the Indian subcontinent, particularly Nepal, Bengal and the Gangetic plains. He appropriated various
philosophical positions emanating from Hindu, Jainist, Buddhist and Islamic traditions, developing them into a
coherent discourse without falling into eclecticism or syncretism. He explicitly identified himself with the Nadiya
school, with Advaita Acharya, Nityananda and Chaitanya. He was greatly influenced by the social movement
initiated by Chaitanya against differences of caste, creed and religion. His songs reject any absolute standard of right
and wrong and show the triviality of any attempt to divide people whether materially or spiritually.

Lalon

Works
How does the Unknown bird go,
into the cage and out again,
Could I but seize it,
I would put the fetters of my heart,
around its feet.
The cage has eight rooms and nine closed doors;
From time to time fire flares out;.
Above there is a main room,
The mirror-chamber
O my heart, you are set on the affaires
of the cage;
(Yet) the cage was made by you,
made with green bamboo;
The cage may fall apart any day.
Lalon says,
The bird may work its way out
and fly off somewhere.
Lalon's song translated by Brother James

Lalon composed numerous songs and poems, which describe his philosophy. It is said that he had composed about
10,000 songs of which 2,000-3,000 can be tracked down today while others are lost in time and hearts of his
numerous followers. Most of his followers could not read or write either, so few of his songs are found in written
form.
Among his most popular songs are Shob Loke Koy Lalon Ki Jat Shongshare, Khachar Bhitor Ochin Pakhi [11], Jat
Gelo Jat Gelo Bole [12], Dekhna Mon Jhokmariay Duniyadari, Pare Loye Jao Amai [13], Milon Hobe Koto Dine, Ar
Amare Marishne Ma, Tin Pagoler Holo Mela, etc.
The songs of Lalon aim at an indescribable reality beyond realism. He was observant of social conditions and his
songs spoke of day-to-day problems in simple yet moving language. His philosophical expression was based in oral
and expressed in songs and musical compositions using folk instruments that could be made by from materials
available at home; the ektara (one-string musical instrument) and the duggi (drum).

Legacy and depictions in popular culture

In 1963, a mausoleum and research centre were built at the site of his shrine. Thousands of people come to the shrine
(known in Bengali as an Akhra) twice a year, at Dol Purnima in the month of Falgun (February to March) and in
October, on the occasion of the anniversary of his death. During these three-day song melas, people, particularly
Muslim fakirs and Bauls pay tribute. Among the modern singers of Baul music Farida Parveen, Anusheh Anadil and
Arup Rahee are internationally known for singing Lalon songs.

Film and literature

Lalon has been portrayed in literature, film, television drama, and in the theatre. Prosenjit portrayed Lalan Shah in
the Moner Manush, a 2010 Bengali film based on the life and philosophy of Lalon Shah.[14] The film was an
adaptation of Sunil Gangopadhyay's biographical novel of the same name. This film directed by Goutam Ghose won
the Best Film prize at the 41st International Film Festival of India held at Goa from 22 Nov to 02 Dec 2010. In 2004
Tanvir Mokammel directed the film Lalon in which Raisul Islam Asad portrayed Lalon Shah.

21

Lalon

Gallery

22

Lalon

23

Notes
[1] (http:/ / www. banglapedia. org/ httpdocs/ HT/ L_0035. HTM) Anwarul Karim, Banglapedia
[2] Choudhury 1992,p. 59.
[3] Hossain 2009,p. 148.
[6] Urban 2001, p. 18.
[7] Tagore, Stewart & Twichell 2003, p. 94.
[8] Choudhury 1992,p. 106.
[9] Choudhury 1992,p. 3.
[10] Film of the life of Lalon http:/ / www. youtube. com/ watch?v=x-nrTY0FWB4
[11] http:/ / www. lalongeeti. com/ products/ khacarvitor/
[12] http:/ / www. lalongeeti. com/ products/ jatgelo/
[13] http:/ / www. lalongeeti. com/ products/ oparhoye/

References
Choudhury, A. A. (1992). Lalon Shah ISBN 984-07-2597-1
Urban, H. B. (2001), Songs of Ecstasy: Tantric and Devotional Songs from Colonial Bengal, Oxford University
Press (published 22 November 2001), ISBN 978-0-19-513901-3
Tagore, R.; Stewart, T. K. (translator); Twichell, C. (translator) (2003), Rabindranath Tagore: Lover of God,
Lannan Literary Selections, Copper Canyon Press (published 1 November 2003), ISBN 978-1-55659-196-9
Hosaain, A. I. (2009). Lalon Shah: The Great Poet ISBN 9847009000218
Beurle, Klaus, Der Mensch des Herzens. Eine theologische Deutung von Gedichten des bengalischen Mystikers
Lalon Shah (St. Ottilien, EOS, 2011).
Bandyopadhyay, Debaprasad.2012. Non-Linguistics of Silenceme: Lalon (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.
cfm?abstract_id=2080774)
Lalon Geeti Portal Lalongeeti.com (http://www.lalongeeti.com/)

Further reading

Enamul Haq, Muhammad(1975), A history of Sufism in Bangla, Asiatic Society, Dhaka.

Qureshi, Mahmud Shah(1977), Poems Mystiques Bengalis. Chants Bauls Unesco. Paris.
Siddiqi, Ashraf(1977), Our Folklore Our Heritage, Dhaka.
Karim, Anwarul(1980), The Bauls of Bangladesh. Lalon Academy, Kushtia.
Capwell, Charles(1986), The Music of the Bauls of Bengla. Kent State University Press, USA 1986.
Bandyopadhyay, Pranab(1989), Bauls of Bengal. Firma KLM Pvt, Ltd., calcutta.
Mcdaniel, June(1989), The Madness of the Saints. Chicago.
Sarkar, R. M.(1990), Bauls of Bengal. New Delhi.
Brahma, Tripti(1990), Lalon : His Melodies. Calcutta.
Gupta, Samir Das(2000), Songs of Lalon. Sahitya Prakash, Dhaka.
Karim, Anwarul(2001), Rabindranath O Banglar Baul (in Bengali), Dhaka.
Choudhury, Abul Ahsan(editor)(2008), Lalon Samagra, Pathak Samabesh.

Lalon

External links
Lalon songs and Lyrics Archive. (http://www.lalongeeti.com/songs)
Lalon Fakir: Saint Lalon by Machizo (http://www.unnayannews.net/issue/conflictNpeace/lalon.html)
Documentary on Lalon's Life and Philosophy. (UnnayanTV)
Lyric of pabe samanye ki tar dekha in Manipuri (http://www.e-pao.net/epSubPageExtractor.
asp?src=MeiteiMayek.meetei_mayek_Poems.fanggadra_samanyada_makpu_uba) translated by Konthoujam
Suranjit
After Lalon (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7nNpl-vejE) video of a reading done by Allen Ginsberg
(http://www.scribd.com/doc/7253135/On-Fakir-Lalon-Shah) Farhad mazhar on Fakir Lalon Shah
http://www.chintaa.com/index.php/chinta/showAerticle/58/english
(http://www.monermanush.net/Articles on Lalon/carol_baul.html) Baul Songs by Carol Salomon Princeton
University Press, 1995, pp.187208
(http://www.monermanush.net/Articles on Lalon/carolsalomon.html) Carol Salomon (1948 - 2009)
Fakir Lalan Shah (http://www.businesseconomics.in/?p=2789) | Business Economics

24

Rabindranath Tagore

25

Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Thakur
(anglicised as "Tagore")

Tagore c. 1915, the year he was knighted by George V. Tagore repudiated his knighthood, in protest against the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in
[]
1919.
Born

May 7, 1861
Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, British India

Died

7 August 1941 (aged80)

Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, British India

Occupation

Poet, short-story writer, song composer, novelist, playwright, essayist, and painter

Language

Bengali, English

Nationality

India

Ethnicity

Bengali

Notable work(s)

Gitanjali, Gora, Ghare-Baire, Jana Gana Mana, Rabindra Sangeet, Amar Shonar
Bangla (other works)

Notable award(s)

Nobel Prize in Literature

1913

Spouse(s)

Mrinalini Devi (m.18831902)

Children

five children, two of whom died in childhood

Relative(s)

Tagore family

Signature

Rabindranath Thakur[], anglicised to Tagore[] pronunciationWikipedia:Media helpImage:Tagor.ogg (7 May

1861 7 August 1941),[] sobriquet Gurudev,[] was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and
music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse",[1] he became the first
non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913.[2] In translation his poetry was viewed as spiritual and
mercurial; his seemingly mesmeric personality, flowing hair, and otherworldly dress earned him a prophet-like
reputation in the West. His "elegant prose and magical poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal.[3] Tagore
introduced new prose and verse forms and the use of colloquial language into Bengali literature, thereby freeing it
from traditional models based on classical Sanskrit. He was highly influential in introducing the best of Indian
culture to the West and vice versa, and he is generally regarded as the outstanding creative artist of modern India.[4]

Rabindranath Tagore

26

A Pirali Brahmin[5][6][7][8] from Calcutta, Tagore wrote poetry as an eight-year-old.[9] At age sixteen, he released his
first substantial poems under the pseudonym Bhnusiha ("Sun Lion"), which were seized upon by literary
authorities as long-lost classics.[4][10] He graduated to his first short stories and dramasand the aegis of his birth
nameby 1877. As a humanist, universalist internationalist, and strident anti-nationalist he denounced the Raj and
advocated independence from Britain. As an exponent of the Bengal Renaissance, he advanced a vast canon that
comprised paintings, sketches and doodles, hundreds of texts, and some two thousand songs; his legacy endures also
in the institution he founded, Visva-Bharati University.[11]
Tagore modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms and resisting linguistic strictures. His novels,
stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to topics political and personal. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora
(Fair-Faced), and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories,
and novels were acclaimedor pannedfor their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and unnatural contemplation.
His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India's Jana Gana Mana and Bangladesh's Amar
Shonar Bangla.

Early life: 18611878

The youngest of thirteen surviving children, Tagore was born in the Jorasanko mansion in Calcutta, India to parents
Debendranath Tagore (18171905) and Sarada Devi (18301875).[][12] The Tagore family came into prominence
during the Bengal Renaissance that started during the age of Hussein Shah (1493 1519). The original name of the
Tagore family was Banerjee. Being Brahmins, their ancestors were referred to as Thakurmashai or Holy Sir.
During the British rule, this name stuck and they began to be recognized as Thakur and eventually the family name
got anglicized to Tagore.Tagore family patriarchs were the Brahmo founders of the Adi Dharm faith. The loyalist
"Prince" Dwarkanath Tagore, who employed European estate managers and visited with Victoria and other royalty,
was his paternal grandfather.[13] Debendranath had formulated the Brahmoist philosophies espoused by his friend
Ram Mohan Roy, and became focal in Brahmo society after Roy's death.[14][15]
The last two days a storm has been raging, similar to the description in my songJhauro jhauro borishe baridhara [... amidst it] a
hapless, homeless man drenched from top to toe standing on the roof of his steamer [...] the last two days I have been singing this song
over and over [...] as a result the pelting sound of the intense rain, the wail of the wind, the sound of the heaving Gorai [R]iver, have
assumed a fresh life and found a new language and I have felt like a major actor in this new musical drama unfolding before me.
[16]

Letter to Indira Devi.

"Rabi" was raised mostly by servants; his mother had died in his early childhood and his father travelled widely.[17]
His home hosted the publication of literary magazines; theatre and recitals of both Bengali and Western classical
music featured there regularly, as the Jorasanko Tagores were the center of a large and art-loving social group.
Tagore's oldest brother Dwijendranath was a respected philosopher and poet. Another brother, Satyendranath, was
the first Indian appointed to the elite and formerly all-European Indian Civil Service. Yet another brother,
Jyotirindranath, was a musician, composer, and playwright.[18] His sister Swarnakumari became a novelist.
Jyotirindranath's wife Kadambari, slightly older than Tagore, was a dear friend and powerful influence. Her abrupt
suicide in 1884 left him for years profoundly distraught.
Tagore largely avoided classroom schooling and preferred to roam the manor or nearby Bolpur and Panihati, idylls
which the family visited.[19][20] His brother Hemendranath tutored and physically conditioned himby having him
swim the Ganges or trek through hills, by gymnastics, and by practicing judo and wrestling. He learned drawing,
anatomy, geography and history, literature, mathematics, Sanskrit, and Englishhis least favorite subject.[21] Tagore
loathed formal educationhis scholarly travails at the local Presidency College spanned a single day. Years later he
held that proper teaching does not explain things; proper teaching stokes curiosity:[22]

Rabindranath Tagore

27

Tagore and Mrinalini Devi, 1883.

[It] knock[s] at the doors of the mind. If any boy is asked to give an account of what is awakened in him by such knocking, he will probably
say something silly. For what happens within is much bigger than what comes out in words. Those who pin their faith on university
[22]
examinations as the test of education take no account of this.

After he underwent an upanayan initiation at age eleven, he and his father left Calcutta in February 1873 for a
months-long tour of the Raj. They visited his father's Santiniketan estate and rested in Amritsar en route to the
Himalayan Dhauladhars, their destination being the remote hill station at Dalhousie. Along the way, Tagore read
biographies; his father tutored him in history, astronomy, and Sanskrit declensions. He read biographies of Benjamin
Franklin among other figures; they discussed Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire; and they examined the poetry of Klidsa.[23] In mid-April they reached the station, and at 2,300 metres
(7,546ft) they settled into a house that sat atop Bakrota Hill. Tagore was taken aback by the region's deep green
gorges, alpine forests, and mossy streams and waterfalls.[24] They stayed there for several months and adopted a
regime of study and privation that included daily twilight baths taken in icy water.[25][26]
He returned to Jorosanko and completed a set of major works by 1877, one of them a long poem in the Maithili style
of Vidyapati; they were published pseudonymously. Regional experts accepted them as the lost works of
Bhnusimha, a newly discovered[] 17th-century Vaishnava poet.[27] He debuted the short-story genre in Bengali
with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"),[28][29] and his Sandhya Sangit (1882) includes the famous poem
"Nirjharer Swapnabhanga" ("The Rousing of the Waterfall"). Servants subjected him to an almost ludicrous
regimentation in a phase he dryly reviled as the "servocracy".[30] His head was water-dunkedto quiet him.[31] He
irked his servants by refusing food; he was confined to chalk circles in parody of Sita's forest trial in the Ramayana;
and he was regaled with the heroic criminal exploits of Bengal's outlaw-dacoits.[32] Because the Jorasanko manor
was in an area of north Calcutta rife with poverty and prostitution,[33] he was forbidden to leave it for any purpose
other than traveling to school. He thus became preoccupied with the world outside and with nature. Of his 1873 visit
to Santiniketan, he wrote:

What I could not see did not take me long to get overwhat I did see was quite enough. There was no servant rule, and the only ring which
encircled me was the blue of the horizon, drawn around these solitudes by their presiding goddess. Within this I was free to move about as I
[34]
chose.

Rabindranath Tagore

Shelaidaha: 18781901
Because Debendranath wanted his son to become a barrister, Tagore enrolled at a public school in Brighton, East
Sussex, England in 1878.[16] He stayed for several months at a house that the Tagore family owned near Brighton
and Hove, in Medina Villas; in 1877 his nephew and nieceSuren and Indira Devi, the children of Tagore's brother
Satyendranathwere sent together with their mother, Tagore's sister-in-law, to live with him.[35] He briefly read law
at University College London, but again left school. He opted instead for independent study of Shakespeare, Religio
Medici, Coriolanus, and Antony and Cleopatra. Lively English, Irish, and Scottish folk tunes impressed Tagore,
whose own tradition of Nidhubabu-authored kirtans and tappas and Brahmo hymnody was subdued.[16][36] In 1880
he returned to Bengal degree-less, resolving to reconcile European novelty with Brahmo traditions, taking the best
from each.[37] In 1883 he married Mrinalini Devi, born Bhabatarini, 18731902; they had five children, two of
whom died in childhood.[38]
In 1890 Tagore began managing his vast ancestral estates in Shelaidaha (today a
region of Bangladesh); he was joined by his wife and children in 1898. Tagore
released his Manasi poems (1890), among his best-known work.[39] As Zamindar
Babu, Tagore criss-crossed the riverine holdings in command of the Padma, the
luxurious family barge. He collected mostly token rents and blessed villagers
who in turn honoured him with banquetsoccasionally of dried rice and sour
milk.[40] He met Gagan Harkara, through whom he became familiar with Baul
Tsinghua University, 1924.
Lalon Shah, whose folk songs greatly influenced Tagore.[41] Tagore worked to
popularise Lalon's songs. The period 18911895, Tagore's Sadhana period, named after one of Tagore's magazines,
was his most productive;[17] in these years he wrote more than half the stories of the three-volume, 84-story
Galpaguchchha.[28] Its ironic and grave tales examined the voluptuous poverty of an idealised rural Bengal.[42]

Santiniketan: 19011932
In 1901 Tagore moved to Santiniketan to found an ashram with a marble-floored prayer hallThe Mandiran
experimental school, groves of trees, gardens, a library.[43] There his wife and two of his children died. His father
died in 1905. He received monthly payments as part of his inheritance and income from the Maharaja of Tripura,
sales of his family's jewelry, his seaside bungalow in Puri, and a derisory 2,000 rupees in book royalties.[44] He
gained Bengali and foreign readers alike; he published Naivedya (1901) and Kheya (1906) and translated poems into
free verse. In November 1913, Tagore learned he had won that year's Nobel Prize in Literature: the Swedish
Academy appreciated the idealisticand for Westernersaccessible nature of a small body of his translated
material focussed on the 1912 Gitanjali: Song Offerings.[45] In 1915, the British Crown granted Tagore a
knighthood. He renounced it after the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
In 1921, Tagore and agricultural economist Leonard Elmhirst set up the "Institute for Rural Reconstruction", later
renamed Shriniketan or "Abode of Welfare", in Surul, a village near the ashram. With it, Tagore sought to moderate
Gandhi's Swaraj protests, which he occasionally blamed for British India's perceived mentaland thus ultimately
colonialdecline.[46] He sought aid from donors, officials, and scholars worldwide to "free village[s] from the
shackles of helplessness and ignorance" by "vitalis[ing] knowledge".[47][48] In the early 1930s he targeted ambient
"abnormal caste consciousness" and untouchability. He lectured against these, he penned Dalit heroes for his poems
and his dramas, and he campaignedsuccessfullyto open Guruvayoor Temple to Dalits.[49][50]

28

Rabindranath Tagore

29

Twilight years: 19321941

Tagore's life as a "peripatetic litterateur" affirmed his opinion that human
divisions were shallow. During a May 1932 visit to a Bedouin encampment in
the Iraqi desert, the tribal chief told him that "Our prophet has said that a true
Muslim is he by whose words and deeds not the least of his brother-men may
ever come to any harm ..." Tagore confided in his diary: "I was startled into
recognizing in his words the voice of essential humanity."[51] To the end Tagore
scrutinised orthodoxyand in 1934, he struck. That year, an earthquake hit
Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine
retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him for his
seemingly ignominious inferences.[52] He mourned the perennial poverty of
Calcutta and the socioeconomic decline of Bengal. He detailed these newly
plebeian aesthetics in an unrhymed hundred-line poem whose technique of
Germany, 1931.
searing double-vision foreshadowed Satyajit Ray's film Apur Sansar.[53][54]
Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha
(1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936). Experimentation continued in his prose-songs and dance-dramas:
Chitra (1914), Shyama (1939), and Chandalika (1938); and in his novels: Dui Bon (1933), Malancha (1934), and
Char Adhyay (1934).
Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.
Verse 292, Stray Birds, 1916.

Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, 1937 collection of essays. His
respect for scientific laws and his exploration of biology, physics, and astronomy informed his poetry, which
exhibited extensive naturalism and verisimilitude.[55] He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists,
into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941). His last five years were marked by chronic pain
and two long periods of illness. These began when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose
and near death for a time. This was followed in late 1940 by a similar spell. He never recovered. Poetry from these
valetudinary years is among his finest.[56][57] A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August
1941, aged eighty; he was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion he was raised in.[58][59] The date is still
mourned.[60] A. K. Sen, brother of the first chief election commissioner, received dictation from Tagore on 30 July
1941, a day prior to a scheduled operation: his last poem.[61]
I'm lost in the middle of my birthday. I want my friends, their touch, with the earth's last love. I will take life's final offering, I will take the
human's last blessing. Today my sack is empty. I have given completely whatever I had to give. In return if I receive anythingsome love,
some forgivenessthen I will take it with me when I step on the boat that crosses to the festival of the wordless end.

Travels
Between 1878 and 1932, Tagore set foot in more than thirty countries on five
continents.[63] In 1912, he took a sheaf of his translated works to England, where
they gained attention from missionary and Gandhi protg Charles F. Andrews,
Irish poet William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound, Robert Bridges, Ernest Rhys,
Thomas Sturge Moore, and others.[64] Yeats wrote the preface to the English
translation of Gitanjali; Andrews joined Tagore at Santiniketan. In November
1912 Tagore began touring the United States[65] and the United Kingdom,

[62]

At the Majlis, Tehran, 1932.

Rabindranath Tagore

30

staying in Butterton, Staffordshire with Andrews's clergymen friends.[66] From May 1916 until April 1917, he
lectured in Japan and the United States.[67] He denounced nationalism.[68] His essay "Nationalism in India" was
scorned and praised; it was admired by Romain Rolland and other pacifists.[69]
Our passions and desires are unruly, but our character subdues these elements into a harmonious whole. Does something similar to this
happen in the physical world? Are the elements rebellious, dynamic with individual impulse? And is there a principle in the physical
world which dominates them and puts them into an orderly organization?
[70]

Interviewed by Einstein, 14 April 1930.

Shortly after returning home the 63-year-old Tagore accepted an invitation from the Peruvian government. He
travelled to Mexico. Each government pledged US$100,000 to his school to commemorate the visits.[71] A week
after his 6 November 1924 arrival in Buenos Aires,[72] an ill Tagore shifted to the Villa Miralro at the behest of
Victoria Ocampo. He left for home in January 1925. In May 1926 Tagore reached Naples; the next day he met
Mussolini in Rome.[73] Their warm rapport ended when Tagore pronounced upon Il Duce's fascist finesse.[74] He had
earlier enthused: "[w]ithout any doubt he is a great personality. There is such a massive vigour in that head that it
reminds one of Michael Angelos chisel." A "fire-bath" of fascism was to have educed "the immortal soul of Italy ...
clothed in quenchless light".[75]
On 14 July 1927 Tagore and two companions began a four-month tour of Southeast Asia. They visited Bali, Java,
Kuala Lumpur, Malacca, Penang, Siam, and Singapore. The resultant travelogues compose Jatri (1929).[76] In early
1930 he left Bengal for a nearly year-long tour of Europe and the United States. Upon returning to Britainand as
his paintings exhibited in Paris and Londonhe lodged at a Birmingham Quaker settlement. He wrote his Oxford
Hibbert Lectures[] and spoke at the annual London Quaker meet.[77] There, addressing relations between the British
and the Indiansa topic he would tackle repeatedly over the next two yearsTagore spoke of a "dark chasm of
aloofness".[78] He visited Aga Khan III, stayed at Dartington Hall, toured Denmark, Switzerland, and Germany from
June to mid-September 1930, then went on into the Soviet Union.[79] In April 1932 Tagore, intrigued by the Persian
mystic Hafez, was hosted by Reza Shah Pahlavi.[80][81] In his other travels, Tagore interacted with Henri Bergson,
Albert Einstein, Robert Frost, Thomas Mann, George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, and Romain Rolland.[82][83][84]
Visits to Persia and Iraq (in 1932) and Sri Lanka (in 1933) composed Tagore's final foreign tour, and his dislike of
communalism and nationalism only deepened.[51] Vice President of India M. Hamid Ansari has said that
Rabindranath Tagore heralded the cultural rapprochement between communities, societies and nations much before
it became the liberal norm of conduct. Tagore was a man ahead of his time. He wrote in 1932, while on a visit to
Iran, that "each country of Asia will solve its own historical problems according to its strength, nature and needs, but
the lamp they will each carry on their path to progress will converge to illuminate the common ray of
knowledge."[85] His ideas on culture, gender, poverty, education, freedom, and a resurgent Asia remain relevant
today.

Rabindranath Tagore

31

Works

Primitivism: a pastel-coloured
rendition of a Malaganmask from
northern New Ireland.

Tagore's Bengali-language initials

are worked into this "Ro-Tho"
wooden seal, stylistically similar
to designs used in traditional
Haida carvings. Tagore
embellished his manuscripts with
[86]
such art.

Known mostly for his poetry, Tagore wrote novels, essays, short stories, travelogues, dramas, and thousands of
songs. Of Tagore's prose, his short stories are perhaps most highly regarded; he is indeed credited with originating
the Bengali-language version of the genre. His works are frequently noted for their rhythmic, optimistic, and lyrical
nature. Such stories mostly borrow from deceptively simple subject matter: commoners. Tagore's non-fiction
grappled with history, linguistics, and spirituality. He wrote autobiographies. His travelogues, essays, and lectures
were compiled into several volumes, including Europe Jatrir Patro (Letters from Europe) and Manusher Dhormo
(The Religion of Man). His brief chat with Einstein, "Note on the Nature of Reality", is included as an appendix to
the latter. On the occasion of Tagore's 150th birthday an anthology (titled Kalanukromik Rabindra Rachanabali) of
the total body of his works is currently being published in Bengali in chronological order. This includes all versions
of each work and fills about eighty volumes.[87] In 2011, Harvard University Press collaborated with Visva-Bharati
University to publish The Essential Tagore, the largest anthology of Tagore's works available in English; it was
edited by Fakrul Alam and Radha Chakravarthy and marks the 150th anniversary of Tagores birth.[88]

Music
Tagore was a prolific composer with 2,230 songs to his credit. His songs are known as rabindrasangit ("Tagore
Song"), which merges fluidly into his literature, most of whichpoems or parts of novels, stories, or plays
alikewere lyricised. Influenced by the thumri style of Hindustani music, they ran the entire gamut of human
emotion, ranging from his early dirge-like Brahmo devotional hymns to quasi-erotic compositions.[89] They
emulated the tonal color of classical ragas to varying extents. Some songs mimicked a given raga's melody and
rhythm faithfully; others newly blended elements of different ragas.[90] Yet about nine-tenths of his work was not
bhanga gaan, the body of tunes revamped with "fresh value" from select Western, Hindustani, Bengali folk and
other regional flavours "external" to Tagore's own ancestral culture.[16] Scholars have attempted to gauge the
emotive force and range of Hindustani ragas:

Rabindranath Tagore

32

[...] the pathos of the purabi raga reminded Tagore of the evening tears of a lonely widow, while kanara was the confused realization of a
nocturnal wanderer who had lost his way. In bhupali he seemed to hear a voice in the wind saying 'stop and come hither'.Paraj conveyed to
[16]
him the deep slumber that overtook one at nights end.

[91]

Reba Som, Rabindranath Tagore: The Singer and His Song.

Tagore influenced sitar maestro Vilayat Khan and sarodiyas Buddhadev Dasgupta and Amjad Ali Khan.[90] His
songs are widely popular and undergird the Bengali ethos to an extent perhaps rivaling Shakespeare's impact on the
English-speaking world. It is said that his songs are the outcome of five centuries of Bengali literary churning and
communal yearning. Dhan Gopal Mukerji has said that these songs transcend the mundane to the aesthetic and
express all ranges and categories of human emotion. The poet gave voice to allbig or small, rich or poor. The poor
Ganges boatman and the rich landlord air their emotions in them. They birthed a distinctive school of music whose
practitioners can be fiercely traditional: novel interpretations have drawn severe censure in both West Bengal and
Bangladesh.
For Bengalis, the songs' appeal, stemming from the combination of emotive strength and beauty described as
surpassing even Tagore's poetry, was such that the Modern Review observed that "[t]here is in Bengal no cultured
home where Rabindranath's songs are not sung or at least attempted to be sung ... Even illiterate villagers sing his
songs". A. H. Fox Strangways of The Observer introduced non-Bengalis to rabindrasangit in The Music of
Hindostan, calling it a "vehicle of a personality ... [that] go behind this or that system of music to that beauty of
sound which all systems put out their hands to seize."[92]
In 1971, Amar Shonar Bangla became the national anthem of Bangladesh. It was writtenironicallyto protest the
1905 Partition of Bengal along communal lines: lopping Muslim-majority East Bengal from Hindu-dominated West
Bengal was to avert a regional bloodbath. Tagore saw the partition as a ploy to upend the independence movement,
and he aimed to rekindle Bengali unity and tar communalism. Jana Gana Mana was written in shadhu-bhasha, a
Sanskritised register of Bengali, and is the first of five stanzas of a Brahmo hymn that Tagore composed. It was first
sung in 1911 at a Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress[93] and was adopted in 1950 by the Constituent
Assembly of the Republic of India as its national anthem.

Paintings
At sixty, Tagore took up drawing and painting; successful exhibitions of his many workswhich made a debut
appearance in Paris upon encouragement by artists he met in the south of France[94]were held throughout Europe.
He was likely red-green color blind, resulting in works that exhibited strange colour schemes and off-beat aesthetics.
Tagore was influenced by scrimshaw from northern New Ireland, Haida carvings from British Columbia, and
woodcuts by Max Pechstein.[86] His artist's eye for his handwriting were revealed in the simple artistic and rhythmic
leitmotifs embellishing the scribbles, cross-outs, and word layouts of his manuscripts. Some of Tagore's lyrics
corresponded in a synesthetic sense with particular paintings.[16]

[...]Surrounded by several painters Rabindranath had always wanted to paint. Writing and music, playwriting and acting came to him naturally
and almost without training, as it did to several others in his family, and in even greater measure. But painting eluded him. Yet he tried
repeatedly to master the art and there are several references to this in his early letters and reminiscence. In 1900 for instance, when he was
nearing forty and already a celebrated writer, he wrote to Jagadishchandra Bose, "You will be surprised to hear that I am sitting with a
sketchbook drawing. Needless to say, the pictures are not intended for any salon in Paris, they cause me not the least suspicion that the
national gallery of any country will suddenly decide to raise taxes to acquire them. But, just as a mother lavishes most affection on her ugliest
son, so I feel secretly drawn to the very skill that comes to me least easily. He also realized that he was using the eraser more than the pencil,
[95]
and dissatisfied with the results he finally withdrew, deciding it was not for him to become a painter.

[96]

R. Siva Kumar, The Last Harvest : Paintings of Rabindranath Tagore.

Rabindra Chitravali, edited by noted art historian R. Siva Kumar, for the first time makes the paintings of Tagore
accessible to art historians and scholars of Rabindranth with critical annotations and comments It also brings

Rabindranath Tagore

33

together a selection of Rabindranaths own statements and documents relating to the presentation and reception of his
paintings during his lifetime.[97]
The Last Harvest : Paintings of Rabindranath Tagore was an exhibition of Rabindranath Tagore's paintings to mark
the 150th birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore. It was commissioned by the Ministry of Culture, India and
organized with NGMA Delhi as the nodal agency. It consisted of 208 paintings drawn from the collections of Visva
Bharati and the NGMA and presented Tagore's art in a very comprehensive way. The exhibition was curated by Art
Historian R. Siva Kumar. Within the 150th birth anniversary year it was conceived as three separate but similar
exhibitions,and travelled simultaneously in three circuits. The first selection was shown at Museum of Asian Art,
Berlin,[98] Asia Society, New York,[99] National Museum of Korea,[100] Seoul, Victoria and Albert Museum,[101]
London, The Art Institute of Chicago,[102] Chicago, Petit Palais,[103] Paris, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna,
Rome, National Visual Arts Gallery (Malaysia),[104] Kuala Lumpur, McMichael Canadian Art Collection,[105]
Ontario, National Gallery of Modern Art,[106] New Delhi

Theatre
At sixteen, Tagore led his brother Jyotirindranath's adaptation of Molire's Le
Bourgeois Gentilhomme.[107] At twenty he wrote his first drama-opera: Valmiki
Pratibha (The Genius of Valmiki). In it the pandit Valmiki overcomes his sins, is
blessed by Saraswati, and compiles the Rmyana.[108] Through it Tagore
explores a wide range of dramatic styles and emotions, including usage of
revamped kirtans and adaptation of traditional English and Irish folk melodies as
With niece Indira Devi in Valmiki
drinking songs.[109] Another play, Dak Ghar (The Post Office), describes the
Pratibha, 1881.
child Amal defying his stuffy and puerile confines by ultimately "fall[ing]
asleep", hinting his physical death. A story with borderless appealgleaning
rave reviews in EuropeDak Ghar dealt with death as, in Tagore's words, "spiritual freedom" from "the world of
hoarded wealth and certified creeds".[110][111] In the Nazi-besieged Warsaw Ghetto, Polish doctor-educator Janusz
Korczak had orphans in his care stage The Post Office in July 1942.[112] In The King of Children, biographer Betty
Jean Lifton suspected that Korczak, agonising over whether one should determine when and how to die, was easing
the children into accepting death.[113][114][115] In mid-October, the Nazis sent them to Treblinka.[116]
[I]n days long gone by [...] I can see [...] the King's postman coming down the hillside alone, a lantern in his left hand and on his back a
bag of letters climbing down for ever so long, for days and nights, and where at the foot of the mountain the waterfall becomes a stream
he takes to the footpath on the bank and walks on through the rye; then comes the sugarcane field and he disappears into the narrow lane
cutting through the tall stems of sugarcanes; then he reaches the open meadow where the cricket chirps and where there is not a single
man to be seen, only the snipe wagging their tails and poking at the mud with their bills. I can feel him coming nearer and nearer and my
heart becomes glad.
[117]

Amal in The Post Office, 1914.

[...] but the meaning is less intellectual, more emotional and simple. The deliverance sought and won by the dying child is the same
deliverance which rose before his imagination, [...] when once in the early dawn he heard, amid the noise of a crowd returning from some
festival, this line out of an old village song, "Ferryman, take me to the other shore of the river." It may come at any moment of life, though the
child discovers it in death, for it always comes at the moment when the "I", seeking no longer for gains that cannot be "assimilated with its
[118]
spirit", is able to say, "All my work is thine" [...].

W. B. Yeats, Preface, The Post Office, 1914.

His other works fuse lyrical flow and emotional rhythm into a tight focus on a core idea, a break from prior Bengali
drama. Tagore sought "the play of feeling and not of action". In 1890 he released what is regarded as his finest
drama: Visarjan (Sacrifice).[108] It is an adaptation of Rajarshi, an earlier novella of his. "A forthright denunciation
of a meaningless [and] cruel superstitious rite[s]",[119] the Bengali originals feature intricate subplots and prolonged

Rabindranath Tagore
monologues that give play to historical events in seventeenth-century Udaipur. The devout Maharaja of Tripura is
pitted against the wicked head priest Raghupati. His latter dramas were more philosophical and allegorical in nature;
these included Dak Ghar. Another is Tagore's Chandalika (Untouchable Girl), which was modeled on an ancient
Buddhist legend describing how Ananda, the Gautama Buddha's disciple, asks a tribal girl for water.[120]
In Raktakarabi ("Red" or "Blood Oleanders"), a kleptocrat rules over the residents of Yakshapuri. He and his
retainers exploit his subjectswho are benumbed by alcohol and numbered like inventoryby forcing them to mine
gold for him. The naive maiden-heroine Nandini rallies her subject-compatriots to defeat the greed of the realm's
sardar classwith the morally roused king's belated help. Skirting the "good-vs-evil" trope, the work pits a vital and
joyous lse majest against the monotonous fealty of the king's varletry, giving rise to an allegorical struggle akin to
that found in Animal Farm or Gulliver's Travels.[121] The original, though prized in Bengal, long failed to spawn a
"free and comprehensible" translation, and its archaic and sonorous didacticism failed to attract interest from
abroad.[2] Chitrangada, Chandalika, and Shyama are other key plays that have dance-drama adaptations, which
together are known as Rabindra Nritya Natya.

Novels
Tagore wrote eight novels and four novellas, among them Chaturanga, Shesher Kobita, Char Odhay, and
Noukadubi. Ghare Baire (The Home and the World)through the lens of the idealistic zamindar protagonist
Nikhilexcoriates rising Indian nationalism, terrorism, and religious zeal in the Swadeshi movement; a frank
expression of Tagore's conflicted sentiments, it emerged out of a 1914 bout of depression. The novel ends in
Hindu-Muslim violence and Nikhil'slikely mortalwounding.[122]
Gora raises controversial questions regarding the Indian identity. As with Ghare Baire, matters of self-identity (jti),
personal freedom, and religion are developed in the context of a family story and love triangle.[123] In it an Irish boy
orphaned in the Sepoy Mutiny is raised by Hindus as the titular gora"whitey". Ignorant of his foreign origins, he
chastises Hindu religious backsliders out of love for the indigenous Indians and solidarity with them against his
hegemon-compatriots. He falls for a Brahmo girl, compelling his worried foster father to reveal his lost past and
cease his nativist zeal. As a "true dialectic" advancing "arguments for and against strict traditionalism", it tackles the
colonial conundrum by "portray[ing] the value of all positions within a particular frame [...] not only syncretism, not
only liberal orthodoxy, but the extremest reactionary traditionalism he defends by an appeal to what humans share."
Among these Tagore highlights "identity [...] conceived of as dharma."[124]
In Jogajog (Relationships), the heroine Kumudinibound by the ideals of iva-Sati, exemplified by Dkshyaniis
torn between her pity for the sinking fortunes of her progressive and compassionate elder brother and his foil: her
roue of a husband. Tagore flaunts his feminist leanings; pathos depicts the plight and ultimate demise of women
trapped by pregnancy, duty, and family honour; he simultaneously trucks with Bengal's putrescent landed
gentry.[125] The story revolves around the underlying rivalry between two familiesthe Chatterjees, aristocrats now
on the decline (Biprodas) and the Ghosals (Madhusudan), representing new money and new arrogance. Kumudini,
Biprodas' sister, is caught between the two as she is married off to Madhusudan. She had risen in an observant and
sheltered traditional home, as had all her female relations.
Others were uplifting: Shesher Kobitatranslated twice as Last Poem and Farewell Songis his most lyrical novel,
with poems and rhythmic passages written by a poet protagonist. It contains elements of satire and postmodernism
and has stock characters who gleefully attack the reputation of an old, outmoded, oppressively renowned poet who,
incidentally, goes by a familiar name: "Rabindranath Tagore". Though his novels remain among the
least-appreciated of his works, they have been given renewed attention via film adaptations by Ray and others:
Chokher Bali and Ghare Baire are exemplary. In the first, Tagore inscribes Bengali society via its heroine: a
rebellious widow who would live for herself alone. He pillories the custom of perpetual mourning on the part of
widows, who were not allowed to remarry, who were consigned to seclusion and loneliness. Tagore wrote of it: "I
have always regretted the ending".

34

Rabindranath Tagore

35

Stories
Tagore's three-volume Galpaguchchha comprises eighty-four stories that reflect
upon the author's surroundings, on modern and fashionable ideas, and on mind
puzzles.[28] Tagore associated his earliest stories, such as those of the "Sadhana"
period, with an exuberance of vitality and spontaneity; these traits were
cultivated by zamindar Tagores life in Patisar, Shajadpur, Shelaidaha, and other
villages.[28] Seeing the common and the poor, he examined their lives with a
depth and feeling singular in Indian literature up to that point.[126] In "The
Fruitseller from Kabul", Tagore speaks in first person as a town dweller and
novelist imputing exotic perquisites to an Afghan seller. He channels the
lucubrative lust of those mired in the blas, nidorous, and sudorific morass of
subcontinental city life: for distant vistas. "There were autumn mornings, the
time of year when kings of old went forth to conquest; and I, never stirring from
my little corner in Calcutta, would let my mind wander over the whole world. At
the very name of another country, my heart would go out to it [...] I would fall to
weaving a network of dreams: the mountains, the glens, the forest [...]."[127]

A 1913 illustration by Asit Kumar

Haldar for "The Beginning", a
prose-poem in The Crescent Moon.

The Golpoguchchho (Bunch of Stories) was written in Tagore's Sabuj Patra

period, which lasted from 1914 to 1917 and was named for another of his magazines.[28] These yarns are celebrated
fare in Bengali fiction and are commonly used as plot fodder by Bengali film and theatre. The Ray film Charulata
echoed the controversial Tagore novella Nastanirh (The Broken Nest). In Atithi, which was made into another film,
the little Brahmin boy Tarapada shares a boat ride with a village zamindar. The boy relates his flight from home and
his subsequent wanderings. Taking pity, the elder adopts him; he fixes the boy to marry his own daughter. The night
before his wedding, Tarapada runs offagain. Strir Patra (The Wife's Letter) is an early treatise in female
emancipation.[128] Mrinal is wife to a Bengali middle class man: prissy, preening, and patriarchal. Travelling alone
she writes a letter, which comprehends the story. She details the pettiness of a life spent entreating his viraginous
virility; she ultimately gives up married life, proclaiming, Amio bachbo. Ei bachlum: "And I shall live. Here, I live."
Haimanti assails Hindu arranged marriage and spotlights their often dismal domesticity, the hypocrisies plaguing the
Indian middle classes, and how Haimanti, a young woman, due to her insufferable sensitivity and free spirit, foredid
herself. In the last passage Tagore blasts the reification of Sita's self-immolation attempt; she had meant to appease
her consort Rama's doubts of her chastity. Musalmani Didi eyes recrudescent Hindu-Muslim tensions and, in many
ways, embodies the essence of Tagore's humanism. The somewhat auto-referential Darpaharan describes a fey
young man who harbours literary ambitions. Though he loves his wife, he wishes to stifle her literary career,
deeming it unfeminine. In youth Tagore likely agreed with him. Darpaharan depicts the final humbling of the man
as he ultimately acknowledges his wife's talents. As do many other Tagore stories, Jibito o Mrito equips Bengalis
with a ubiquitous epigram: Kadombini moriya proman korilo she more nai"Kadombini died, thereby proving that
she hadn't."

Poetry
Tagore's poetic style, which proceeds from a lineage established by 15th- and 16th-century Vaishnava poets, ranges
from classical formalism to the comic, visionary, and ecstatic. He was influenced by the atavistic mysticism of
Vyasa and other rishi-authors of the Upanishads, the Bhakti-Sufi mystic Kabir, and Ramprasad Sen.[129] Tagore's
most innovative and mature poetry embodies his exposure to Bengali rural folk music, which included mystic Baul
ballads such as those of the bard Lalon.[130][131] These, rediscovered and repopularised by Tagore, resemble
19th-century Kartbhaj hymns that emphasise inward divinity and rebellion against bourgeois bhadralok religious
and social orthodoxy.[132][133] During his Shelaidaha years, his poems took on a lyrical voice of the moner manush,

Rabindranath Tagore

36

the Buls' "man within the heart" and Tagore's "life force of his deep recesses", or meditating upon the jeevan
devatathe demiurge or the "living God within".[16] This figure connected with divinity through appeal to nature
and the emotional interplay of human drama. Such tools saw use in his Bhnusiha poems chronicling the
Radha-Krishna romance, which were repeatedly revised over the course of seventy years.[134][135]
The time that my journey takes is long and the way of it long.
I came out on the chariot of the first gleam of light, and pursued my voyage through the wildernesses of worlds leaving my track on many
a star and planet.
It is the most distant course that comes nearest to thyself, and that training is the most intricate which leads to the utter simplicity of a
tune.
The traveller has to knock at every alien door to come to his own, and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the
innermost shrine at the end.
My eyes strayed far and wide before I shut them and said 'Here art thou!'
The question and the cry 'Oh, where?' melt into tears of a thousand streams and deluge the world with the flood of the assurance 'I am!'
[136]

Song XII, Gitanjali, 1913.

Tagore reacted to the halfhearted uptake of modernist and realist techniques in Bengali literature by writing
matching experimental works in the 1930s.[137] These include Africa and Camalia, among the better known of his
latter poems. He occasionally wrote poems using Shadhu Bhasha, a Sanskritised dialect of Bengali; he later adopted
a more popular dialect known as Cholti Bhasha. Other works include Manasi, Sonar Tori (Golden Boat), Balaka
(Wild Geese, a name redolent of migrating souls),[138] and Purobi. Sonar Tori's most famous poem, dealing with the
fleeting endurance of life and achievement, goes by the same name; hauntingly it ends: Shunno nodir tire rohinu poi
/ Jaha chhilo loe glo shonar tori"all I had achieved was carried off on the golden boatonly I was left behind."
Gitanjali () is Tagore's best-known collection internationally, earning him his Nobel.[139]
Song VII of Gitanjali:

Rabindranath Tagore

37

Hungary, 1926.

'
,



,


,

Amar e gan chheechhe tar shkol longkar

Tomar kachhe rakhe ni ar shajer hongkar
longkar je majhe pe milnete aal kre,
Tomar ktha hake je tar mukhro jhngkar.
Tomar kachhe khae na mor kobir grbo kra,
Mhakobi, tomar paee dite chai je dhra.
Jibon loe jton kori jodi shrol bshi goi,
Apon shure dibe bhori skol chhidro tar.

Tagore's free-verse translation:

My song has put off her adornments.

She has no pride of dress and decoration.
Ornaments would mar our union; they would come
between thee and me; their jingling would drown thy
whispers.
My poet's vanity dies in shame before thy sight.
O master poet, I have sat down at thy feet.
Only let me make my life simple and straight,
[140]
like a flute of reed for thee to fill with music.

Rabindranath Tagore

38

"Klanti" (; "Weariness"):
Klanti amar khma kro probhu,

,

-
, ,

,
-

,
, ,

Pthe jodi pichhie poi kobhu.

Ei je hia thro thro kpe aji montro,
Ei bedona khma kro khma kro probhu.
Ei dinota khma kro probhu,
Pichhon-pane takai jodi kobhu.
Diner tape roudrojalae shukae mala pujar
thalae,
Shei mlanota khma kro khma kro,
probhu.

Gloss by Tagore scholar Reba Som:

Forgive me my weariness O Lord

Should I ever lag behind
For this heart that this day trembles so
And for this pain, forgive me, forgive me, O Lord
For this weakness, forgive me O Lord,
If perchance I cast a look behind
And in the day's heat and under the burning sun
The garland on the platter of offering wilts,
[141]
For its dull pallor, forgive me, forgive me O Lord.

Tagore's poetry has been set to music by composers: Arthur Shepherd's triptych for soprano and string quartet,
Alexander Zemlinsky's famous Lyric Symphony, Josef Bohuslav Foerster's cycle of love songs, Leo Janek's
famous chorus "Potuln lenec" ("The Wandering Madman") for soprano, tenor, baritone, and male chorusJW
4/43inspired by Tagore's 1922 lecture in Czechoslovakia which Janek attended, and Garry Schyman's "Praan",
an adaptation of Tagore's poem "Stream of Life" from Gitanjali. The latter was composed and recorded with vocals
by Palbasha Siddique to accompany Internet celebrity Matt Harding's 2008 viral video.[142] In 1917 his words were
translated adeptly and set to music by Anglo-Dutch composer Richard Hageman to produce a highly regarded art
song: "Do Not Go, My Love". The second movement of Jonathan Harvey's "One Evening" (1994) sets an excerpt
beginning "As I was watching the sunrise ..." from a letter of Tagore's, this composer having previously chosen a text
by the poet for his piece "Song Offerings" (1985).[143]

Politics
Tagore's political thought was tortuous. He opposed imperialism and supported
Indian nationalists,[144][145][146] and these views were first revealed in Manast,
which was mostly composed in his twenties.[39] Evidence produced during the
HinduGerman Conspiracy Trial and latter accounts affirm his awareness of the
Ghadarites, and stated that he sought the support of Japanese Prime Minister
Terauchi Masatake and former Premier kuma Shigenobu.[147] Yet he
Tagore hosts Gandhi and wife
Kasturba at Santiniketan in 1940.
lampooned the Swadeshi movement; he rebuked it in "The Cult of the Charka",
an acrid 1925 essay.[148] He urged the masses to avoid victimology and instead
seek self-help and education, and he saw the presence of British administration as a "political symptom of our social
disease". He maintained that, even for those at the extremes of poverty, "there can be no question of blind
revolution"; preferable to it was a "steady and purposeful education".[149][150]

Rabindranath Tagore

39

So I repeat we never can have a true view of man unless we have a love for him. Civilisation must be judged and prized, not by the
amount of power it has developed, but by how much it has evolved and given expression to, by its laws and institutions, the love of
humanity.
[151]

Sdhan: The Realisation of Life, 1916.

Such views enraged many. He escaped assassinationand only narrowlyby Indian expatriates during his stay in a
San Francisco hotel in late 1916; the plot failed when his would-be assassins fell into argument.[152] Yet Tagore
wrote songs lionising the Indian independence movement[153] Two of Tagore's more politically charged
compositions, "Chitto Jetha Bhayshunyo" ("Where the Mind is Without Fear") and "Ekla Chalo Re" ("If They
Answer Not to Thy Call, Walk Alone"), gained mass appeal, with the latter favoured by Gandhi.[154] Though
somewhat critical of Gandhian activism,[155] Tagore was key in resolving a GandhiAmbedkar dispute involving
separate electorates for untouchables, thereby mooting at least one of Gandhi's fasts "unto death".[156][157]

Repudiation of knighthood
Tagore renounced his knighthood, in response to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919. In the repudiation letter to
the Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, he wrote[]
The time has come when badges of honour make our shame glaring in the incongruous context of humiliation, and I for my part, wish to stand,
shorn, of all special distinctions, by the side of those of my countrymen who, for their so called insignificance, are liable to suffer degradation
not fit for human beings.

Santiniketan and Visva-Bharati

Tagore despised rote classroom schooling: in "The Parrot's Training", a bird is caged and force-fed textbook
pagesto death.[158][159] Tagore, visiting Santa Barbara in 1917, conceived a new type of university: he sought to
"make Santiniketan the connecting thread between India and the world [and] a world center for the study of
humanity somewhere beyond the limits of nation and geography."[152] The school, which he named
Visva-Bharati,[] had its foundation stone laid on 24 December 1918 and was inaugurated precisely three years
later.[160] Tagore employed a brahmacharya system: gurus gave pupils personal guidanceemotional, intellectual,
and spiritual. Teaching was often done under trees. He staffed the school, he contributed his Nobel Prize monies,[161]
and his duties as steward-mentor at Santiniketan kept him busy: mornings he taught classes; afternoons and evenings
he wrote the students' textbooks.[162] He fundraised widely for the school in Europe and the United States between
1919 and 1921.[163]

Rabindranath Tagore

40

Impact
Every year, many events pay tribute to Tagore: Kabipranam, his birth
anniversary, is celebrated by groups scattered across the globe; the annual Tagore
Festival held in Urbana, Illinois; Rabindra Path Parikrama walking pilgrimages
from Calcutta to Santiniketan; and recitals of his poetry, which are held on
important anniversaries.[65][164][165] Bengali culture is fraught with this legacy:
from language and arts to history and politics. Amartya Sen scantly deemed
Tagore a "towering figure", a "deeply relevant and many-sided contemporary
thinker".[165] Tagore's Bengali originalsthe 1939 Rabndra Rachanvalis
canonised as one of his nation's greatest cultural treasures, and he was roped into
a reasonably humble role: "the greatest poet India has produced".[166]
Who are you, reader, reading my poems an hundred years hence?
I cannot send you one single flower from this wealth of the spring, one single streak of gold

Thkurova ulice, Prague.

from yonder clouds.

Open your doors and look abroad.
From your blossoming garden gather fragrant memories of the vanished flowers of an hundred
years before.
In the joy of your heart may you feel the living joy that sang one spring morning, sending its
glad voice across an hundred years.
[167]

The Gardener, 1915.

Tagore was renowned throughout much of Europe, North America, and East
Asia. He co-founded Dartington Hall School, a progressive coeducational
institution;[168] in Japan, he influenced such figures as Nobel laureate Yasunari
Kawabata.[169] Tagore's works were widely translated into English, Dutch,
German, Spanish, and other European languages by Czech indologist Vincenc
Lesn,[170] French Nobel laureate Andr Gide, Russian poet Anna
Akhmatova,[171] former Turkish Prime Minister Blent Ecevit,[172] and others. In
the United States, Tagore's lecturing circuits, particularly those of 19161917,
Tagore Room, Sardar Patel
were widely attended and wildly acclaimed. Some controversies[] involving
Memorial, Ahmedabad.
Tagore, possibly fictive, trashed his popularity and sales in Japan and North
America after the late 1920s, concluding with his "near total eclipse" outside Bengal.[3] Yet a latent reverence of
Tagore was discovered by an astonished Salman Rushdie during a trip to Nicaragua.[173]
By way of translations, Tagore influenced Chileans Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral; Mexican writer Octavio Paz;
and Spaniards Jos Ortega y Gasset, Zenobia Camprub, and Juan Ramn Jimnez. In the period 19141922, the
Jimnez-Camprub pair produced twenty-two Spanish translations of Tagore's English corpus; they heavily revised
The Crescent Moon and other key titles. In these years, Jimnez developed "naked poetry".[174] Ortega y Gasset
wrote that "Tagore's wide appeal [owes to how] he speaks of longings for perfection that we all have [...] Tagore
awakens a dormant sense of childish wonder, and he saturates the air with all kinds of enchanting promises for the
reader, who [...] pays little attention to the deeper import of Oriental mysticism". Tagore's works circulated in free
editions around 1920alongside those of Plato, Dante, Cervantes, Goethe, and Tolstoy.
Tagore was deemed overrated by some. Graham Greene doubted that "anyone but Mr. Yeats can still take his poems
very seriously." Several prominent Western admirersincluding Pound and, to a lesser extent, even
Yeatscriticised Tagore's work. Yeats, unimpressed with his English translations, railed against that "Damn Tagore
[...] We got out three good books, Sturge Moore and I, and then, because he thought it more important to know
English than to be a great poet, he brought out sentimental rubbish and wrecked his reputation. Tagore does not

Rabindranath Tagore

41

know English, no Indian knows English."[3][175] William Radice, who "English[ed]" his poems, asked: "What is their
place in world literature?"[176] He saw him as "kind of counter-cultur[al]," bearing "a new kind of classicism" that
would heal the "collapsed romantic confusion and chaos of the 20th [c]entury."[175][177] The translated Tagore was
"almost nonsensical",[178] and subpar English offerings reduced his trans-national appeal:

[...] anyone who knows Tagore's poems in their original Bengali cannot feel satisfied with any of the translations (made with or without
Yeats's help). Even the translations of his prose works suffer, to some extent, from distortion. E.M. Forster noted [of] The Home and the World
[that] "[t]he theme is so beautiful," but the charms have "vanished in translation," or perhaps "in an experiment that has not quite come off."

[3]

Amartya Sen, "Tagore and His India".

List of works
The SNLTR hosts the 1415 BE edition of Tagore's complete Bengali works [179]. Tagore Web [180] also hosts an
edition of Tagore's works, including annotated songs. Translations are found at Project Gutenberg [181] and
Wikisource. More sources are below.

Original
Bengali
Poetry
* Bhnusiha hkurer Paval (Songs of Bhnusiha hkur)

1884

Manasi

(The Ideal One)

1890

Sonar Tari

(The Golden Boat)

1894

Gitanjali

(Song Offerings)

1910

Gitimalya

(Wreath of Songs)

1914

Balaka

(The Flight of Cranes)

1916

Valmiki-Pratibha

(The Genius of Valmiki)

1881

Visarjan

(The Sacrifice)

1890

Raja

(The King of the Dark Chamber) 1910

Dak Ghar

(The Post Office)

1912

Achalayatan

(The Immovable)

1912

Muktadhara

(The Waterfall)

1922

Raktakaravi

(Red Oleanders)

1926

Nastanirh

(The Broken Nest)

1901

Gora

(Fair-Faced)

1910

Ghare Baire

(The Home and the World)

1916

Yogayog

(Crosscurrents)

1929

Jivansmriti

(My Reminiscences)

1912

Chhelebela

(My Boyhood Days)

1940

Dramas

Fiction

Memoirs

Rabindranath Tagore

42

English
* Thought Relics 1921[182]

Translated
English
[183]

* Chitra

1914

* Creative Unity

1922

* The Crescent Moon

1913

* The Cycle of Spring

1919

* Fireflies

1928

* Fruit-Gathering

1916

* The Fugitive

1921

* The Gardener

1913

* Gitanjali: Song Offerings

1912

* Glimpses of Bengal

1991

* The Home and the World

1985

* The Hungry Stones

1916

[184]
[185]
[186]

[187]
[188]
[189]
[190]
[191]
[192]
[193]

* I Won't Let you Go: Selected Poems 1991

[194]

* The King of the Dark Chamber

1914

* The Lover of God

2003

* Mashi

1918

* My Boyhood Days

1943

* My Reminiscences

1991

* Nationalism

1991

* The Post Office

1914

* Sadhana: The Realisation of Life

1913

* Selected Letters

1997

* Selected Poems

1994

* Selected Short Stories

1991

* Songs of Kabir

1915

* The Spirit of Japan

1916

* Stories from Tagore

1918

* Stray Birds

1916

[195]

[196]

[197]
[198]

[199]
[200]
[201]
[202]

Rabindranath Tagore

43
* Vocation

[]

1913

Adaptations of novels and short stories in cinema

Hindi

Sacrifice - 1927 (Balidaan) - Nanand Bhojai and Naval Gandhi

Milan - 1947 (Nauka Dubi) - Nitin Bose
Kabuliwala - 1961 (Kabuliwala) - Bimal Roy
Uphaar - 1971 (Samapti) - Sudhendu Roy
Lekin... - 1991 (Kshudhit Pashaan) - Gulzar
Char Adhyay - 1997 (Char Adhyay) - Kumar Shahani
Kashmakash - 2011 ((Nauka Dubi) - Rituparno Ghosh

Bengali

Natir Puja - 1932 - The only film directed by Rabindranath Tagore

Naukadubi - 1947 (Noukadubi) - Nitin Bose
Kabuliwala - 1957 (Kabuliwala) - Tapan Sinha
Kshudhita Pashaan - 1960 (Kshudhita Pashan) - Tapan Sinha
Teen Kanya - 1961 (Teen Kanya) - Satyajit Ray
Charulata - 1964 (Nastanirh) - Satyajit Ray
Ghare Baire - 1985 (Ghare Baire) - Satyajit Ray
Chokher Bali - 2003 (Chokher Bali) - Rituparno Ghosh
Chaturanga - 2008 (Chaturanga) - Suman Mukhopadhyay
Elar Char Adhyay - 2012 (Char Adhyay) - Bappaditya Bandyopadhyay

Notes

Gordon Square, London.

Gandhi Memorial Museum, Madurai.

Rabindranath Tagore
^:Bengali: ,
pronounced:[obindonat aku](
listen); Hindi: [rindrnat akr](
listen).
^:Romanised from Bengali script:
Robindronath hakur.
^:Bengali calendar: 25 Baishakh, 1268 22 Srabon, 1348 ( , ,
).
^:Gurudev translates as "divine mentor".[203]
^:Tagore was born at No. 6 Dwarkanath Tagore Lane, Jorasankothe address of the main mansion (the
Jorasanko Thakurbari) inhabited by the Jorasanko branch of the Tagore clan, which had earlier suffered an
acrimonious split. Jorasanko was located in the Bengali section of Calcutta, near Chitpur Road.[204]
^:... and wholly fictitious ...
^:Etymology of "Visva-Bharati": from the Sanskrit for "world" or "universe" and the name of a Rigvedic
goddess ("Bharati") associated with Saraswati, the Hindu patron of learning.[160] "Visva-Bharati" also translates
as "India in the World".
^:Tagore was no stranger to controversy: his dealings with Indian nationalists Subhas Chandra Bose[3] and
Rash Behari Bose,[205] his yen for Soviet Communism,[206][207] and papers confiscated from Indian nationalists in
New York allegedly implicating Tagore in a plot to overthrow the Raj via German funds.[208] These destroyed
Tagore's imageand book salesin the United States.[205] His relations with and ambivalent opinion of
Mussolini revolted many;[75] close friend Romain Rolland despaired that "[h]e is abdicating his role as moral
guide of the independent spirits of Europe and India".[209]
^:On the "idea of the humanity of our God, or the divinity of Man the Eternal".

Citations
[1] The Nobel Foundation.
[2] O'Connell 2008.
[3] Sen 1997.
[4] Thompson 1926, pp.2728.
[5] Datta 2002, p.2.
[6] Kripalani 2005a, pp.68.
[7] Kripalani 2005b, pp.23.
[8] Thompson 1926, p.12.
[9] Tagore 1984, p.xii.
[10] Dasgupta 1993, p.20.
[12] Dutta & Robinson 1995, p.37.
[13] The News Today 2011.
[14] Roy 1977, pp.2830.
[15] Tagore, Dutta & Robinson 1997, pp.89.
[16] Ghosh 2011.
[17] Thompson 1926, p.20.
[18] Tagore, Dutta & Robinson 1997, p.10.
[19] Thompson 1926, pp.2124.
[20] Das 2009.
[21] Dutta & Robinson 1995, pp.4849.
[22] Dutta & Robinson 1995, pp.50.
[23] Dutta & Robinson 1995, pp.5455.
[24] Dutta & Robinson 1995, p.55.
[25] Dutta & Robinson 1995, pp.5556.
[26] Tagore, Stewart & Twichell 2003, p.91.
[27] Tagore, Stewart & Twichell 2003, p.3.
[28] Tagore & Chakravarty 1961, p.45.
[29] Tagore, Dutta & Robinson 1997, p.265.
[30] Tagore, Dutta & Robinson 1997, pp.4647.
[31] Tagore, Dutta & Robinson 1997, p.47.

44

Rabindranath Tagore
[32]
[33]
[34]
[35]
[36]
[37]
[38]
[39]
[40]
[42]
[43]
[44]
[45]
[46]
[47]
[48]
[49]
[50]
[51]
[52]
[53]
[54]

Tagore, Dutta & Robinson 1997, pp.4748.

Dutta & Robinson 1995, p.35.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, pp.5354.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, p.68.
Thompson 1926, p.31.
Tagore, Dutta & Robinson 1997, pp.1112.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, p.373.
Scott 2009, p.10.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, pp.109111.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, p.109.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, p.133.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, pp.139140.
Hjrne 1913.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, pp.239240.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, p.242.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, pp.308309.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, p.303.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, p.309.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, p.317.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, pp.312313.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, pp.335338.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, p.342.

[55]
[56]
[57]
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[79]
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[82]
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[84]
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[87]
[89]
[90]

Tagore & Radice 2004, p.28.

Dutta & Robinson 1995, p.338.
Indo-Asian News Service 2005.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, p.367.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, p.363.
The Daily Star 2009.
Sigi 2006, p.89.
Flickr 2006.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, pp.374376.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, pp.178179.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Tagore & Chakravarty 1961, p.12.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, p.206.
Hogan & Pandit 2003, pp.5658.
Tagore & Chakravarty 1961, p.182.
Tagore 1930, pp.222225.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, p.253.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, p.256.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, p.267.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, pp.270271.
Kundu 2009.
Tagore & Chakravarty 1961, p.1.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, pp.289292.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, pp.303304.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, pp.292293.
Tagore & Chakravarty 1961, p.2.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, p.315.
South Asian Women's Forum.
Tagore & Chakravarty 1961, p.99.
Tagore & Chakravarty 1961, pp.100103.
Dyson 2001.
Pandey 2011.
Tagore, Dutta & Robinson 1997, p.94.
Dasgupta 2001.

[91] Som 2010, p.38.

[92] Tagore, Dutta & Robinson 1997, p.359.
[94] Tagore, Dutta & Robinson 1997, p.222.

45

Rabindranath Tagore
[95] R. Siva Kumar 2011.
[96] R. Siva Kumar 2012.
[97] http:/ / rabindranathtagore-150. gov. in/ chitravali. html
[102] http:/ / www. artic. edu/ sites/ default/ files/ press_pdf/ Tagore. pdf
[106] http:/ / www. ngmaindia. gov. in/ pdf/ The-Last-Harvest-e-INVITE. pdf
[107] Lago 1977, p.15.
[108] Tagore & Chakravarty 1961, p.123.
[109] Dutta & Robinson 1995, pp.7980.
[110] Tagore, Dutta & Robinson 1997, pp.2123.
[111] Tagore & Chakravarty 1961, pp.123124.
[112] Lifton & Wiesel 1997, p.321.
[113] Lifton & Wiesel 1997, pp.416417.
[114] Lifton & Wiesel 1997, pp.318321.
[115] Lifton & Wiesel 1997, pp.385386.
[116] Lifton & Wiesel 1997, p.349.
[117] Tagore & Mukerjea 1914, p.68.
[118] Tagore & Mukerjea 1914, pp.vvi.
[119] Ayyub 1980, p.48.
[120] Tagore & Chakravarty 1961, p.124.
[121] Ray 2007, pp.147148.
[122] Dutta & Robinson 1995, p.192194.
[123] Dutta & Robinson 1995, p.154155.
[124]
[125]
[126]
[127]
[128]
[129]
[130]
[131]
[132]
[133]
[134]
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[136]
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[147]
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[154]
[155]
[156]
[157]

Hogan 2000, pp.213214.

Mukherjee 2004.
Tagore & Chakravarty 1961, pp.4546.
Tagore & Chakravarty 1961, pp.4849.
Ray 2007, pp.5960.
Roy 1977, p.201.
Tagore, Stewart & Twichell 2003, p.94.
Urban 2001, p.18.
Urban 2001, pp.67.
Urban 2001, p.16.
Tagore, Stewart & Twichell 2003, p.95.
Tagore, Stewart & Twichell 2003, p.7.
Prasad & Sarkar 2008, p.125.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, p.281.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, p.192.
Tagore, Stewart & Twichell 2003, pp.9596.
Tagore 1952, p.5.
Tagore, Alam & Chakravarty 2011, p.323.
Harding 2008.
Harvey 1999, pp.59, 90.
Tagore, Dutta & Robinson 1997, p.127.
Tagore, Dutta & Robinson 1997, p.210.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, p.304.
Brown 1948, p.306.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, p.261.
Tagore, Dutta & Robinson 1997, pp.239240.
Tagore & Chakravarty 1961, p.181.
Tagore 1916, p.111.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, p.204.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, pp.215216.
Chakraborty & Bhattacharya 2001, p.157.
Mehta 1999.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, pp.306307.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, p.339.

[158] Tagore, Dutta & Robinson 1997, p.267.

[159] Tagore & Pal 2004.
[160] Dutta & Robinson 1995, p.220.

46

Rabindranath Tagore
[161]
[162]
[163]
[164]
[165]
[166]
[167]
[168]
[169]
[170]
[171]
[172]
[173]
[174]
[175]
[176]
[177]
[178]
[179]
[180]
[181]
[203]

Roy 1977, p.175.

Tagore & Chakravarty 1961, p.27.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, p.221.
Chakrabarti 2001.
Hatcher 2001.
Kmpchen 2003.
Tagore & Ray 2007, p.104.
Farrell 2000, p.162.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, p.202.
Cameron 2006.
Sen 2006, p.90.
Kinzer 2006.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, p.255.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, pp.254255.
Bhattacharya 2001.
Tagore & Radice 2004, p.26.
Tagore & Radice 2004, pp.2631.
Tagore & Radice 2004, pp.1819.
http:/ / www. rabindra-rachanabali. nltr. org
http:/ / tagoreweb. in/
http:/ / www. gutenberg. org/ browse/ authors/ t#a942
Sil 2005.

[204]
[205]
[206]
[207]
[208]
[209]

Dutta & Robinson 1995, p.34.

Dutta & Robinson 1995, p.214.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, p.297.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, pp.214215.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, p.212.
Dutta & Robinson 1995, p.273.

References
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Tagore., Rabindranath (1916), Sdhan: The Realisation of Life (http://books.google.com/
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Selected Poems (1st ed.), London: Penguin (published 1 June 1995), ISBN978-0-14-018366-5
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The Collected Brief Poems, Angel Books (published 28 December 2004), ISBN978-0-946162-66-6
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story_11299031.jsp) (published 2 August 2009), retrieved 29 September 2011
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1913/tagore-bio.html), Nobel Foundation, retrieved 30 August 2011
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pBhaswati2.html), Parabaas (August 2011), retrieved 17 September 2011
Harvey, J. (1999), In Quest of Spirit: Thoughts on Music (http://www.vivosvoco.com/listofworks.html),
University of California Press, retrieved 10 September 2011
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parabaas.com/rabindranath/articles/pBrian1.html), Parabaas (15 July 2001), retrieved 28 September 2011
Hjrne, H. (1913), The Nobel Prize in Literature 1913: Rabindranath TagoreAward Ceremony Speech (http://
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Jha, N. (1994), "Rabindranath Tagore" (http://www.ibe.unesco.org/publications/ThinkersPdf/tagoree.PDF),
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Books
Ayyub, A. S. (1980), Tagore's Quest, Papyrus
Chakraborty, S. K.; Bhattacharya, P. (2001), Leadership and Power: Ethical Explorations, Oxford University
Press (published 16 August 2001), ISBN978-0-19-565591-9
Dasgupta, T. (1993), Social Thought of Rabindranath Tagore: A Historical Analysis, Abhinav Publications
(published 1 October 1993), ISBN978-81-7017-302-1
Datta, P. K. (2002), Rabindranath Tagore's The Home and the World: A Critical Companion (1st ed.), Permanent
Black (published 1 December 2002), ISBN978-81-7824-046-6
Dutta, K.; Robinson, A. (1995), Rabindranath Tagore: The Myriad-Minded Man, Saint Martin's Press (published
December 1995), ISBN978-0-312-14030-4
Farrell, G. (2000), Indian Music and the West, Clarendon Paperbacks Series (3 ed.), Oxford University Press
(published 9 March 2000), ISBN978-0-19-816717-4
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University Press (published May 2003), ISBN978-0-8386-3980-1

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Rabindranath Tagore
Kripalani, K. (2005), Dwarkanath Tagore: A Forgotten PioneerA Life, National Book Trust of India,
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(published 15 April 1997), ISBN978-0-312-15560-5
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ISBN978-1-4486-3931-1
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(University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: College of Business), retrieved 29 November 2009

50

Rabindranath Tagore

Texts
Original
Translated

Further reading
Abu Zakaria, G. (editor) (2011), Rabindranath TagoreWanderer zwischen Welten (http://www.
klemm-oelschlaeger.de/product_info.php?products_id=102), Klemm and Oelschlger,
ISBN978-3-86281-018-5
Chaudhuri, A. (editor) (2004), The Vintage Book of Modern Indian Literature (1st ed.), Vintage (published 9
November 2004), ISBN978-0-375-71300-2
Deutsch, A. (editor); Robinson, A. (editor) (1989), The Art of Rabindranath Tagore (1st ed.), Monthly Review
Press (published August 1989), ISBN978-0-233-98359-2

External links
Analyses
... and His India (http://130.242.18.21/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1913/tagore-article.html), The New
York Review of Books
... Current Articles (http://www.parabaas.com/rabindranath/), Parabaas
... The Founder (http://www.visva-bharati.ac.in/Rabindranath/Rabindranath.htm), Visva-Bharati University
Mary Lago Collection (http://mulibraries.missouri.edu/specialcollections/lago.htm), University of Missouri
Audiobooks
Sadhana: ... (http://librivox.org/sadhana-by-rabindranath-tagore/), LibriVox
Talks
... with Albert Einstein (http://www.schoolofwisdom.com/tagore-einstein.html) and H. G. Wells (http://
www.schoolofwisdom.com/tagore-wells.html), School of Wisdom
Texts
... at Bichitra: Online Tagore Variorum (http://bichitra.jdvu.ac.in/)
... at Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/author/Rabindranath_Tagore)
... at South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA) (http://www.saadigitalarchive.org/entity/
rabindranath-tagore)
... at SNLTR (http://www.rabindra-rachanabali.nltr.org/node/1)
... at Tagore Web (http://tagoreweb.in/)
... at Wikilivres

51

Rabindra Sangeet

52

Rabindra Sangeet

Black-and-white close-up
photograph of a piece of wood boldly
painted in unmixed solid strokes of
black and white in a stylized
semblance to "ro" and "tho" from the
Bengali syllabary.

Dance accompanied by Rabindra Sangeet

Music of India

A Lady Playing the Tanpura, ca. 1735 (Rajasthan)

Genres

Rabindra Sangeet

53
Traditional

Classical

Carnatic
Hindustani
Folk
Thumri
Dadra
Ghazal
Qawwali
Chaiti
Kajri
Sufi

Modern

Bhangra
Filmi
Pop
Rock

Bangla
Raga
Blues
Jazz
Trance

Media and performance

Music awards

Filmfare Awards
Punjabi Music Awards
Sangeet Natak Akademi Award

Music festivals

Chennai Music Season

Dover Lane music festival
Tyagaraja Aradhana
Cleveland Thyagaraja Aradhana

Music media

Sruti
The Record Music Magazine

Nationalistic and patriotic songs

National anthem Jana Gana Mana
Other

Vande Mataram
Regional music

Andaman and Nicobar Islands

Andhra Pradesh

Arunachal Pradesh

Assam

Bihar

Chhattisgarh

Goa

Gujarat

Haryana

Himachal Pradesh

Kashmir, Jammu and Ladakh

Jharkhand

Karnataka

Kerala

Madhya Pradesh

Rabindra Sangeet

54

Maharashtra

Manipur

Meghalaya

Mizoram

Nagaland

Odisha

Punjab

Rajasthan

Sikkim

Tamil Nadu

Ancient

Tripura

Uttar Pradesh

Uttarakhand

West Bengal

Bengali
Rabindra Sangeet

Music of Bangladesh
Genres

Classical
Rock
Hip hop
Specific forms

Religious music

Hamd
Naat
Shreekrishna Kirtana

Ethnic music

Agamani-Vijaya
Baul
Bhatiali
Bhawaiya
Dhamail
Gombhira
Kavigan
Maimansingha Gitika

Traditional music

Rabindra Sangeet
Nazrul Geeti
Lalon
Hason Raja

Media and performance

Music awards

Shilpakala Academy Award

Music festivals

Dhaka World Music Festival

Rabindra Sangeet

55
Music media

Radio

Radio Foorti
Radio Today
Radio Amar
ABC Radio

Television

Channel 9
Banglavision
NTV
Channel i
Channel 16

Internet

AmaderGaan.com

Nationalistic and patriotic songs

National anthem

Amar Shonar Bangla

Other

Amar Bhaier Rokte Rangano

Regional music

Related areas

Bengal
West Bengal

Other regions

India
Pakistan

Part of a series on the

Culture of
Bengal

Culture
portal
Bengal portal

Rabindra Sangeet (Bengali: Robindro shonggit, Bengali pronunciation:[obindo oit]), also known
as Tagore Songs, are songs written and composed by Rabindranath Tagore. They have distinctive characteristics in
the music of Bengal, popular in India and Bangladesh.[1] "Sangeet" means music, "Rabindra Sangeet" means Songs
of Rabindra.
Rabindra Sangeet used Indian classical music and traditional folk music as sources.Wikipedia:Link rot[citation
needed][]

Rabindra Sangeet

Collection composition
The collection of all the songs written by Rabindranath is called 'Gitabitan' (garden of songs). The six major parts of
this book are Puja (worship), Prem (love), Prakriti (Nature) and Bichitra (Diverse), swadesh(patriotism) and
aanushthanik (celebration).[2]

Singers of Rabindrasangeet
Some of the well-known singers of Rabindrasangeet are:

Abdul Ahad
Amiya Tagore
Malati Ghosal
Kanika Bandyopadhyay
Rezwana Chowdhury Banya
Debabrata Biswas
Suman Chatterjee
Swagatalakshmi Dasgupta
Banani Ghosh

Santidev Ghosh
Kishore Kumar
Asha Bhosle
Kavita Krishnamurthy
Suchitra Mitra
Hemanta Kumar Mukhopadhyay
Pankaj Mullick
Anisur Rahman
Subinoy Roy
Nilima Sen
Indrani Sen
Indranil Sen
Sagar Sen
Lopamudra Mitra
Srikanto Acharya
Srabani Sen

Teachers of Rabindrasangeet
India
Some of the well-known teachers of Rabindrasangeet (barring Tagore himself) are:

Dinendra Nath Tagore

Shantideb Ghosh
Ruma Guha Thakurta
Suchitra Mitra
Kanika Bandyopadhyay
Subinoy Roy

Nilima Sen

56

Rabindra Sangeet

Bangladesh
In Bangladesh, prominent Rabindrasangeet trainers who have contributed to developing new artists include :

Abdul Ahad
Anisur Rahman
Abdul Wadud
Rezwana Chowdhury Banya
Waheedul Haq

Institutes
Visva-Bharati University
Rabindra Bharati University
Dakshinee

Notes
[1] Ghosh, p. xiii
[2] Collection of works of Rabindranath Tagore (http:/ / www. rabindra-rachanabali. nltr. org/ node/ 6585)

References
Tagore, Rabindranath (1992). Sangit Chinta. Vishwa Bharati.
Tagore rocks? (http://www.themusicmagazine.com/tagoregayatri.html), The Music Magazine
Ghosh, hantideba (2006). Rabindrasangeet vichitra (http://books.google.co.in/books?id=y3prNyZ7SKwC&
printsec=frontcover&dq=Rabindra+Sangeet&cd=1#v=onepage&q=Rabindra Sangeet&f=false). Concept
Publishing Company. ISBN81-8069-305-8.
Bandhopadhyaya, Beerendra (1981). Rabindra-sangit. Granthalaya.
Das, Praphulla Kumar (1962). Rabindra Sangeet Prasanga: Part 1 & 2. Jignasa Agency Limited.
ISBN81-85587-12-4.
Ghosh, Shantidev (1942). Rabindrasangit. Vishwa Bharati Grantha Vivag.
Ray, Subinoy (1962). Rabindrasangit Sadhana. A. Mukherjee and Co. Private Ltd.
Majumdar, Shailajaranjan (1989). Rabindrasangit chinta. Pascimbangla rajya sangit akademi.

Further reading
Som, Reba (2009). Rabindranath Tagore: The Singer and his Song (http://openlibrary.org/b/OL23720201M/
Rabindranath_Tagore). New Delhi, India: Penguin Books (Viking). ISBN978-0-670-08248-3.

External links
Obtain a complete copy of Gitobitan from here (http://www.goodreads.com/ebooks/download/7688040)
tagoreweb.in (http://www.tagoreweb.in), contains complete works of Tagore, including his songs, and scores.
rabindrasangeet.org (http://www.rabindrasangeet.org), is a free and public repository of information on Tagore
songs. It has the lyrics and scores of all Tagore songs. The lyrics are text searchable.
rabindrasangeet.com (http://www.rabindrasangeet.com), more on Rabindra Sangeet

57

Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity

Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage

of Humanity
The Proclamation of Masterpieces of the
Oral and Intangible Heritage of
Humanity
was
made
by
the
Director-General of UNESCO starting in
2001 to raise awareness on intangible
cultural heritage and encourage local
communities to protect them and the local
people who sustain these forms of cultural
expressions.[] Several manifestations of
Map showing the distribution of Masterpieces of Oral and Intangible Heritage by
intangible heritage around the world were
State Parties as of 2005. Note: transboundary properties have been redistributed
awarded the title of Masterpieces to
among the concerned countries for the locator map, hence, have been counted
multiple times.
recognize the value of the non-material
component of culture, as well as entail the
commitment of states to promote and safeguard the Masterpieces.[] Further proclamations occurred biennially until
2005.[]
Until 2005, a total of 90 Masterpieces from 70 countries had been proclaimed. 76 more elements were added on 30
September 2009, during the fourth session of the Committee.[1]

Background
UNESCO defines oral and intangible heritage as the totality of tradition-based creations of a cultural community
expressed by a group or individuals and recognized as reflecting the expectations of a community in so far as they
reflect its cultural and social identity.[][] Language, literature, music and dance, games and sports, culinary
traditions, rituals and mythologies, knowledge and practices concerning the universe, know-how linked to
handicrafts, and cultural spaces are among the many forms of intangible heritage.[][][2] Intangible heritage is seen as
a repository of cultural diversity,[] and creative expression, as well as a driving force for living cultures.[] Since it can
be vulnerable to forces of globalization, social transformation, and intolerance,[] UNESCO encourages communities
to identify, document, protect, promote and revitalize such heritage.[]
Upon the adoption of the Universal Declaration on Cultural
Diversity on November 2001,[3] UNESCO encouraged recognition
and protection of intangible heritage in the same way as natural
and cultural treasures of tangible heritage are protected.[4]

Citizens' protection of activities in Morocco's Djemaa

el Fna Square inspired UNESCO's Masterpieces of the
Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity label.

Although UNESCO has had a program (active since 1972) to

protect the worlds cultural and natural heritage, known as the
World Heritage List, it thought that the List was directed mostly to
the protection and representation of tangible, monumental
elements of past cultures or natural environment.[][] The
Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity, is
UNESCOs response to the call for humanity to widen its concept
of cultural heritage by bringing in the intangible aspects.[]

The idea for the project came from people concerned about Moroccos Jeema el Fna Square in Marrakesh.[] The
locality is known for its active concentration of traditional activities by storytellers, musicians and performers, but it

58

Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity

59

was threatened by economic development pressures.[] In fighting for the protection of traditions, the residents called
for action on an international level to recognize the need for the protection of such placestermed as cultural
spacesand other popular and traditional forms of cultural expression.[] The UNESCO label of Masterpieces of the
Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity aims to raise awareness about the importance of oral and intangible
heritage as an essential component of cultural diversity.[][]

The spectacle of Djemaa el Fna is repeated daily and each day it is different. Everything changes voices, sounds, gestures, the public which
sees, listens, smells, tastes, touches. The oral tradition is framed by one much vaster that we can call intangible. The Square, as a physical
space, shelters a rich oral and intangible tradition.

[5]

Juan Goytisolo, in a speech delivered at the opening meeting for the First Proclamation, 15 May 2001

The Proclamations
Beginning in 2001, the new program has started identifying
various forms of intangible heritage around the world for
safeguarding through a Proclamation.[] Under this act, national
governments acceding to the UNESCO Convention, known as
member states, are each allowed to submit a single candidature
file, in addition to multi-national nominations, of intangible
cultural heritage occurring within their territories.[] The nominated
intangible heritage may fall into two categories as set by the
program:[]
forms of popular and traditional cultural expressions; or
cultural spaces, i.e., places where cultural and popular activities
are concentrated and regularly take place (markets squares,
festivals, etc.)

China's Kunqu opera typically features roles such as a

young male lead, a female lead, an old man and various
comedic characters, all dressed in traditional costumes,
and it is characterized by its "dynamic structure and
[6]
melody (kunqiang)."

The nominations are evaluated by a panel of experts in intangible

heritage, including specialized non-government organizations
(NGOs), and are further scrutinized by a jury, whose 18 members
have
previously
been
selected
by
the
UNESCO
[][]
Director-General. A set of criteria has been created to aid in the
assessing of the nominations. The cultural expressions and spaces
proposed for proclamation had to:[]
1. demonstrate their outstanding value as masterpiece of the
human creative genius;
2. give wide evidence of their roots in the cultural tradition or
cultural history of the community concerned;
3. be a means of affirming the cultural identity of the cultural
communities concerned;
4. provide proof of excellence in the application of the skill and
technical qualities displayed;
5. affirm their value as unique testimony of living cultural traditions;
6. be at risk of degradation or of disappearing.

Ngaku, or Noh is the principal form of Japanese

theatre and has influenced the Bunraku, or Japanese
[]
puppet theatre as well as the Kabuki. All three have
been proclaimed by UNESCO as Masterpieces of the
[]
Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.

Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity

60

Furthermore, the nominees should be in conformity with

UNESCO ideals, in particular, with the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights.[] The nomination proposals also had to provide
proof of the full involvement and agreement of the local
communities and to include an action plan for the safeguarding or
promotion of the concerned cultural spaces or expressions, which
should have been elaborated in close collaboration with the
tradition bearers.[]
Through the nomination process, the member states are
encouraged to compile an inventory of their intangible heritage,
raising awareness and protection of these treasures. In turn, the
proclaimed Masterpieces receive commitment from UNESCO in
financing plans for their conservation.[][]
Proclamations in 2001, 2003 and 2005, designated a total of 90
forms of intangible heritage around the world as Masterpieces:

Castells (Castles), one of the most representative

tradition in the Catalan culture, is among the
proclaimed Masterpieces in Catalonia, Spain in
[7]
2010.

Proclamation

Date

Jury president

Number of candidature
files received

Number of Masterpieces Reference

proclaimed

1st

May 18, 2001

Juan Goytisolo (Spain)

32

19

[]

2nd

November 7,
2003

Juan Goytisolo (Spain)

56

28

[]

3rd

November 25,
2005

Princess Basma Bint

Talal (Jordan)

64

43

[]

4th

September 30,
2009

76

[1]

Current status
The increasing number of candidature files received and number of Masterpieces proclaimed every two years meant
that UNESCOs goal of raising awareness on the importance of the protection of intangible heritage has been
achieved. The rise in the number of participating member states led to the 2003 adoption of the Convention for the
Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, which took effect in 2008.[][] The standard-setting instrument was
meant to complement the 1972 World Heritage Convention in its protection of intangible culture.[] Following the
successful example of the World Heritage Conventions World Heritage List program, UNESCO established the
Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. This superseded the Proclamation program
when the Convention took effect in 2008.[][8] All the 90 previously proclaimed Masterpieces, which would be called
elements, were featured as the first entries on the new List.[][]
The process for designating an element for the list follows similar steps as the Proclamation.[9] The former role of the
jury was supplanted by a new body known as the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of Intangible

Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity

Cultural Heritage.[10]
In addition, UNESCO established a separate program, identifying elements for the List of Intangible Cultural
Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding, to highlight elements at risk despite the efforts of the local community to
preserve and protect it, as a result of which it cannot be expected to survive without immediate safeguarding. It also
established a fund to provide emergency assistance for the preservation of such elements.[11]
In 2003, UNESCO drafted the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, which provides an
international framework, source of funding, and strategic overview for the further identification and protection of
these masterpieces and other intangible cultural heritages. The Convention went into force on 2006, and has since
been approved by over 130 members.

References
[1] The Tango, Ainu dance of Japan and Frances Aubusson tapestry inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of
Humanity - | UNESCO.ORG (http:/ / portal. unesco. org/ en/ ev. php-URL_ID=46523& URL_DO=DO_TOPIC& URL_SECTION=201.
html) October 1, 2009.
[7] BBC, Close-Up: Catalonia's human towers (http:/ / www. bbc. co. uk/ news/ world-europe-11742399)

External links
Official website (http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php?lg=en&pg=00001)
Intangible Heritage Lists (http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php?pg=00011)
Defending Threatened Cultures by Juan Goytisolo, Chairman of the International Jury for the 2001 Proclamation
(http://www.unesco.org/bpi/intangible_heritage/goytisoloe.htm)
Ddalo Project. Open Software for Management of Intangible Cultural Heritage and Oral History (http://www.
fmomo.org)

61

Sahaja

62

Sahaja
Sahaja (Sanskrit; IAST: sahaja; Devanagari: , meaning
"spontaneous, natural, simple, or easy"[1]) is a term of some
importance in Indian spirituality, particularly in circles influenced
by the Tantric Movement. Ananda Coomaraswamy describes its
significance as "the last achievement of all thought", and "a
recognition of the identity of spirit and matter, subject and object",
continuing "There is then no sacred or profane, spiritual or
sensual, but everything that lives is pure and void."[2]

Origins
The origins of the word are in Apabhramsha, a now defunct
language, and Old Bengali, where its first attested literary usage
occurs in the 8th century CE.[3][4] The word was used in a spiritual
context by the north Indian Tantric Siddha master Saraha in the
8th century CE:
A Tibetan Thanka or scroll painting of Saraha,
So
surrounded by other Mahsiddhas, probably 18th
from
century and now in the British Museum

spontaneity
that's unique,
Replete
with
perfections,

the

Buddha's

Are all sentient beings born, and in

it come to rest
But it is neither concrete nor
abstract.
The concept of a spontaneous spirituality entered Hinduism with Nath yogis such as Gorakhnath and was often
alluded to indirectly and symbolically in the Twilight Language (sandhya bhasa) that is common to sahaja traditions,
as found in Charyapada text, and works Matsyendranath and Daripada.[5] It influenced the bhakti movement through
the Sant tradition, exemplified by the Bauls of Bengal, Dnyaneshwar, Meera, Kabir[6] and Guru Nanak, the founder
of the Sikh brotherhood.[7]
Yoga in particular had a quickening influence on the various
Sahajiya traditions.[8] The culture of the body (kya-sdhana)
through processes of Haha-yoga was of paramount
Pages from the Charyapada manuscript
importance in the Nth cult and found in all sahaja schools.
Whether conceived of as 'supreme bliss' (Mah-sukha), as by
the Buddhist Sahajiys, or as 'supreme love' (as with the Vaiava Sahajiys), strength of the body was deemed
necessary to stand such a supreme realisation.[9]

Sahaja

63

The Nath tradition

Sahaja is one of the four keywords of the Nath sampradaya along with Svecchachara, Sama, and Samarasa. Sahaja
meditation and worship was prevalent in Tantric traditions common to Hinduism and Buddhism in Bengal as early as
the 8th9th centuries. The British Nath teacher Mahendranath wrote:
Man is born with an instinct for naturalness. He has never forgotten the days of his primordial perfection,
except insomuch as the memory became buried under the artificial superstructure of civilization and its
artificial concepts. Sahaja means natural... The tree grows according to Sahaja, natural and spontaneous in
complete conformity with the Natural Law of the Universe. Nobody tells it what to do or how to grow. It has
no swadharma or rules, duties and obligations incurred by birth. It has only svabhava - its own inborn self or
essence - to guide it. Sahaja is that nature which, when established in oneself, brings the state of absolute
freedom and peace.[10]

Vaishnava-Sahajiya
The Vaishnava-Sahajiya cult became popular in 17th century Bengal. It sought religious experience through the five
senses. The divine relationship between Krishna and Radha (guises of the divine masculine and divine feminine) had
been celebrated by Chandidas (Bangla: ) (born 1408 CE), Jayadeva (circa 1200 CE) and Vidyapati (c 1352 c 1448) whose works foreshadowed the rasas or "flavours" of love.The two aspects absolute reality were explained
as the eternal enjoyer and the enjoyed, Ka and Rdh conceived of as ontological principles of which all men and
women are physical manifestations, as may be realised through a process of attribution (Aropa), in which the sexual
intercourse of a human couple is transmuted into the divine love between Ka and Rdh, leading to the highest
spiritual realisation, the state of union or Yugala. The element of love, the innovation of the Vaiava Sahajiy
school, is essentially based on the element of yoga in the form of physical and psychological discipline.[11]
Vaisnava-Sahajiya is a synthesis and complex of traditions that, due to its sexual tantric practices, was perceived
with disdain by other religious communities and much of the time was forced to operate in secrecy. Its literature
employed an encrypted and enigmatic style. Because of the necessity of privacy and secrecy, little is definitively
known about their prevalence or practices.[12]

Baul tradition of Bengal

Baul (Bengali: , Hindi: ) are
a group of mystic minstrels from
Bengal, both a syncretic religious sect
and a musical tradition. Bauls are a
heterogeneous
group
whose
membership mainly consists of
Vaishnava
Hindus
and
Sufi
Muslims.[13][] They can often be
identified by their distinctive clothes
and musical instruments.[14]

Baul singers in performance at Santiniketan, India.

Sahaja

64

Sahaja-siddhi
The 'sahaja-siddhi' or the 'siddhi' or 'natural accomplishment' or the 'accomplishment of the unconditioned natural
state' was also a textual work, the Sahaja-Siddhi revealed by Dombi Heruka (Skt. ombi Heruka or ombipa)[15]
one of the eighty-four Mahasiddhas.[16] The following quotation identifies the relationship of the 'mental flux'
(mindstream) to the sahaja-siddhi. Moreover, it must be remembered that though Sundararajan & Mukerji (2003:
p.502) use a masculine pronominal the term 'siddha' is not gender-specific and that there were females, many as
senior sadhakas, amongst the siddha communities:
"...The practitioner is now a siddha, a realized soul. He becomes invulnerable, beyond all dangers, when
all forms melt away into the Formless, "when surati merges in nirati, japa is lost in ajap" (Skh,
"Parc ko Aga," d.23). The meeting of surati and nirati is one of the signs of sahaja-siddhi; surati is an
act of will even when the practitioner struggles to disengage himself from worldly attachments. But
when his worldliness is totally destroyed with the dissolution of the ego, there is nirati, cessation of the
mental flux, which implies cessation of all willed efforts. Nirati (ni-rati) is also cessation of attractions,
since the object of attraction and the seeker are now one. In terms of layayoga, nirati is dissolution of
the mind in "Sound," nda."[17]

Notes
[1] Source: (http:/ / www. sanskrit-lexicon. uni-koeln. de/ cgi-bin/ monier/ serveimg. pl?file=/ scans/ MWScan/ MWScanjpg/ mw1193-sah. jpg)
(accessed: Friday November 6, 2009)
[2] Coomaraswamy, Ananda Kentish (1985). The dance of iva: essays on Indian art and culture. Edition: reprint, illustrated. Courier Dover
Publications. ISBN 0-486-24817-8, ISBN 978-0-486-24817-2. Source: (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=qq49lPrsPFYC& pg=PA103&
dq=sahaja& hl=en& ei=3usxTcLLJ8_JceiWycQH& sa=X& oi=book_result& ct=result& resnum=4& ved=0CC8Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&
q=sahaja& f=false) (accessed: January 16, 2011)
[3] Shashibhusan Das Gupta, Obscure religious cults (Calcutta: Mukhopadhyay, 1969), chapter 1
[4] Per Kvaerne, On the Concept of Sahaja in Indian Buddhist Tantric Literature, Temenos, vol.11, 1975, pp88-135
[5] Nayak, Pabitra Mohan Nayak (2006). The Literary Heritage of Sonepur. Orissa Review. May, 2006. Source: (http:/ / orissagov. nic. in/
e-magazine/ orissareview/ may2006/ engpdf/ 72-79. pdf) (accessed: Friday March 5, 2010)
[6] Kabir: In the bliss of Sahaj, Knowledge of Reality, no.20 (http:/ / www. sol. com. au/ kor/ 20_03. htm)
[7] Niharranjan Ray, The Concept of Sahaj in Guru Nanak's Theology and its Antecedents', in Medieval Bhakti Movements in India, edited by
N.N.Bhattacharyya (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1969), pp17-35
[8] Shashibhusan Dasgupta (1946, 1969 third edition, 1976 reprint). Obscure Religious Cults. Firma KLM Private Limited: Calcutta, India.
Sarasvati Printing Press.
[9] Dasgupta, Shashibhusan (1946, 1969 third edition, 1976 reprint). Obscure Religious Cults. Firma KLM Private Limited: Calcutta, India.
Sarasvati Printing Press, p.xxxviii.
[10] Shri Gurudev Mahendranath, The Pathless Path to Immortality
[11] Dasgupta, Shashibhusan (1946, 1969 third edition, 1976 reprint). Obscure Religious Cults. Firma KLM Private Limited: Calcutta, India.
Sarasvati Printing Press.
[12] Source: (http:/ / www. britannica. com/ eb/ article-9074642/ Vaisnava-Sahajiya) (accessed: Monday July 9, 2007)
[13] " Baul (http:/ / www. britannica. com/ eb/ article-9013814)" Encyclopdia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopdia Britannica Online. 4 Dec. 2007.
[15] Rigpa Shedra (2009). 'Dombi Heruka'. Source: (http:/ / www. rigpawiki. org/ index. php?title=Dombi_Heruka) (accessed: November 6,
2009)
[16] Chattopadhyana, Debiprasad (ed.)(1970). Taranatha's History of Buddhism in India. Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Simla. p.245-246
[17] Sundararajan, K. R.; Mukerji, Bithika (2003). Hindu Spirituality, Volume 2, Motilal Banarsidass Publishers. ISBN 978-81-208-1937-5,
p.502. Source: (http:/ / books. google. com. au/ books?id=LO0DpWElIRIC& pg=PA502& lpg=PA502& dq=Sahaja-siddhi& source=bl&
ots=gPsM6S_6LY& sig=A9ZOkATiCTllGOupKCVkSrHFpjo& hl=en& ei=N33zSoLYCIGIkQXKzcmpAw& sa=X& oi=book_result&
ct=result& resnum=6& ved=0CBgQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage& q=Sahaja-siddhi& f=false) (accessed: Friday November 6, 2009)

Sahaja

References
Arora, R.K. The Sacred Scripture (New Delhi: Harman, 1988), chapter 6: Sahaja
Das Gupta, Shashibhusan. Obscure religious cults (Calcutta: Mukhopadhyay, 1969)
Davidson, Ronald M. "Reframing Sahaja: genre, representation, ritual and lineage", Journal of Indian Philosophy,
vol.30, 2002, pp4583
Dimock, Edward C. Jr. "The Place of the Hidden Moon - Erotic Mysticism in the Vaiava-sahajiy Cult of
Bengal, University of Chicago Press, 1966
Kvaerne, Per. "On the Concept of Sahaja in Indian Buddhist Tantric Literature", Temenos, vol.11, 1975, pp88-135
(http://books.google.com.au/books?id=Ypsz9qEzZjwC&pg=PA162&dq=g.yu+sgra+snying+po&lr=&
source=gbs_toc_r&cad=8#v=onepage&q=g.yu sgra snying po&f=false)
Mahendranath, Shri Gurudev. Ecstasy, Equipoise, and Eternity (http://www.mahendranath.org/twiyoga1.
mhtml). Retrieved Oct. 20, 2004.
Mahendranath, Shri Gurudev. The Pathless Path to Immortality (http://www.mahendranath.org/pathlesspath.
mhtml). Retrieved Oct. 20, 2004.
Neki, J.S. "Sahaja: an Indian ideal of mental health", Psychiatry, vol.38, 1975, pp110
Ray, Niharranjan. "The Concept of Sahaj in Guru Nanak's Theology and its Antecedents", in Medieval Bhakti
Movements in India, edited by N.N.Bhattacharyya (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1969), pp1735

65

Shashibhusan Dasgupta

66

Shashibhusan Dasgupta
Shashibhusan Dasgupta, Shashi Bhushan Dasgupta
Born

1911
Chandrahar, Barisal Division, Bengal

Died

1964, July 21
Kolkata, West Bengal, India

Occupation Scholar in philosophy, languages and literature, particularly Bengali literature, literary critic, author, theologian

Shashibhusan Dasgupta, or Shashi Bhushan Dasgupta, Shashibhusan and Shashi Bhusan Das Gupta,
(19111964) was a Bengali scholar of philosophy, languages, literature (particularly Bengali literature); literary
critic; author and theologian.[1]
Dasgupta was born in Chandrahar Village in modern Barisal Division, South-Central Bangladesh. He obtained his
IA from B M College, Barisal, his BA (Hons) in Philosophy from Scottish Church College, Kolkata, West Bengal,
India. His MA in Bengali Language and Literature was from Calcutta University in 1935, and he subsequently joined
Calcutta University's Bengali Department as a Researcher. Winning the 1937 Premchand-Roychand Studentship due
to his scholarship contributions, Dasgupta was appointed in Bengali Department a lecturer, and received his PhD in
that department in 1939.
Dasgupta's chief opus is the identification of Indian spiritual meditation forms and demonstration of their
relationship to Tantric Buddhism, to Saivite, Sakta and Vaishnava religious philosophies, and to Bengali literature.
He won the 1961 Sahitya Akademi Award for his work "Bharater Shakti-Sadhana O Shakta Sahitya."
Dasgupta had authored novels, plays, poems and children's books.[2] Some editions of his works are published
posthumously or in recently updated versions, and their exact or cited titles in English depend on the language
variants being transliterated.

Bibliography
Religion

Obscure Religious Cults: As a Background of Bengali Literature (1946)

An Introduction to Tantric Buddhism (1950)
Aspects of Indian Religious Thought, Shriradhar Kramavikash: Darshane O Sahitye (1952)
Bhratera akti-sdhan o kta shitya (1960)

Literature

Bangla Sahityer Nabayug

Bangla Sahityer Ekdik/Bal-shityera ekadika (1960)
Sahityer Svarup/Shityera svarpa (1983)
Upanisader Patabhumikay Rabindramanas/Upanishadera paabhmika Rabndramnasa (1992)
Upama Kalidasasya/Upam Klidsasya (1967)
Kavi Jatindranath O Adhunik Bangla Kavitar Pratham Paryay/Kabi Yatndrantha o dhunika Bal kabitra
prathama parya (1990)
Tolstoy Gandhi O Rabindranath/alasaa, Gndh, Rabndrantha (1962)
Shilpalipi
Bharatiya Sadhanar Aikya
Bauddhadharma O Charyagiti/Bauddhadharma o carygti (1964)

Shashibhusan Dasgupta
Hb Haladhara (1962)
Tra : Blmki, Kalidsa, Rabndrantha (1989)
[][]

Honors
1961 Sahitya Akademi Prize from India's national academy of Letters, Sahitya Akademi, for "Bharater
Shakti-Sadhana O Shakta Sahitya" (non-fiction)[3]
1937 Premchand-Roychand Studentship, Calcutta University, India

References
[1] "Shashi Bhushan Dasgupta" (http:/ / sbufind. library. stonybrook. edu/ vufind/ Author/ Home?author=Dasgupta, Shashi Bhushan,
1912-1964). Stonybrook.edu.

Vaishnava-Sahajiya
Vaishnava-Sahajiya is a form of tantric Vaishnavism that centred in Bengal, India. It had precursors from the 14th
century, but originated in its definitive form in the 16th century. Vaishnava-Sahajiya is generally considered as a
'left-hand path' (Sanskrit: vmcra) and apostate (Sanskrit: apasampradaya; see Sampradaya) from the "orthodox"
or vedic standpoint, though followers claim that this view stems from a superficial understanding. There are both
right-handed and left-handed Vaishnava-Sahajiyas Dakshinachara may be rendered into English as "right (Dakshina)
(path to) attainment (chara)", while Vamachara may be rendered into English as "left (vama) (path to) attainment
(chara)". The Dakshinacharyas ("Right Attainers") are the ones that practice the Panchamakara ('Five Ms')
symbolically or through substitutions, whilst the Vamacharyas ("Left Attainers") are the ones that practice it literally.

Manuscripts
Shashibhusan Dasgupta (1946, 1962: p.131) holds that there are two hundred and fifty "manuscripts of small texts"
in the Calcutta University which are associated with the Sahajiya, and that there is a comparable number of
manuscripts held in common with Calcutta University in the library of the Bangya-shitya-pariad.[1] Wendy
Doniger (1989: p.xxii) in the Forward to Dimock (1989) affirms that The Asiatic Society in Calcutta holds a large
collection of manscripts and also states that "...the number of manuscripts in private libraries is indefinite but almost
certainly huge."[2]

Poets of the Vaiava Sahajiy school

Shashibhusan Dasgupta (1976: p.114) to his third edition (1969) reprint (1976) of his seminal text on five sahaja
traditions entitled Obscure Religious Cults first published in 1946, holds that:
"The lyrics belonging to the Vaiava Sahajiy school are generally ascribed to the well-known poet
Caidsa and to some other poets like Vidypati, Rpa, Santana, Vndvana-dsa, Ka-dsa
Kavirja, Narahari, Narottama, Locana, Caitanya-dsa and others, and the innumerable Sahajiy texts
are also ascribed to their authorship."[3]
Caidsa (Bengali: ; born 1408 CE) refers to (possibly more than one) medieval poet of Bengal. Over 1250
poems related to the love of Radha and Krishna in Bengali with the bhanita of Chandidas are found with three
different sobriquets along with his name, Bau, Dvija and Dina as well as without any sobriquet also. It is not clear
whether these bhanitas actually refer to the same person or not. It is assumed by some modern scholars that the
poems which are current in the name of Chandidas are actually the works of at least four different Chandidas, who

67

Vaishnava-Sahajiya
are distinguished from each other by their sobriquets found in the bhanitas. It is also assumed that the earliest of
them was Ananta Bau Chandidas, who has been more or less identified as a historical figure born in the 14th
century in Birbhum district of the present-day West Bengal state and wrote the lyrical Srikrishna Kirtan (Songs in
praise of Krishna).

Vidyapati
A sahajiya poem of Vidypati (1352? - 1448?) is rendered into English by David R. Kinsley (1975: p.48-49) thus:
As I near the bed,
He smiles and gazes.
Flower-arrows fill the world.
The sport of love,
Its glow and luxuries
Are indescribable, O friend,
And when I yield myself,
His joy is endless.
Freeing my skirt,
He snatches at my garland.
My downcast mind
Is freed of frontiers,
Though my life is held
In the net of his love.
He drinks my lips.
With heart so thrilled,
He take my clothes away.
I lose my body
At his touch
And long to check
But grant his love.
Says Vidypati:
Sweet as honey
Is the talk of a girl in love.[4]

68

Vaishnava-Sahajiya

Detail
The Vaishnava-Sahajiya sought religious experience through the five senses which included human coupling and
sexual love. Sahaja (Sanskrit: easy or natural) as a system of worship was prevalent in the Tantric traditions
common to both Hinduism and Buddhism in Bengal as early as the 8th9th centuries. "Sahaja" was evident in the
teachings and poetry of Mahasiddha Saraha (c.8th century CE, Bengal, Nalanda).
The tradition used the romance between Krishna and Radha as a metaphor for union with God, and sought to
experience that union through its physical reenactment. It teaches that the ideal way to understand the union of
humanity is to transcend the profane aspects of sexual intercourse and experience it as a divine act.
The Vaisnava-Sahajiya creed is a synthesis of these various traditions. The Vaisnava-Sahajiyas operated in secrecy
because their sexual tantric practices were viewed with marked disdain by other religious communities. In their
literature they adopted an enigmatic style employing substitutions and correspondences that has come to be known
as the Twilight Language (Sanskrit: sadhy-bh). Little is known about their prevalence or practices.[5]
The cult was centered in Bengal. It began in the 16th century, although predecessors existed as early as the 8th
century in the same city. The founder is generally thought to be Baru Chandidas, who lived in the 14th century. In
order to avoid unwanted attention, the group spoke of its activities in cryptic language.
Members of this lineage enacted the 'group in a round' Ganachakra (Sanskrit) or circle dance now known as the
Rasa-lila of Krishna. It is a mystery religion rite, wherein the followers participated in a rite of communion, trance
possession, and nondifference or nonduality with 'deity' (Sanskrit: ishtadevata).

Notes
[1] Dasgupta, Shashibhusan (1946, 1962 revised). Obscure Religious Cults as a Background to Bengali Literature. NB: First edition entitled:
Obscure religious cults as background of Bengali literature Calcutta : Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay, p.131.
[2] Dimock, Edward C., Jr. (1966, 1989). "The Place of the Hidden Moon: Erotic Mysticism in the Vaisnava-Sahajiya cult of Bengal". NB: 1989
with a Forward by Wendy Doniger (June, 1989). University of Chicago Press.
[3] Dasgupta, Shashibhusan (1946, 1969 third edition, 1976 reprint). Obscure Religious Cults. Firma KLM Private Limited: Calcutta, India.
Sarasvati Printing Press, p.114.
[4] Kinsley, David R. (1975). The sword and the flute: Kl and Ka, dark visions of the terrible and the sublime in Hindu mythology.
University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-02675-6, ISBN 978-0-520-02675-9. Source: (http:/ / books. google. com/
books?id=Ih1By08_Yj0C& pg=PA49& dq=Vidypati+ sahaja& hl=en& ei=roMxTfuKMYqIvgOQpIjzCw& sa=X& oi=book_result&
ct=result& resnum=2& ved=0CCcQ6AEwATgK#v=onepage& q& f=false) (accessed: January 16, 2011)
[5] Source: (http:/ / www. britannica. com/ eb/ article-9074642/ Vaisnava-Sahajiya) (accessed: Monday July 9, 2007)

Further reading
Dimock, Edward C., Jr. "The Place of the Hidden Moon: Erotic Mysticism in the Vaisnava-Sahajiya cult of
Bengal", University of Chicago Press, 1966.
Tripurari, Swami, Sahajiya & Rasika (http://www.swami.org/pages/sanga/1999/1999_15.php), Sanga (http:/
/swami.org/pages/sanga/current.php), 1999.
Dasgupta, Shashibhusan (1946, 1962 revised). Obscure Religious Cults as a Background to Bengali Literature.
NB: First edition entitled: Obscure religious cults as background of Bengali literature Calcutta : Firma K.L.
Mukhopadhyay.
Basu, M. M. (1932). The Post-Caitanya Sahajiya Cult of Bengal. Calcutta: Univ. of Calcutta Press.
Hayes, Glen Alexander (2000). "The Necklace of Immortality: A Seventeenth-Century Vaisnava Sahajiya Text."
In Tantra in Practice. Edited by David Gordon White. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

69

Vaishnava-Sahajiya

External links
Writing at Twilight: "O' Shariputra, the sandhaa-bhashya of the Tathaagatas is very difficult." by Layne Little
(http://tamil.berkeley.edu/Research/Articles/Twilight.html)
Hine, Phil (2003). "For the Love of God: Variations of the Vaisnava School of Krishna Devotion." Ash Journal,
Vol 2, Issue 4, 2003. (http://www.ashejournal.com/index.php?id=184)

70

Charyapada

71

Charyapada
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The Charyapada (Bengali: , Assamese: ) or Charijagiti (Oriya: ) is a collection of

8th12th century Vajrayana Buddhist caryagiti, or mystical poems from the tantric tradition in Kalinga.[]
Charyapada is the collection of the oldest verses written in pre-Modern Bengali. Being caryagiti (songs of
realisation), the Charyapada were intended to be sung. These songs of realisation were spontaneously composed
verses that expressed a practitioner's experience of the enlightened state. Miranda Shaw describes how caryagiti
were an element of the ritual gathering of practitioners in a tantric feast:
The feast culminates in the performance of tantric dances and music, that must never be disclosed to
outsiders. The revellers may also improvise "songs of realization" (caryagiti) to express their heightened
clarity and blissful raptures in spontaneous verse.[1]
A manuscript of this anthology was discovered in the early 20th century. It provides the early examples of the
Assamese, Oriya, Maithili and Bengali languages. The writers of the Charyapada, the Mahasiddhas or

Charyapada

72

Siddhacharyas, belonged to the various regions of Assam, Bengal, Odisha and Bihar. A Tibetan translation of the
Charyapada was also preserved in the Tibetan Buddhist canon. It is the earliest known example of Maithili poetry.
According to Bengali scholar Haraprasad Shastri (18531931), Charyapada is also the collection of the oldest verses
written in pre-Modern Bengali.[]

Discovery
The credit of discovering Charyapad goes to Haraprasad Shastri who during his third visit to Nepal discovered about
47 verses in 1907, the body of which came to be called Charyapada, which are essentially Buddhist mystical songs.
These were discovered from the Royal library of the Nepalese kings. Haraprasad Shastri first went to Nepal in 1897
for collecting Buddhist folklore. He discovered some folklore written in Sanskrit during his second trip in 1898. He
undertook his third trip in 1907 in the hope of some more new folklore. He published his collections in a volume
which was published in 1916. Although Haraprasad Shastri discovered as many as 47 poems (in fact 46 and a part of
one), hints are there that the number would be 51 in total. These were written on narrow section of palm leaves.

Manuscripts
The original palm-leaf manuscript of the Charyapada, or Charyacharyavinishchayah, consisting of an anthology of
47 padas (verses) along with a Sanskrit commentary, was discovered by Haraprasad Shastri at the Nepal Royal Court
Library in 1907. This manuscript was edited by Shastri and published by the Bangiya Sahitya Parishad as a part of
his Hajar Bacharer Purano Bangala Bhasay Bauddhagan O Doha (The Buddhist Songs and Couplets in a thousand
years old Bengali Language) in 1916 under the name of Charyacharyavinishchayah. This manuscript is presently
located at the National Archives of Nepal. Later Prabodhchandra Bagchi published a manuscript of a Tibetan
translation containing 50 verses.[2]
The Tibetan translation of the Charyapada provided additional
information. It names the Sanskrit commentary as the
Charyagiti-koshavrtti written by Munidatta. It also mentions
that the original text was translated by Shilachari and its
commentary by Munidatta was translated by Chandrakirti or
Kirtichandra.[3]

Pages from the Charyapada

Poets
The manuscript of the Charyapada discovered by Haraprasad Shastri
from Nepal consists 47 padas (verses). The title-page, the
colophon-page,the pages 36, 37, 38, 39 and 66 containing the padas
(verses) 24, 25 and 48 and their commentaries were missing in this
manuscript. The 47 verses of this manuscript were written by 22
Mahasiddha, or Siddhacharyas, whose names are mentioned at the
beginning of each pada (except the first Pada). In the Tibetan Buddhist
Canon version of the text and its commentary 50 padas are found,
which include the padas 24, 25 and 48 and the complete form of the
pada 23. Pada 25 was written by the Siddhacharya poet Tantripda,
who work was not found earlier. In his commentary on pada 10,
Munidatta mentioned the name of another Siddhacharya poet,
Ladidombipda, but no pada written by him has been discovered so far.

A sketch of Siddhacharya poet Kanhapada

The names of the Siddhacharyas in Sanskrit (or its Tibetan language equivalent) are mentioned prior to each pada.
Probably, the Sanskrit names of the Siddhacharya poets were assigned to each pada by the commentator Munidatta.

Charyapada

73

Modern scholars doubt whether these assignments are proper on the basis of the internal evidences and other literary
sources. Controversies also exist amongst the scholars as to the original names of the Siddhacharyas.
The poets and their works as mentioned in the text are as follows:
Poet

Pada

Luipda

1, 29

Kukkuripda

2, 20, 48

Virubpda

Gundaripda

Chatillapda

Bhusukupda

6, 21, 23, 27, 30, 41, 43, 49

Knhapda

7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 18, 19, 24, 36, 40, 42, 45

Kambalmbarapda 8
Dombipda

14

Shantipda

15, 26

Mahidharapda

16

Vinpda

17

Sarahapda

22, 32, 38, 39

Shabarapda

28, 50

ryadevapda

31

Dhendhanapda

33

Darikapda

34

Bhdepda

35

Tdakapda

37

Kankanapda

44

Jayanandipda

46

Dhmapda

47

Tantripda

25

Nature
The language of Charyapada is rather symbolic in nature.[] So in many cases the literal meaning of a word does not
make any sense. As a result every poem has a descriptive or narrative surface meaning but also encodes tantric
Buddhist teachings. Some experts believe this was to conceal sacred knowledge from the uninitiated, while others
hold that it was to avoid religious persecution. An attempt was made to decipher the secret tantric inheritance of
Charyapada.[4]

Period
Haraprasad Shastri, who discovered Charyapada, considered that it was written during the 10th century. However,
according to Suniti Kumar Chatterjee, Charyapada was composed between 10th and 12th century. Probodh Chandra
Bagchi upholds this view. Sukumar Sen while supporting this view maintained that Charyapada could have been
written between 11th and 14th century.[5] However, Muhammad Shahidullah was of the opinion that Charyapada

Charyapada
dates back to earlier time. He maintained that it was likely to have been composed between 7th and 11th century.[6]
Rahul Sankrityayan thought that Charyapada was probably written between 8th and 11th century.

Controversies
There is controversy about meaning of some words. Different linguists have diverse opinion about the real meaning
of certain words.
It has been said that Charyapada was written in early form of Bengali[7] and Oriya.[]Scholars of other languages
claimed that it was written in Nepalese, Gujarati, Hindi, Maithili, and Assamese. Some scholars believe its words are
more similar to Bishnupriya Manipuri rather than Bengali. It is claimed that Charyapada is the oldest record of
Bishnupriya Manipuri literature.[citation needed]

Language
Haraprasad Shastri in his introduction to the Charyacharya-vinishchaya referred to the enigmatic language of its
verses as 'Twilight Language' (Sanskrit: Sandhya-bhasha), or Alo-andhari (half expressed and half concealed) based
on the Sanskrit commentary of Munidatta. But later Vidhushekhara Shastri on the basis of evidences from a number
of Buddhist texts referred to this language as 'Intentional Language' (Sanskrit: Sandha-bhasha).[8]
The Charyapadas were written by poets from different regions, and it is natural that they would display linguistic
affinities from these regions. Different scholars claimed the affinities of the language of Charyapada with Assamese,
Bengali, Maithili, and Oriya.[9]

Affinities with Assamese

Luipa, also known as Matsyendranath, was from Kamarupa and wrote two charyas. Sarahapa, another poet, is said to
have been from Rani, a place close to present-day Guwahati. Some of the affinities with Assamese are:[10]
Negatives the negative particle in Assamese comes ahead of the verb: na ji (No. 2, 15, 20, 29); na jivami (No. 4);
na chadaa, na jani, na disaa (No. 6). Charya 15 has 9 such forms.
Present participles the suffix -ante is used as in Assamese of the Vaishnava period: jvante (while living, No. 22);
sunante (while listening, No. 30) etc.
Incomplete verb forms suffixes -i and -iya used in modern and old Assamese respectively: kari (3, 38); cumbi
(4); maria (11); laia (28) etc.
Present indefinite verb forms -ai: bhanai (1); tarai (5); pivai (6).
Future the -iva suffix: haiba (5); kariba (7).
Nominative case ending case ending in e: kumbhire khaa, core nila (2).
Instrumental case ending case ending -e and -era: uju bate gela (15); kuthare chijaa (45).
The vocabulary of the Charyapadas includes non-tatsama words which are typically Assamese, such as dala (1),
thira kari (3, 38), tai (4), uju (15), caka (14) etc.

Affinities with Oriya

The beginnings of Oriya poetry coincide with the development of Charya Sahitya, the literature thus started by
Mahayana Buddhist poets.[11] This literature was written in a specific metaphor named Sandhya Bhasha and the
poets like Luipa, Kanhupa are from the territory of Odisha. The language of Charya was considered as Prakrta. In his
book (Ascharya Charyachaya) Karunakar Kar has mentioned that Odisha is the origin of Charyapada as the
Vajrayana school of Buddhism evolved there and started female worship in Buddhism. Worship of Matri Dakini and
the practice of "Kaya sadhana" are the outcome of such new culture. Buddhist scholars like Indrabhuti and
Lakshminkara and Padmasambhava were born in Odisha.[12]The ideas and experience of Kaya sadhana and Shaki
upasana (worshiping female principle) which were created by Adi siddhas and have poetic expressions are found in

74

Charyapada
the lyrics of Charyapada. These were the first ever found literary documentation of Prakrit and Apabhramsa which
are the primitive form of languages of eastern Indian origin. The poets of Charyapada prominently are from this
region and their thought and writing style has influenced to the poems in early Oriya literature which is evidently
prominent in the 16th century Oriya poetry written majorly in Panchasakha period.[]
In one of his poem, an author, Kanhupa wrote:
Your hut stands outside the city
Oh, untouchable maid
The bald Brahmin passes sneaking close by
Oh, my maid, I would make you my companion
Kanha is a kapali, a yogi
He is naked and has no disgust

There is a lotus with sixty-four petals

Upon that the maid will climb with this poor self and dance.
The language of Kanhupa's poetry bears a very strong resemblance to modern Oriya. For example :
Ekaso padumo chowshathi pakhudi
Tahin chadhi nachao dombi bapudi
Padumo (Padma:Lotus), Chaushathi (64), Pakhudi (petals) Tahin (there), Chadhi (climb/rise), nachao (to dance),
Dombi (an Oriya female belonging to scheduled caste), Bapudi ( a very colloquial Oriya language to apply as 'poor
fellow' )
or
Hali Dombi, Tote puchhami sadbhabe.
Isisi jasi dombi kahari nabe.

75

Charyapada

76

These passages do not require any translation into modern Oriya language.[13]

Affinities with Bengali

A number of Siddhacharyas who wrote the verses of Charyapada were from Bengal. Shabarpa, Kukkuripa and
Bhusukupa were born in different parts of Bengal. Some of the affinities with Bengali can be found from[14] the
genitive in -era, -ara; the dative in re; the locative in ta; post-positional words like maajha, antara, saanga;
past and future bases in il-, -ib-; present participle in anta; conjunctive indeclinable in iaa; conjunctive
conditional in ite; passive in ia- and substantive roots aach and thaak.

Melodies
From the mention of the name of the Rga (melody) for the each Pada at the beginning of it in the manuscript, it
seems that these Padas were actually sung. All 50 Padas were set to the tunes of different Rgas. The most common
Rga for Charyapada songs was Patamanjari.
Raga

Pada

Patamanjari

1, 6, 7, 9, 11, 17, 20, 29, 31, 33, 36

Gabad or Gaud

2, 3, 18

Aru

Gurjari, Gunjari or Kanha-Gunjari 5, 22, 41, 47

Devakri

Deshkha

10, 32

Kmod

13, 27, 37, 42

Dhanasi or Dhanashri

14

Rmakri

15, 50

Balddi or Bardi

21, 23, 28, 34

Shabari

26, 46

Mallri

30, 35, 44, 45, 49

Mlasi

39

Mlasi-Gabur

40

Bangl

43

Bhairavi

12, 16, 19, 38

While, some of these Rgas are extinct, the names of some of these Rgas may be actually the variants of the names
of the popular Rgas as we know them today.[15]

Glimpses of social life

Many poems provide a realistic picture of early medieval society in eastern India by describing different occupations
of people such as hunters, boatmen, and potters. The geographical locations,, namely Banga and Kamarupa, are
referred to in the poems. Names of the two rivers that occur are the Ganga and Yamuna. River Padma has been
referred to as a canal. Two occupations are mentioned. These are weaving, woodcutter and hunting. No reference to
agriculture is available. Reference to prostitution by women occurs. The boat was the main mode of transport. Some
description of wedding ceremony is also available.[16]

Charyapada

Translations
Produced below is English translation of the first verse of Charyapada. It was composed by Buddhist Siddhacharya
poet Luipa.
The body is like the finest tree, with five branches.
Darkness enters the restless mind.
Strengthen the quantity of Great Bliss, says Luyi.
Learn from asking the Guru.
Why does one meditate?
Surely one dies of happiness or unhappiness.
Set aside binding and fastening in false hope.
Embrace the wings of the Void.
Luyi says : I have seen this in meditation
Inhalation and exhalation are seated on two stools.
This piece has been rendered into English by Hasna Jasimuddin Moudud.[17]

Notes
[2] Bagchi Prabodhchandra, Materials for a critical edition of the old Bengali Caryapadas (A comparative study of the text and Tibetan
translation) Part I in Journal of the Department of Letters, Vol.XXX, pp. 1156,Calcutta University, Calcutta,1938 CE
[3] Sen Sukumar (1995). Charyageeti Padavali (in Bengali), Kolkata: Ananda Publishers, ISBN 81-7215-458-5, pp.2930
[4] Debaprasad Bandyopadhyay In Search of Linguistics of Silence : Caryapada (http:/ / ssrn. com/ abstract=2040442)
[5] Sen Sukumar (1991) [1940]. Bangala Sahityer Itihas, Vol.I, (in Bengali), Kolkata: Ananda Publishers, ISBN 81-7066-966-9, p.55
[6] Muhammad Shahidullah : Bangala Bhashar Itibritto, 2006, Mawla Brothers, Dhaka
[7] The Origin and Development of the Bengali Language, by Sunitikumer Chottopadhya
[8] Indian Historical Quarterly, Vol.IV, No.1, 1928 CE, pp.287296
[9] Majumdar, R.C. (ed.). (2006) The Delhi Sultanate, Mumbai: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, p.519
[10] Language and Literature from The Comprehensive History of Assam Vol 1, ed H K Barpujari, Guwahati 1990
[11] Mukherjee, Prabhat. The History of medieval Vaishnavism in Orissa. Chapter : The Sidhacharyas in Orissa Page:55.
[12] Kar. Karunakar. Ascharya Charyachaya
[13] Rajguru, Satyanarayan. Cultural History of Orissa (in Oriya). Published by Orissa Sahitya Academy, 1988)
[14] Chatterjee, S.K. The Origin and Development of Bengali Language, Vol.1, Calcutta, 1926, pp.112
[15] Roy, Niharranjan, Bangalir Itihas: Adiparba (in Bengali), Deys Publishing, Calcutta, 1993 CE, ISBN 81-7079-270-3, pp 637
[16] Social Life in Charjapad by Anisuzzaman
[17] Hasna Jasimuddin Moudud : A Thousand year of Bengali Mystic Poetry, 1992, Dhaka, University Press Limited.

References
1. Dasgupta Sashibhusan, Obscure Religious Cults,Firma KLM, Calcutta, 1969, ISBN 81-7102-020-8.
2. Sen Sukumar, Charyageeti Padavali (in Bengali), Ananda Publishers, 1st edition, Kolkata, 1995, ISBN
81-7215-458-5.
3. Shastri Haraprasad (ed.), Hajar Bacharer Purano Bangala Bhasay Bauddhagan O Doha (in Bengali), Bangiya
Sahitya Parishad, 3rd edition, Kolkata, 1413 Bangabda (2006).

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Charyapada

78

Further reading
Charjapad Samiksha by Dr. Dr. Belal Hossain, Dhaka : Borno Bichitrra.
Bangala Bhasar Itibrtta, by Dr. Muhammad Shahidullah, 1959, Dhaka.

External links
Milansagar (http://www.milansagar.com/kobi-charjageeti.html)
Some Charjapad poems in English translation (http://web.archive.org/web/20091026210552/http://www.
geocities.com/kavitayan/charyagiti.html)
Charyapada in Bangla script (http://www.stat.wisc.edu/~deepayan/Bengali/WebPage/Archive/
zzzCharyapad/archive.bn.html)
An English translation of 48 Charyapadas (http://web.archive.org/web/20091026210552/http://www.
geocities.com/kavitayan/charyagiti.html)
Writing at Twilight: "O' Shariputra, the sandhaa-bhashya of the Tathaagatas is very difficult." by Layne Little
(http://tamil.berkeley.edu/Research/Articles/Twilight.html)

Bhakti movement
An article related to

Hinduism

Hindu
History

Hinduism portal

Hindu Mythology
portal

Bhakti movement is a Hindu religious movement in which the main spiritual practice is loving devotion among the
Shaivite and Vaishnava saints.

History
The Bhakti movement originated in ancient Tamil Nadu. The Nayanmars and the Alvars played a major role in the
Bhakti movement. It began to spread to the north during the late medieval ages when north India was under Islamic
rule. The Hindus were converting in large numbers, especially the lower castes. The reason for this was that
Hinduism had no solution for the centuries old caste system which had become stagnant and exploitative over the
time.[] The Bhakti movement was counter to the prevalent caste ideology which was dividing Hindus. So, the Bhakti
movement has its own importance in saving Hinduism. There was no grouping of the mystics into Shaiva and
Vaishnava devotees as in the south. The movement was spontaneous and the mystics had their own versions of
devotional expression.

Bhakti movement
Unlike in the south, where devotion was centered on both Shiva and Vishnu (in all his forms), the northern
devotional movement was centered on Rama and Krishna, both of whom are believed to be incarnations of Vishnu.
Despite this, the sects of Shiva or of Vishnu did not go into decline. In fact for all of its history the Bhakti movement
co-existed peacefully with the other movements in Hinduism. It was initially considered unorthodox, as it rebelled
against caste distinctions and disregarded Brahmanic rituals, which according to Bhakti saints were not necessary for
salvation. In the course of time, however, owing to its immense popularity among the masses (and even gaining
royal patronage) it became 'orthodox' and continues to be one of the most important modes of religious expression in
modern India.
During the 14th17th centuries, a great Bhakti movement swept through central and northern India, initiated by a
loosely associated group of teachers or sants. Ramananda, Ravidas, Srimanta Sankardeva, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu,
Vallabhacharya, Surdas, Meera Bai, Kabir, Tulsidas, Namdev, Dnyaneshwar, Tukaram and other mystics
spearheaded the Bhakti movement in the North while Annamacharya, Bhadrachala Ramadas, Tyagaraja among
others propagated Bhakti in the South. They taught that people could cast aside the heavy burdens of ritual and caste,
and the subtle complexities of philosophy, and simply express their overwhelming love for God. This period was
also characterized by a spate of devotional literature in vernacular prose and poetry in the ethnic languages of the
various Indian states or provinces.
While many of the Bhakti mystics focused their attention on Krishna or Rama, it did not necessarily mean that the
sect of Shiva was marginalized. In the twelfth century Basava founded the ViraShaiva school or Virashaivism. He
rejected the caste system, denied the supremacy of the Brahmins, condemned ritual sacrifice and insisted on Bhakti
and the worship of the one God, Shiva. His followers were called Vira-Shaivas, meaning "stalwart
Shiva-worshipers". One of the prominent figure in this tradition is Akka Mahadevi, a contemporary of Basava.
Seminal Bhakti works in Bengali include the many songs of Ramprasad Sen. His pieces are known as Shyama
Sangeet. Coming from the 17th century, they cover an astonishing range of emotional responses to Ma Kali,
detailing philosophical statements based on Vedanta teachings and more visceral pronouncements of his love of
Devi. Using inventive allegory, Ramprasad had 'dialogues' with the Mother Goddess through his poetry, at times
chiding her, adoring her, celebrating her as the Divine Mother, reckless consort of Shiva and capricious Shakti, the
universal female creative energy, of the cosmos. In 19th century Ramakrishna Parmahansa led a life of devotion and
surrender to Ma Kali.
Mirabai was one of the bhakti poets

Rama Bhakti
Ramananda was the leader of the Bhakti movement focusing on Rama as God. Very little is known about him, but he
is believed to have lived in the first half of the 15th century. He taught that Lord Rama is the supreme Lord, and that
salvation could be attained only through love for and devotion to him, and through the repetition of his sacred name.
Ramananda's ashram in Varanasi became a powerful center of religious influence, from which his ideas spread far
and wide among all classes of Indians. One of the reasons for his great popularity was that he renounced Sanskrit and
used the language of the people for the composition of his hymns. This paved the way for the modern tendency in
northern India to write literary texts in local languages.
Devotees of Krishna worship him in different mellows, known as rasas. Two major systems of Krishna worship
developed, each with its own philosophical system. These two systems are aishwaryamaya Bhakti and
madhuryamaya Bhakti. Aishwaryamaya Bhakti is revealed in the abode of queens and kingdom of Krishna in
Dwaraka. Madhuryamaya Bhakti is revealed in the abode of braja. Thus Krishna is worshiped according to the
development of devotees' taste in worshiping the Supreme Personality of Godhead (Krishna) as father, friend, master
or beloved.

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Bhakti movement
Shri Madhvacharya (12381317) born at Pajaka near Udupi advocated Dwait philosophy. He defeated many
scholars in religious debates identified God with Vishnu. His view of reality is purely dualistic, in that he understood
a fundamental differentiation between the ultimate Godhead and the individual soul, and the system is therefore
called Dvaita (dualistic) Vedanta. Madhva is considered one of the most influential theologians in Hindu history. His
influence was profound, and he is one of the fathers of the Vaishnava Bhakti movement. Great leaders of the
Vaishnava Bhakti movement in Karnataka like Purandara Dasa, Kanaka Dasa, Raghavendra Swami and many others
were influenced by Dvaita traditions.
Srimanta Sankardeva's (14491568) propagated his school of thought, called Ekasarana Dharma, in the greater
Assam region. An example of dasya Bhakti, there is no place for Radha in this tradition. The most important symbol
of this tradition is the namghar or prayer hall, which dot Assam's landscape. This form of worship is very strong in
Assam today, and much of the traditions are maintained by the monasteries (Sattras).
Vallabhacharya (14791531) called his school of thought Shuddhadvaita, or pure monism. According to him, it is by
God's grace alone that one can obtain release from bondage and attain Krishna's heaven. This heaven is far above the
"heavens" of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, for Krishna is the eternal Brahman.
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (14861534) defined his system of philosophy as Achintya Bheda Abheda (inconceivable
and simultaneous oneness and difference). It synthesizes elements of monism and dualism into a single system.
Chaitanya's philosophy is taught by the contemporary International Society for Krishna Consciousness, or Hare
Krishna movement.

Vaishnava Bhakti
Vaishnava Bhakti is the devotion to Vishnu and his avatars, such as Krishna. Prominent historical personalities
include:

Ramanujacharya
Madhvacharya
Nimbarka
Vallabhacharya
Srimanta Sankardeva
Swaminarayan
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu

Shaiva-Siddhanta
The Shaiva Siddhanta school is a form of Shaivism found in the south and is of hoary antiquity. It incorporates the
teachings of the Shaiva nayanars and espouses the belief that Shiva is Brahman and his infinite love is revealed in
the divine acts of the creation, preservation and destruction of the universe, and in the liberation of the soul.

Influences
Beyond the confines of such formal schools and movements, however, the development of Bhakti as a major form of
Hindu practice has left an indelible stamp on the faith. Philosophical speculation was of concern to the elite, and
even the great Advaitist scholar Adi Shankaracharya, when questioned as to the way to God, said that chanting the
name of the lord was essential. The philosophical schools changed the way people thought, but Bhakti was
immediately accessible to all, calling to the instinctive emotion of love and redirecting it to the highest pursuit of
God and self-realization. In general a liberal movement, its denouncement of caste offered recourse for Hindus from
the orthodox Brahaminical systems. Of course Bhakti's message of tolerance and love was not often heeded by those
ensconced in the societal construct of caste. Altogether, Bhakti resulted in a mass of devotional literature, music and
art that has enriched the world and given India renewed spiritual impetus, one eschewing unnecessary ritual and

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Bhakti movement
artificial social boundaries.

References
1. Schouten, pages 1126
2. Karavelane Kareikkalammeiyar, oeuvres editees et traduites, Institut francais d'indologie, Pondicherry (1956)
3. Jagadeesan, N., The Life and Mission of Karaikkal Ammaiyar Bhattacharya, N.N. [ed] Medieval Bhakti
Movements in India, Munishiram Manoharlal, New Delhi, (1989), pages 149-161

Bibliography
Schouten, Jan Peter (Dutch) Goddelijke vergezichten - mystiek uit India voor westerse lezers, Ten Have b.v.,
Baarn, the Netherlands, 1996, www.iloveindia.com, ISBN 90-259-4644-5

External links
The full text of the Bhagavata Purana (Srimad-Bhagavatam) (http://srimadbhagavatam.com/1/3/28/en1)

Minstrel
A minstrel was a medieval European bard who performed songs whose lyrics told stories of distant places or of
existing or imaginary historical events. Although minstrels created their own tales, often they would memorize and
embellish the works of others. [1] Frequently they were retained by royalty and high society. As the courts became
more sophisticated, minstrels were eventually replaced at court by the troubadours, and many became wandering
minstrels, performing in the streets and became well-liked until the middle of the Renaissance, despite a decline
beginning in the late 15th century. Minstrelsy fed into later traditions of travelling entertainers, which continued to
be moderately strong into the early 20th century, and which has some continuity down to today's buskers or street
musicians.

History
Initially, minstrels were simply servants at Court, and entertained the lord and courtiers with chansons de geste or
their local equivalent. The term minstrel derives from Old French mnestrel (also menesterel, menestral), which is a
derivative from Italian ministrello (also menestrello), from Middle Latin ministralis "retainer," an adjective form of
Latin minister, "attendant" from minus, "lesser".
In Anglo-Saxon England before the Norman Conquest, the professional poet was known as a scop ("shaper" or
"maker"), who composed his own poems, and sang them to the accompaniment of a harp. In a rank much beneath the
scop, were the gleemen, who had no settled abode, but roamed about from place to place, earning what they could
from their performances. Late in the 13th century, the term minstrel began to be used to designate a performer who
amused his lord with music and song.
In a complex way involving invasions, wars, conquests, etc., two categories of composers originated. Poets like
Chaucer and John Gower appeared in one category wherein music was not a part. Minstrels, on the other hand,
swarmed at feasts and festivals in great numbers with harps, fiddles, bagpipes, flutes, flageolets, citterns, and
kettledrums.
As early as 1321, the minstrels of Paris were formed into a guild. A guild of royal minstrels was organized in
England in 1469. Minstrels were required to either join the guild or to abstain from practising their craft. Some
minstrels were retained by lords as jesters who, in some cases, also practised the art of juggling. Some were women,
or women who followed minstrels in their travels. Minstrels throughout Europe also employed trained animals, such

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Minstrel

82

as bears. Minstrels in Europe died out slowly, having gone nearly extinct by about 1700, though isolated individuals
working in the tradition existed even into the early 19th century.

References
[1] A history of English literature: in a series of biographical sketches, By William Francis Collier

External links
Stella Fortuna: Medieval Minstrels (1370) (http://stellafortuna.yecompaynyeofcheualrye.com/), from Ye
Compaynye of Cheualrye Re-enactment Society. Photos and Audio Download.
Essays on the Origin of Western Music (http://www.whitwellessays.com/docs/DOC_979.doc). Word
Document Download.
Edward II and Minstrels (31 Jan 2009) (http://edwardthesecond.blogspot.com/2009/01/
edward-ii-and-minstrels.html), Edward II Blog.
Terry Jones' Medieval Lives (2004) (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0846544/), Season 1, Episode 6.

Bengal
Bengal

Map of the Bengal region: West Bengal and Bangladesh

[1]

Largest Cities

Dhaka
[2]
23.42N 90.22E
Kolkata
[3]
23.34N 88.22E

Mainlanguage

Bengali (Bangla)

Area

232,752km

Population (2001)

245,598,679

Density

951.3/km

[][4]

[][4]

Infant mortality rate 55.91 per 1000 live births[5][6]

Websites

westbengal.gov.in

[7]

and bangladesh.gov.bd

[8]

Bengal (Bengali: BanglaWikipedia:Media helpImage:bangla.ogg, Bengali: Banga or Bngo) is a

historical and geographical ethno-linguistic region in South Asia, located in eastern region of the Indian
subcontinent, at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, the region is divided between Bangladesh and India. Within
India, the Bengali-sphere consists of the states of West Bengal and Tripura, as well as parts of Assam. The region is
native to the Bengali people, ( Bangali) who speak the Indo-Aryan Bengali language ( Bangla), as
well as various indigenous minorities, including the Santal, Chakma, Tripuri, Garo and Marma peoples. The Indian
Union Territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal are also home to a Bengali-speaking
majority population. Anga was annexed by Magadha in the time of Bimbisara.

Bengal
The region of Bengal is one of the most densely populated regions on Earth, with an estimated population of more
than 250 million people and a population density exceeding 900/km. Most of the Bengal region lies in the low-lying
GangesBrahmaputra River Delta or Ganges Delta, the world's largest delta. In the southern part of the delta lies the
Sundarbansthe world's largest mangrove forest and home of the Bengal tiger. In the coastal southeast lies Cox's
Bazar, the world's longest beach with a length of 120km (75mi). Though the population of the region is mostly rural
and agrarian, two megacities, Kolkata (previously Calcutta) and Dhaka (previously Dacca); are located in Bengal.
The Bengal region is renowned for its rich literary and cultural heritage; as well as its immense political and
intellectual contribution to South Asian history, through the Bengal Renaissance and revolutionary activities; and its
central role in the Indian independence movement; the creation of Pakistan; Bengali language movement and the
liberation of Bangladesh.

Etymology
The exact origin of the word Bangla or Bengal is unknown, though it is believed to be derived from the
Dravidian-speaking tribe Bang that settled in the area around the year 1000 BC.[]
Vanga (Greater Bengal) was a kingdom during the times of Mahabharata.
Other accounts speculate that the name is derived from Banga ( bngo), which came from the Austric word
"Bonga" meaning the Sun-god. The word Banga and other words speculated to refer to Bengal (such as Anga) can be
found in ancient Indian texts including the Vedas, Jaina texts, the Mahabharata and Puranas. The earliest reference to
"Bangala" ( bngal) has been traced in the Nesari plates (805 AD) of Rashtrakuta Govinda III which speak of
Dharmapala as the king of Vangala.[9]
Some accounts claim that the word may derive from bhang, a preparation of cannabis which is used in some
religious ceremonies in Bengal.[10][11] Dravidians migrated to Bengal from the south, while Tibeto-Burman peoples
migrated from the Himalayas,[] followed by the Indo-Aryans from north-western India. The modern Bengali people
are a blend of these people. Smaller numbers of Pathans, Persians, Arabs and Turks also migrated to the region in the
late Middle Ages while spreading Islam.

83

Bengal

84

History
Bengal

Rabindranath Tagore was Asia's first Nobel laureate

and composer of Jana Gana Mana the national anthem
of India as well as Amar Shonar Bangla the national
anthem of Bangladesh.

Subhas Chandra Bose was one of the most prominent

leaders and freedom fighters from Bengal in the
Indian independence movement against the British
Raj.

Raja Ram Mohan Roy is regarded as the

"Father of the Bengal Renaissance"

1893 map of Bengal

Bengal

85

The loss of the Battle of Plassey, 1757, and the execution of

the last independent Nawab of Bengal marks the start of
British rule over Bengal.

1776 map of Bengal and Bihar by James Rennell

Pala Empire under Dharmapala.

Somapura Mahavihara in Paharpur, Bangladesh is the greatest

Buddhist Vihara in the Indian Subcontinent built by Dharmapala of
Bengal.

Mahasthangarh is the oldest archaeological site in

Bangladesh. It dates back to 700 BC and was the
ancient capital of the Pundra Kingdom.

Asia in 323 BC, the Nanda Empire of Magadha and Gangaridai Empire
of Bengal in relation to Alexander's Empire and neighbours.

Remnants of Copper Age settlements in the Bengal region date back 4,300 years.[][] After the arrival of Indo-Aryans,
the kingdoms of Anga, Vanga, and Magadha were formed by the 10th century BC, located in the Bihar and Bengal
regions. Magadha was one of the four main kingdoms of India at the time of Buddha and consisted of several

Bengal
Janapadas.[] One of the earliest foreign references to Bengal is the mention of a land named Gangaridai by the
Greeks around 100 BC, located in an area in Bengal.[] From the 3rd to the 6th centuries AD, the kingdom of
Magadha served as the seat of the Gupta Empire.
The first recorded independent king of Bengal was Shashanka who reigned in the early 7th century.[] After a period
of anarchy, the native Buddhist Pala Empire ruled the region for four hundred years, and expanded across much of
the Indian subcontinent into Afghanistan during the reigns of Dharmapala and Devapala. The Pala dynasty was
followed by the reign of the Hindu Saiva Sena dynasty. Islam made its first appearance in Bengal during the 12th
century when Sufi missionaries arrived. Later, occasional Muslim raiders reinforced the process of conversion by
building mosques, madrassas, and Sufi Khanqah. Beginning in 1202 a military commander from the Delhi Sultanate,
Bakhtiar Khilji, overran Bihar and Bengal as far east as Rangpur, Bogra, and the Brahmaputra River. Although he
failed to bring Bengal under his control, the expedition managed to defeat Lakshman Sen and his two sons moved to
a place then called Vikramapur (present-day Munshiganj District), where their diminished dominion lasted until the
late 13th century.
During the 14th century, the former kingdom became known as the Sultanate of Bengal, ruled intermittently with the
Sultanate of Delhi as well as powerful Hindu states and land-lords-Baro-Bhuyans. The Hindu Deva Kingdom ruled
over eastern Bengal after the collapse Sena Empire. The Sultanate of Bengal was interrupted by an uprising by the
Hindus under Raja Ganesha. The Ganesha dynasty began in 1414, but his successors converted to Islam. Bengal
came once more under the control of Delhi as the Mughals conquered it in 1576. There were several independent
Hindu states established in Bengal during the Mughal period like those of Maharaja Pratap Aditya of Jessore and
Raja Sitaram Ray of Burdwan. These kingdoms contributed a lot to the economic and cultural landscape of Bengal.
Extensive land reclamations in forested and marshy areas were carried out and trade as well as commerce were
highly encouraged. These kingdoms also helped introduce new music, painting, dancing, and sculpture into Bengali
art forms. Also, many temples were constructed during this period. Militarily, they served as bulwarks against
Portuguese and Burmese attacks. Koch Bihar Kingdom in the northern Bengal, flourished during the period of 16th
and the 17th centuries as well as weathered the Mughals and survived till the advent of the British.
In 1534, the ethnic Afghan Pashtun Sher Shah Suri, or Farid Khan a man of incredible military and political skill
succeeded in defeating the superior forces of the Mughals under Humayun at Chausa (1539) and Kannauj (1540).
Sher Shah fought back and captured both Delhi and Agra and established a kingdom stretching far into Punjab. Sher
Shah's administrative skill showed in his public works, including the Grand Trunk Road connecting Sonargaon in
Bengal with Peshawar in the Hindu Kush. Sher Shah's rule ended with his death in 1545. In those five years his reign
would have a powerful influence on Indian society, politics, and economics.
Shah Suri's successors lacked his administrative skill, and quarrelled over the domains of his empire. Humayun, who
then ruled a rump Mughal state, saw an opportunity and in 1554 seized Lahore and Delhi. Humayun died in January
of 1556. By this time Hemu (also called Hem Chandra Vikramaditya), the then Hindu prime minister-cum- Chief of
Army, of the Sur dynasty, had already won Bengal in the battle at Chapperghatta. In this battle Hemu killed
Muhammad Shah, the then ruler of Bengal. This was Hemu's 20th continuous win in North India. Knowing of
Humanyun's death, Hemu rushed to Delhi to win Agra and later on Delhi. Hemu established 'Hindu Raj' in North
India on 6 Oct 1556, after 300 years of Muslim rule, leaving Bengal to his Governor Shahbaz Khan. Akbar, the
greatest of the Mughal emperors, defeated the Karani rulers of Bengal in 1576. Bengal became a Mughal subah and
ruled through subahdars (governors). Akbar exercised progressive rule and oversaw a period of prosperity (through
trade and development) in Bengal and northern India.
Bengal's trade and wealth impressed the Mughals so much that they called the region the Paradise of the Nations.
Administration by governors appointed by the court of the Mughal Empire court (15751717) gave way to four
decades of semi-independence under the Nawabs of Murshidabad, who respected the nominal sovereignty of the
Mughals in Delhi. The Nawabs granted permission to the French East India Company to establish a trading post at
Chandernagore in 1673, and the British East India Company at Calcutta in 1690. The most notable among them is

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Bengal
Murshid Quli Khan, who was succeeded by Alivardi Khan. Around the early 1700s, the Maratha Empire led
expeditions in Bengal. The leader of the expedition was Maratha Maharaja Raghuji of Nagpur. Raghoji was able to
annexe Odisha and parts of Bengal permanently as he successfully exploited the chaotic conditions prevailing in the
region after the death of their Governor Murshid Quli Khan in 1727.[12] The expeditions resulted in Bengal
becoming a tributary region of the Marathas.
Portuguese traders arrived late in the fifteenth century, once Vasco da Gama reached India by sea in 1498. European
influence grew until the British East India Company gained taxation rights in Bengal subah, or province, following
the Battle of Plassey in 1757, when Siraj ud-Daulah, the last independent Nawab, was defeated by the British.[] The
Bengal Presidency was established by 1766, eventually including all British territories north of the Central Provinces
(now Madhya Pradesh), from the mouths of the Ganges and the Brahmaputra to the Himalayas and the Punjab. The
Bengal famine of 1770 claimed millions of lives.[] Calcutta was named the capital of British India in 1772. The
Bengal Renaissance and Brahmo Samaj socio-cultural reform movements had great impact on the cultural and
economic life of Bengal. The failed Indian rebellion of 1857 started near Calcutta and resulted in transfer of
authority to the British Crown, administered by the Viceroy of India.[] Between 1905 and 1911, an abortive attempt
was made to divide the province of Bengal into two zones.[] As a direct consequence of this failed attempt to
partition Bengal, the British moved the capital of British India from Calcutta to Delhi.
Bengal has played a major role in the Indian independence movement, in which revolutionary groups were
dominant. Armed attempts to overthrow the British Raj reached a climax when Subhas Chandra Bose led the Indian
National Army against the British. Bengal was also central in the rising political awareness of the Muslim
populationthe Muslim League was established in Dhaka in 1906. In spite of a last-ditch effort to form a United
Bengal,[] when India gained independence in 1947, Bengal was partitioned along religious lines.[] The western part
went to India (and was named West Bengal) while the eastern part joined Pakistan as a province called East Bengal
(later renamed East Pakistan, giving rise to Bangladesh in 1971). The circumstances of partition were bloody, with
widespread religious riots in Bengal.[][]

Post-1947 history
The area of Bengal expanded somewhat around this time. First, most of the Sylhet area joined East Bengal from
Assam, and then Puruliya was transferred to West Bengal from Bihar. The post-partition political history of East and
West Bengal diverged for the most part. Starting from the Bengali Language Movement of 1952,[] political dissent
against West Pakistani domination grew steadily. The Awami League, led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, emerged as
the political voice of the Bengali-speaking population of East Pakistan by 1960s.[] In 1971, the crisis deepened when
Rahman was arrested and a sustained military assault was launched on East Pakistan.[] Most of the Awami League
leaders fled and set up a government-in-exile in West Bengal. The guerrilla Mukti Bahini and Bengali regulars
eventually received support from the Indian Armed Forces in December 1971, resulting in a decisive victory over
Pakistan on 16 December in the Bangladesh Liberation War or Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.[] The post independence
history of Bangladesh had been of rife political conflict, with a long history of political assassinations and coups
before parliamentary democracy was established in 1991. Since then, the political environment has been relatively
stable.
West Bengal, the western part of Bengal, became a state in India. In the 1960s and 1970s, severe power shortages,
strikes and a violent Marxist-Naxalite movement damaged much of the state's infrastructure, leading to a period of
economic stagnation. The Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 resulted in the influx of millions of refugees to West
Bengal, causing significant strains on its infrastructure.[] West Bengal politics underwent a major change when the
Left Front won the 1977 assembly election, defeating the incumbent Indian National Congress. The Left Front, led
by Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)) governed the state for over three decades. The state's economic
recovery gathered momentum after economic reforms in India were introduced in the mid-1990s by the central
government, aided by election of a new reformist Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya in 2000. In the West

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Bengal

88

Bengal state assembly election, 2011,in West Bengal, CPI(M) alliance with 62 seats suffered a setback after 34 years
of continuous rule, losing to Trinamool Congress led alliance's 226 seats. Its Chief Minister candidate who was also
an incumbent Chief Minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee also lost from his Jadavpur assembly constituency.[]

Geography
Most of the Bengal region is in the low-lying GangesBrahmaputra River Delta or Ganges Delta. The Ganges Delta
arises from the confluence of the rivers Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna rivers and their respective tributaries.
The total area of Bengal is 232,752 kmWest Bengal is 88,752km2 (34,267sqmi) and Bangladesh 147,570 km2
(56,977sqmi).
Most parts of Bangladesh are within 10 meters (33ft) above the sea level, and it is believed that about 10% of the
land would be flooded if the sea level were to rise by 1-metre (3ft).[] Because of this low elevation, much of this
region is exceptionally vulnerable to seasonal flooding due to monsoons. The highest point in Bangladesh is in
Mowdok range at 1,052metres (3,451ft) in the Chittagong Hill Tracts to the southeast of the country.[13] A major
part of the coastline comprises a marshy jungle, the Sundarbans, the largest mangrove forest in the world and home
to diverse flora and fauna, including the Royal Bengal Tiger. In 1997, this region was declared endangered.[]
West Bengal is on the eastern bottleneck of India, stretching from the Himalayas in the north to the Bay of Bengal in
the south. The state has a total area of 88,752 km2 (34,267 sq mi).[] The Darjeeling Himalayan hill region in the
northern extreme of the state belongs to the eastern Himalaya. This region contains Sandakfu (3,636 m (11,929
ft))the highest peak of the state.[] The narrow Terai region separates this region from the plains, which in turn
transitions into the Ganges delta towards the south. The Rarh region intervenes between the Ganges delta in the east
and the western plateau and high lands. A small coastal region is on the extreme south, while the Sundarbans
mangrove forests form a remarkable geographical landmark at the Ganges delta.
At least nine districts in West Bengal and 42 districts in Bangladesh have arsenic levels in groundwater above the
World Health Organization maximum permissible limit of 50g/L (micro gram per litre) or 50 parts per billion and
the untreated water is unfit for human consumption.[] The water causes arsenicosis, skin cancer and various other
complications in the body. Arsenic is four times as poisonous as mercury.

Major cities
The following are the largest cities in Bengal (in terms of population):
List of major cities in Bengal
Rank

City

Country

Population

Dhaka

Bangladesh

11,664,093

Kolkata

India

4,486,679

Chittagong

Bangladesh

4,079,862

Narayanganj

Bangladesh

1,572,386

Khulna

Bangladesh

1,490,835

Gazipur

Bangladesh

1,279,660

Howrah

India

1,072,161

Rajshahi

Bangladesh

842,701

Siliguri

India

603,940

10

Durgapur

India

557,603
[]

Source: World Gazetteer 2012

Bengal

89
This is a list of each city's urban populations and does not indicate total district populations

Demographics
Main articles: Demographics of Bangladesh and Demographics of West Bengal
About 252 million people live in Bengal, around 64% of them in Bangladesh and the remainder in West Bengal.[][14]
The population density in the area is more than 900/km; making it among the most densely populated areas in the
world.[][4]
Bengali is the main language spoken in Bengal. English is often used for official work. There are small minorities
who speak Hindi, Urdu, Chakma. There are several tribal languages including Santhali.
69.6% of the total Bengali population is Muslim, and 28.5% is Hindu.[citation needed] Life expectancy is around 63
years, and are almost same for the men and women.[][] In terms of literacy, West Bengal leads with 77% literacy
rate,[] in Bangladesh the rate is approximately 53.5%.[] The level of poverty and illiteracy is high, the proportion of
people living below the poverty line is more than 30%.[][15]
About 20,000 people live on chars. Chars are temporary islands formed by the deposition of sediments eroded off the
banks of the Ganges in West Bengal which often disappear in the monsoon season. They are made of very fertile
soil. The inhabitants of chars are not recognised by the Government of West Bengal on the grounds that it is not
known whether they are Bengalis or Bangladeshi refugees. Consequently, no identification documents are issued to
char-dwellers who cannot benefit from health care, barely survive due to very poor sanitation and are prevented from
emigrating to the mainland to find jobs when they have turned 14. On a particular char it was reported that 13% of
women died at childbirth.[16]

Economy
Agriculture is the leading occupation in the region. Rice is the staple food crop. Other food crops are pulses, potato,
maize, and oil seeds. Jute is the principal cash crop. Tea is also produced commercially; the region is well known for
Darjeeling and other high-quality teas.
Historically, Europe once regarded Bengal as "the richest country to trade with".[17]

West Bengal
The service sector is the largest contributor to the gross domestic product of West Bengal, contributing 51% of the
state domestic product compared to 27% from agriculture and 22% from industry.[] State industries are localised in
the Kolkata region and the mineral-rich western highlands. DurgapurAsansol colliery belt is home to a number of
major steel plants.[18] As of 20032004[19] West Bengal had the third-largest economy in India, with a net state
domestic product of US$ 21.5 billion.[] During 20012002, the state's average SDP was more than
7.8%outperforming the National GDP Growth.[20] The state has promoted foreign direct investment, which has
mostly occurred in the software and electronics fields;[21] Kolkata is becoming a major hub for the information
technology (IT) industry. Owing to the boom in Kolkata's and the overall state's economy, West Bengal as of
2005[19] had the third-fastest-growing economy in India.[]

Bangladesh
Since 1990, Bangladesh has achieved an average annual growth rate of 5% according to the World Bank, despite the
hurdles. The middle class and the consumer industry have seen some growth. Bangladesh has seen a sharp increase
in foreign direct investment. A number of multinational corporations, including Unocal Corporation and Tata, have
made major investments, the natural gas sector being a priority. In December 2005, the Central Bank of Bangladesh
projected GDP growth around 6.5%.[22] Although two-thirds of Bangladeshis are farmers, more than three quarters

Bengal

90

of Bangladeshs export earnings come from the garment industry,[] which began attracting foreign investors in the
1980s due to cheap labour and low conversion cost. In 2002, the industry exported US$5 billion worth of products.[]
The industry now employs more than 3 million workers, 90% of whom are women.[] A large part of foreign currency
earnings also comes from the remittances sent by expatriates living in other countries.
The provision of microcredit by Grameen Bank (founded by Muhammad Yunus) and by other similar organisations
has contributed to the development of the economy of Bangladesh. Together, such organisations had about 5 million
members by late 1990s.[][23]

Culture
Part of a series on the

Culture of
Bengal

Bengali artists performing a traditional dance.

Culture
portal
Bengal portal

The common Bengali language and culture anchors the shared tradition
of two parts of politically divided Bengal. Bengal has a long tradition
in folk literature, evidenced by the Charyapada, Mangalkavya,
Shreekrishna Kirtana, Maimansingha Gitika or Thakurmar Jhuli.
Bengali literature in the medieval age was often either religious (e.g.
Chandidas), or adaptations from other languages (e.g. Alaol). During
the Bengal Renaissance of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,
Bengali literature was modernised through the works of authors such
as Michael Madhusudan Dutta, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay,
Rabindranath Tagore, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and Kazi Nazrul
Islam.
The Baul tradition is a unique heritage of Bangla folk music.[] The
scholar saint Sri Anirvan loved Baul music, and in fact described
himself as a simple Baul.[24] Other folk music forms include
Gombhira, Bhatiali and Bhawaiya. Folk music in Bengal is often
accompanied by the ektara, a one-stringed instrument. Other
instruments include the dotara, dhol, flute, and tabla. The region also
has an active heritage in North Indian classical music.

Baul singers at Basanta-Utsab, Shantiniketan

Kalabhavan

within

the

Bengal had also been the harbinger of modernism in Indian arts.

Abanindranath Tagore, one of the important 18th century artist from
Bengal is often referred to as the father of Indian modern art. He had
established the first non-British art academy in India known as the
premises
of
Santiniketan.
Santiniketan
in
course

Bengal

91
of time had produced many important Indian artists like
Gaganendranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose, Jamini Roy, Benode Bihari
Mukherjee and Ramkinkar Baij. In the post-independence era, Bengal
had produced important artists like Somenath Hore, Meera Mukherjee
and Ganesh Pyne.

Pohela Baishakh celebration in Dhaka

Rice and fish are traditional favourite foods, leading to a saying that in
Bengali, mach ar bhaath bangali baanaay, that translates as "fish and
rice make a Bengali".[] Bengal's vast repertoire of fish-based dishes
includes Hilsa preparations, a favourite among Bengalis. Bengalis
make distinctive sweetmeats from milk products, including
Rshogolla, Chmchm, and several kinds of Pithe.
Bengali women commonly wear the shai and the salwar kameez,
often distinctly designed according to local cultural customs. In urban
areas, many women and men wear Western-style attire. Among men,
European dressing has greater acceptance. Men also wear traditional
costumes such as the kurta/panjabi with dhoti/dhuti or pyjama, often
on religious occasions. The lungi, a kind of long skirt, is widely worn
by Bangladeshi men.

Mahashtami Puja during Durga Puja in Kolkata

The greatest religious festivals are the two Eids (Eid ul-Fitr and Eid
ul-Adha) for the Muslims, and the autumnal Durga Puja for Hindus.[]
Christmas (called Bodin (Great day) in Bangla), Buddha Purnima are other major religious festivals. Other
festivities include Pohela Baishakh (the Bengali New Year), Basanta-Utsab, Nobanno, and Poush parbon (festival of
Poush).
Bengali cinema are made both in Kolkata and Dhaka. The Kolkata film industry is older and particularly well known
for its art films. Its long tradition of film making has produced world famous directors like Satyajit Ray, while
contemporary directors include Buddhadev Dasgupta and Aparna Sen. Dhaka also has a vibrant commercial industry
and more recently has been home to critically acclaimed directors like Tareque Masud. Mainstream Hindi films of
Bollywood are also quite popular in both West Bengal and Bangladesh. Around 200 dailies are published in
Bangladesh, along with more than 1800 periodicals. West Bengal had 559 published newspapers in 2005,[] of which
430 were in Bangla.[] Cricket and football are popular sports in the Bengal region. Local games include sports such
as Kho Kho and Kabaddi, the later being the national sport of Bangladesh. An Indo-Bangladesh Bangla Games has
been organised among the athletes of the Bengali speaking areas of the two countries.[]

Intra-Bengal relations today

Geographic, cultural, historic, and commercial ties are growing, and both countries recognise the importance of good
relations. During and immediately after Bangladesh's struggle for independence from Pakistan in 1971, India assisted
refugees from East Pakistan, and intervened militarily to help bring about the independence of Bangladesh. The
Indo-Bangladesh border length of 4,095km (2,545mi), West Bengal has a border length of 2,216km (1,377mi).[]
Despite overlapping historic, geographic and cultural ties, the relation between West Bengal and Bangladesh is still
well below the potential.[25] The pan-Bengali sentiment among the people of the two parts of Bengal was at its
height during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War.[] While the government radio and national press in India might
have backed the struggle out of strategic considerations, the Bengali broadcast and print media went out of its way to
lend overwhelming support.[]
Frequent air services link Kolkata with Dhaka and Chittagong. A bus service between Kolkata and Dhaka is
operational. The primary road link is the Jessore Road which crosses the border at Petrapole-Benapole about 175km

Bengal

92

(109mi) north-west of Kolkata. The Train service between Kolkata and Dhaka, which was stopped after the
Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, was resumed in 2008.[26]
Visa services are provided by Bangladesh's consulate at Kolkata's Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Road and
India's high commissions in Dhaka, Chittagong and Rajshahi. India has a liberal visa policy and nearly 500,000
visas[25] are issued every year to Bangladeshi students, tourists, health-tourists and others who visit West Bengal and
often transit to other parts of India. People of West Bengal visit Bangladesh for limited numbers of tourism,
pilgrimage, trade, expatriate assignments; there is significant potential for growth as Bangladesh's stability,
economy, moderation in religion and tourist infrastructure improves. In addition West Bengal hosts the celebrated
and controversial Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen.
Undocumented immigration of Bangladeshi workers is a controversial issue[25] championed by right-wing nationalist
parties in India but finds little sympathy in West Bengal. India has fenced the border to control this flow but
immigration is still continuing.[] A rallying cry for the right-wing Hindu parties in India is that the demographics
changed such as in West Bengal's border district of Malda from Hindu-majority to Muslim-majority.
The official land border crossing at Petrapole-Benapole is the primary conduit for the over $1 billion trade between
the two halves of Bengal. The volume of unofficial exports to Bangladesh from India is reportedly in the range of
$350500 million each year.[] Bangladesh argues that India needs to open up its border more to Bangladeshi exports.
Other landports between the two Bengals are Changrabandha-Burimari and Balurghat-Hili.
Cultural exchanges between the two parts of Bengal have been somewhat (but not fully) impacted by ups and downs
in India-Bangladesh relations and in the influence of extremist Islamist groups in Bangladesh. West Bengal singers
and actors complained about being rejected visas in previous years. West Bengal television channels are widely
watched in Bangladesh, while no Bangladeshi channels are present in West Bengal due to import policies. In foreign
countries such as the U.S., Canada, Britain, and UAE, it is common for Bengalis from both sides to form joint
cultural associations and friendships, although inter-marriage is not significant, especially across religious barriers.

Gallery

The Bengal Tiger

Bengal

93

Worker in a paddy, a common scene all over

Bengal

Shaheed Minar, or the Martyr's monument, in Dhaka, commemorates the struggle for
the Bengali language.

Bhasha Smritistambha, or the Language Memorial, in Kolkata, commemorates thousand years of

Bengali language and literature.

Bengal

94

Baitul Mukarram in Dhaka is the National Mosque

of Bangladesh.

Dakshineswar Kali Temple in Kolkata, West

Bengal.

Bengal United Service Club.

Bengal

95

Notes
[2] http:/ / toolserver. org/ ~geohack/ geohack. php?pagename=Bengal& params=23. 42_N_90. 22_E_type:city_region:BD& title=Dhaka
[3] http:/ / toolserver. org/ ~geohack/ geohack. php?pagename=Bengal& params=23. 34_N_88. 22_E_type:city_region:IN-WB& title=Kolkata
[4] World Bank Development Indicators Database, 2006.
[7] http:/ / www. westbengal. gov. in/
[8] http:/ / www. bangladesh. gov. bd/
[9] M.A. Amitabha Bhattacharyya, Historical Geography of Ancient and Early Mediaeval Bengal, Sanskrit Pustak Bhandar, 1977, pp. 6162.
[11] http:/ / www. druglibrary. org/ schaffer/ library/ studies/ inhemp/ 4chapt9. htm
[12] SNHM. Vol. II, pp.209, 224.
[13] Summit Elevations: Frequent Internet Errors. (http:/ / www. sol. co. uk/ v/ viewfinder/ elevmisquotes. html#keok) Retrieved 2006-04-13.
[14] Adjusted population, p.4,
[15] Bangladesh Country Statistics (http:/ / www. unicef. org/ infobycountry/ bangladesh_bangladesh_statistics. html), Unicef
[19] http:/ / en. wikipedia. org/ w/ index. php?title=Bengal& action=edit
[22] Annual Report 2004-2005, Bangladesh Bank (http:/ / www. bangladesh-bank. org/ pub/ annual/ anreport/ annual. html)
[23] "Yunus sees big Answers in Micro-credit" Globe and Mail article |http:/ / www. theglobeandmail. com/ servlet/ story/ LAC. 20080611.
RYUNUS11/ TPStory/ Business

References
Baxter, C (1997). Bangladesh, From a Nation to a State. Westview Press. p.0813336325. ISBN1-85984-121-X
Bennett, A; Hindle, J (1996). London Review of Books: An Anthology. Verso. pp.6370. ISBN1-85984-121-X

External links
Geo Links for Bengal

Banglapedia-specialised site (http://banglapedia.org/index.html)

www.hostkingdom.net- List of rulers of Bengal (http://www.hostkingdom.net/india.html#Bengal)
WorldStatesmen- here India (http://www.worldstatesmen.org/India_BrProvinces.htm#Bengal)
Information portal of West Bengal (http://www.bengalgateway.com)

Maps
Perry-Castaeda Library Map Collection at University of Texas at Austin Libraries
India from The Historical Atlas by William R. Shepherd, 1923 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/
shepherd/india_shepherd_1923.jpg)
India 1760 from The Public Schools Historical Atlas edited by C. Colbeck. Longmans, Green, and Co. 1905
(http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/india1760_1905.jpg)
India 1882 from A Dictionary Practical, Theoretical, and Historical of Commerce and Commercial Navigation
by J.R. M'Culloch. Longmans, Green and Co. London, 1882 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/
india_1882.jpg)
Art and artists of Bengal (http://www.artofbengal.com/)
2400N 8800ECoordinates: 2400N 8800E

Syncretism

Syncretism
Syncretism /skrtzm/ is the combining of different (often seemingly contradictory) beliefs, often while melding
practices of various schools of thought. Syncretism involves the merger and analogizing of several originally discrete
traditions, especially in the theology and mythology of religion, thus asserting an underlying unity and allowing for
an inclusive approach to other faiths. Syncretism also occurs commonly in expressions of arts and culture (known as
eclecticism) as well as politics (syncretic politics).

Nomenclature, orthography, and etymology

The Oxford English Dictionary first attests the word syncretism in English in 1618. It derives from modern Latin
syncretismus, drawing on Greek (synkretismos), meaning "Cretan federation".
The Greek word occurs in Plutarch's (1st century AD) essay on "Fraternal Love" in his Moralia (2.490b). He cites
the example of the Cretans, who compromised and reconciled their differences and came together in alliance when
faced with external dangers. "And that is their so-called Syncretism".
Erasmus probably coined the modern usage of the Latin word in his Adagia ("Adages"), published in the winter of
15171518, to designate the coherence of dissenters in spite of their differences in theological opinions. In a letter to
Melanchthon of April 22, 1519, Erasmus specifically adduced the Cretans of Plutarch as an example of his adage
"Concord is a mighty rampart".

Social and political roles

Overt syncretism in folk belief may show cultural acceptance of an alien or previous tradition, but the "other" cult
may survive or infiltrate without authorized syncresis nevertheless. For example, some Conversos developed a sort
of cult for martyr-victims of the Spanish Inquisition, thus incorporating elements of Catholicism while resisting it.
Some religious movements have embraced overt syncretism, such as the case of melding Shint beliefs into
Buddhism or the amalgamation of Germanic and Celtic pagan views into Christianity during its spread into Gaul, the
British Isles, Germany, and Scandinavia. Indian influences are seen in the practice of Shi'i Islam in Trinidad. Others
have strongly rejected it as devaluing and compromising precious and genuine distinctions; examples of this include
post-Exile Second Temple Judaism, Islam, and most of Protestant Christianity.
Syncretism tends to facilitate coexistence and unity between otherwise different cultures and worldviews
(intercultural competence), a factor that has recommended it to rulers of multi-ethnic realms. Conversely, the
rejection of syncretism, usually in the name of "piety" and "orthodoxy", may help to generate, bolster or authenticate
a sense of uncompromised cultural unity in a well-defined minority or majority.

Religious syncretism
Religious syncretism exhibits blending of two or more religious belief systems into a new system, or the
incorporation into a religious tradition of beliefs from unrelated traditions. This can occur for many reasons, and the
latter scenario happens quite commonly in areas where multiple religious traditions exist in proximity and function
actively in the culture, or when a culture is conquered, and the conquerors bring their religious beliefs with them, but
do not succeed in entirely eradicating the old beliefs or, especially, practices.
Religions may have syncretic elements to their beliefs or history, but adherents of so-labeled systems often frown on
applying the label, especially adherents who belong to "revealed" religious systems, such as the Abrahamic religions,
or any system that exhibits an exclusivist approach. Such adherents sometimes see syncretism as a betrayal of their
pure truth. By this reasoning, adding an incompatible belief corrupts the original religion, rendering it no longer true.
Indeed, critics of a specific syncretistic trend may sometimes use the word "syncretism" as a disparaging epithet, as a

96

Syncretism
charge implying that those who seek to incorporate a new view, belief, or practice into a religious system actually
distort the original faith. Non-exclusivist systems of belief, on the other hand, may feel quite free to incorporate other
traditions into their own. Others state that the term syncretism is an elusive one,[1] and can be applied to refer to
substitution or modification of the central elements of Christianity or Islam of beliefs or practices introduced from
somewhere else. The consequences under this definition, according to Keith Fernando, is a fatal compromise of the
religion's integrity.
In modern secular society, religious innovators sometimes create new religions syncretically as a mechanism to
reduce inter-religious tension and enmity, often with the effect of offending the original religions in question. Such
religions, however, do maintain some appeal to a less exclusivist audience. Discussions of some of these blended
religions appear in the individual sections below.

Ancient Greece
Classical Athens was exclusive in matters of religion. The Decree of Diopithes made the introduction of and belief in
foreign gods a criminal offence and only Greeks were allowed to worship in Athenian temples and festivals as
foreigners were considered impure. Syncretism functioned as a feature of Hellenistic Ancient Greek religion
although only outside of Greece. Overall, Hellenistic culture in the age that followed Alexander the Great itself
showed syncretist features, essentially blending of Mesopotamian, Persian, Anatolian, Egyptian (and eventually
EtruscanRoman) elements within an Hellenic formula. The Egyptian god Amun developed as the Hellenized Zeus
Ammon after Alexander the Great went into the desert to seek out Amun's oracle at Siwa.[citation needed]
Such identifications derive from interpretatio graeca, the Hellenic habit of identifying gods of disparate mythologies
with their own. When the proto-Greeks (peoples whose language would evolve into Greek proper) first arrived in the
Aegean and on the mainland of modern-day Greece early in the 2nd millennium BCE, they found localized nymphs
and divinities already connected with every important feature of the landscape: mountain, cave, grove and spring all
had their own locally venerated deity. The countless epithets of the Olympian gods reflect their syncretic
identification with these various figures. One defines "Zeus Molossos" (worshipped only at Dodona) as "the god
identical to Zeus as worshipped by the Molossians at Dodona". Much of the apparently arbitrary and trivial mythic
fabling results from later mythographers' attempts to explain these obscure epithets.[citation needed]

Judaism
In Moses and Monotheism, Sigmund Freud made a case for Judaism arising out of the pre-existing monotheism that
was briefly imposed upon Egypt during the rule of Akhenaten.[citation needed] Aten, the disk of the Sun in ancient
Egyptian mythology, and originally an aspect of Ra, was chosen as the sole deity for Akhenaten's new religion. The
"Code of Hammurabi" is also cited as a likely starting point for the Jewish Ten Commandments. Hammurabi was
from the Mesopotamian culture that revered Marduk, among others. Judaism fought lengthy battles against syncretist
tendencies: note the case of the golden calf and the railing of prophets against temple prostitution, witchcraft and
local fertility cults, as told in the Tanakh. On the other hand, some scholars hold that Judaism refined its concept of
monotheism and adopted features such as its eschatology, angelology and demonology through contacts with
Zoroastrianism.[2][3][4]
In spite of the Jewish halakhic prohibitions on polytheism, idolatry, and associated practices (avodah zarah), several
combinations of Judaism with other religions have sprung up: Jewish Buddhism, Nazarenism, Judeo-Paganism,
Messianic Judaism, Jewish Mormonism,[citation needed] and others such as Judeo-Christianity. Until relatively
recently, China had a Jewish community which had adopted some Confucian practices.[citation needed] Several of the
Jewish Messiah claimants (such as Jacob Frank) and the Sabbateans came to mix Cabalistic Judaism with
Christianity and Islam.

97

Syncretism

Roman world
The Romans, identifying themselves as common heirs to a very similar civilization, identified Greek deities with
similar figures in the Etruscan-Roman tradition, though without usually copying cult practices. (For details, see
Interpretatio graeca.) Syncretic gods of the Hellenistic period found also wide favor in Rome: Serapis, Isis and
Mithras, for example. Cybele as worshipped in Rome essentially represented a syncretic East Mediterranean
goddess. The Romans imported the Greek god Dionysus into Rome, where he merged with the Latin mead god
Liber, and converted the Anatolian Sabazios into the Roman Sabazius.
The degree of correspondence varied: Jupiter makes perhaps a better match for Zeus than the rural huntress Diana
does for the feared Artemis. Ares does not quite match Mars. The Romans physically imported the Anatolian
goddess Cybele into Rome from her Anatolian cult-center Pessinos in the form of her original aniconic archaic stone
idol; they identified her as Magna Mater and gave her a matronly, iconic image developed in Hellenistic Pergamum.
Likewise, when the Romans encountered Celts and Germanic peoples, they mingled these peoples' gods with their
own, creating Sulis Minerva, Apollo Sucellos (Apollo the Good Smiter) and Mars Thingsus (Mars of the
war-assembly), among many others. In the Germania, the Roman historian Tacitus speaks of Germanic worshippers
of Hercules and Mercury; most modern scholars tentatively identify Hercules as Thor and Mercury as Odin.
Romans were familiar with the concept of syncretism because from their earliest times they had experienced it with
among others, the Greeks. The Romans incorporated the originally Greek Apollo and Hercules into their religion.
They did not look at the religious aspects that they adopted from other cultures to be different or less meaningful
from religious aspects that were Roman in origin. The early Roman acceptance of other cultures religions into their
own made it easy for them to integrate the newly encountered religions they found as a result of their expansion.[5]

Christianity
Syncretism did not play a role when Christianity split into eastern and western rites during the Great Schism. It
became involved, however, with the rifts of the Protestant Reformation, with Desiderius Erasmus's readings of
Plutarch. Even earlier, Syncretism was a fundamental aspect of the efforts of Neoplatonists such as Marsilio Ficino
to reform the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.[6] In 1615, David Pareus of Heidelberg urged Christians to a
"pious syncretism"[citation needed] in opposing the Antichrist, but few 17th-century Protestants discussed the
compromises that might effect a reconciliation with the Catholic Church: Johann Hlsemann, Johann Georg Dorsche
and Abraham Calovius (161285) opposed the Lutheran Georg Calisen "Calixtus" (15861656) of the University of
Helmstedt for his "syncretism".[7] (See: Syncretistic Controversy.)
Catholicism in Central and South America has integrated a number of elements derived from indigenous and slave
cultures in those areas (see the Caribbean and modern sections); while many African Initiated Churches demonstrate
an integration of Protestant and traditional African beliefs. In Asia the revolutionary movements of Taiping
(19th-century China) and God's Army (Karen in the 1990s) have blended Christianity and traditional beliefs. The
Catholic Church allows some symbols and traditions to be carried over from older belief systems, so long as they are
remade to fit into a Christian worldview; syncretism of other religions with Catholicism, such as Voudun or Santera,
is condemned by the Roman Catholic Church.
In the Latter Day Saint movement, doctrine from previous dispensations as recorded in the LDS canon are
considered official, though it is accepted that ancient teachings can be warped, misunderstood, or lost as a result of
apostasy.[8] While it does not officially recognize doctrine from other religions, it is believed that truth in other
sources can be identified via personal revelation.[9]
One can contrast Christian syncretism with contextualization or inculturation, the practice of making Christianity
relevant to a culture: Contextualisation does not address the doctrine but affects a change in the styles or expression
of worship. Although Christians often took their European music and building styles into churches in other parts of
the world, in a contextualization approach, they would build churches, sing songs, and pray in a local ethnic style.

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Syncretism
Some Jesuit missionaries adapted local systems and images to teach Christianity, as did the Portuguese in China.
In this view, syncretism implies compromising the message of Christianity by merging it with not just a culture, but
another religion, common examples being animism or ancestor worship.[citation needed]
Social conversion to Christianity happened all over Europe. It became even more effective when missionaries
concurred with established cultural traditions and interlaced them into a fundamentally Christian synthesis.[10]
Catholicism in South Korea has syncretized with traditional Mahayana Buddhist and Confucian customs that form an
integral part of traditional Korean culture. As a result, South Korean Catholics continue to practice ancestral rites and
observe many Buddhist and Confucian customs and philosophies.[][11]

Buddhism
Buddhism has syncretized with many traditional beliefs in East Asian societies as it was seen as compatible with
local religions. The most notable syncretization of Buddhism with local beliefs is the Three Teachings, or Triple
Religion, that harmonizes Mahayana Buddhism with Confucian philosophy and elements of Taoism.[12]

Islam
The Islamic mystical tradition known as Sufism appears somewhat syncretic in nature, not only in its origins but also
in its beliefs, since it espouses the concepts of Wahdat-al-Wujud and Wahdat-al-Shuhud that are, to a great extent,
synonymous to pantheism and panentheism (and sometimes monism) although authoritarianist branches of Islamic
theology rejects them and stresses strict monotheism (Tawhid).

Druze religion
The Druzes integrated elements of Ismaili Islam with Gnosticism and Platonism.

Barghawata
The Barghawata kingdom followed a syncretic religion inspired by Islam (perhaps influenced by Judaism) with
elements of Sunni, Shi'ite and Kharijite Islam, mixed with astrological and heathen traditions. Supposedly, they had
their own Qur'an in the Berber language comprising 80 suras under the leadership of the second ruler of the dynasty
Salih ibn Tarif who had taken part in the Maysara uprising. He proclaimed himself a prophet. He also claimed to be
the final Mahdi, and that Isa (Jesus) would be his companion and pray behind him.

Bah' Faith
The Bah's follow Bah'u'llh, a prophet whom they consider a successor to Muhammad, Jesus, Moses, Buddha,
Zoroaster, Krishna and Abraham. This acceptance of other religious founders has encouraged some to regard the
Bah' religion as a syncretic faith. However, Bah's and the Bah' writings explicitly reject this view. Bah's
consider Bah'u'llh's revelation an independent, though related, revelation from God. Its relationship to previous
dispensations is seen as analogous to the relationship of Christianity to Judaism. They regard beliefs held in common
as evidence of truth, progressively revealed by God throughout human history, and culminating in (at present) the
Bah' revelation. Bah's have their own sacred scripture, interpretations, laws and practices that, for Bah's,
supersede those of other faiths.[13][14]

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Syncretism

Caribbean religions and cultures

The process of syncretism in the Caribbean region often forms a part of cultural creolization. (The technical term
"Creole" may apply to anyone born and raised in the region, regardless of ethnicity.) The shared histories of the
Caribbean islands include long periods of European Imperialism (mainly by Spain, France, and the United Kingdom)
and the importation of African slaves (primarily from Central and Western Africa). The influences of each of the
above interacted in varying degrees on the islands, producing the fabric of society that exists today in the Caribbean.
The Rastafari movement, founded in Jamaica, syncretizes vigorously, mixing elements from the Bible, Marcus
Garvey's Pan Africanism movement, Hinduism, and Caribbean culture.
Another highly syncretic religion of the area, vodou, combines elements of Western African, native Caribbean, and
Christian (especially Roman Catholic) beliefs.
See the modern section for other Caribbean syncretisms.

Indian traditions
Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism in ancient India have made many adaptations over the millennia, assimilating
elements of various diverse religious traditions.[citation needed] One example of this is the Yoga Vasistha.[15]
The Mughal emperor Akbar, who wanted to consolidate the diverse religious communities in his empire, propounded
Din-i-Ilahi, a syncretic religion intended to merge the best elements of the religions of his empire
Meivazhi (Tamil: ) is a syncretic monotheistic minority religion based in Tamil Nadu, India. Its focus is
spiritual enlightenment and the conquering of death, through the teachings. Mevaizhi preaches the Oneness of
essence message of all the previous major scriptures - particularly Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism and
Christianity - allowing membership regardless of creed. Meivazhi's disciples are thousands of people belonging once
to 69 different castes of different religions being united as one family of Meivazhi Religion.

Other modern syncretic religions

Recently developed religious systems that exhibit marked syncretism include the New World religions Candombl,
21 Division, Vodou and Santera, which analogize various Yorb and other African deities to the Roman Catholic
saints. Some sects of Candombl have also incorporated Native American deities, and Umbanda combined African
deities with Kardecist spiritualism.
Hoodoo is a similarly derived form of folk magic practiced by some African American communities in the Southern
United States. Other traditions of syncretic folk religion in North America include Louisiana Voodoo as well as
Pennsylvania Dutch Pow-wow, in which practitioners profess to invoke power through the Christian God.
Many historical Native American religious movements have incorporated Christian European influence, like the
Native American Church, the Ghost Dance, and the religion of Handsome Lake.
Unitarian Universalism also provides an example of a modern syncretic religion. It traces its roots to Universalist
and Unitarian Christian congregations. However, modern Unitarian Universalism freely incorporates elements from
other religious and non-religious traditions, so that it no longer identifies as "Christian."
The Theosophical Society, as opposed to Theosophy, professes to go beyond being a syncretic movement that
combines deities into an elaborate Spiritual Hierarchy, and assembles evidence that points to an underlying (or
occult) reality of Being that is universal and interconnected, common to all spirit-matter dualities. It is maintained
that this is the source of religious belief, each religion simply casting that one reality through the prism of that
particular time and in a way that is meaningful to their circumstances.
Universal Sufism seeks the unity of all people and religions. Universal Sufis strive to "realize and spread the
knowledge of Unity, the religion of Love, and Wisdom, so that the biases and prejudices of faiths and beliefs may, of
themselves, fall away, the human heart overflow with love, and all hatred caused by distinctions and differences be

100

Syncretism
rooted out."[16]
In Vietnam, Caodaism blends elements of Buddhism, Catholicism and Kardecism.
Several new Japanese religions, (such as Konkokyo and Seicho-No-Ie), are syncretistic.
The Nigerian religion Chrislam combines Christian and Islamic doctrines.
Thelema is a mixture of many different schools of belief and practice, including Hermeticism, Eastern Mysticism,
Yoga, 19th century libertarian philosophies (e.g. Nietzsche), occultism, and the Kabbalah, as well as ancient
Egyptian and Greek religion.
Examples of strongly syncretist Romantic and modern movements with some religious elements include mysticism,
occultism, Theosophical Society, modern astrology, Neopaganism, and the New Age movement.
In China, most of the population follows syncretist religions combining Mahayana Buddhism, Taoism and elements
of Confucianism. Out of all Chinese believers, approximately 85.7% adhere to Chinese traditional religion, as many
profess to be both Mahayana Buddhist and Taoist at the same time. Many of the pagodas in China are dedicated to
both Buddhist and Taoist deities.
In Runion, the Malbars combine elements of Hinduism and Christianity.
The Unification Church, founded by religious leader Sun Myung Moon in South Korea in 1954. Its teachings are
based on the Bible, but include new interpretations not found in mainstream Judaism and Christianity and
incorporates Asian traditions.[17][18]
The traditional Mun faith of the Lepcha people predates their seventh century conversion to Lamaistic Buddhism.
Since that time, the Lepcha have practiced it together with Buddhism. Since the arrival of Christian missionaries in
the nineteenth century, Mun traditions have been followed alongside that faith as well. The traditional religion
permits incorporation of Buddha and Jesus Christ as a deities, depending on household beliefs.[][][]

Cultures and societies

Syncretism helped create possible cultural compromise. It contributed for a chance to establish beliefs, values, and
customs in a place with different cultural traditions. This also allowed expansive traditions to win popular support in
foreign lands.[19]
"Syncretism is often used to describe the product of the large-scale imposition of one alien culture, religion, or body
of practices over another that is already present."[20]

During the Enlightenment

The modern, rational non-pejorative connotations of syncretism date from Denis Diderot's Encyclopdie articles:
Eclecticisme and Syncrtistes, Hnotiques, ou Conciliateurs. Diderot portrayed syncretism as the concordance of
eclectic sources.

Notes
[1] http:/ / www. missiology. org. uk/ pdf/ cotterell-fs/ 15_ferdinando. pdf
[5] Scheid, John. Graeco Ritu: A Typically Roman Way of Honoring the Gods. Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol. 97, Greece in Rome :
Influence, Integration, Resistance (1995), 15-31.
[6] Heiser, James D., Prisci Theologi and the Hermetic Reformation in the Fifteenth Century, Repristination Press, 2011. ISBN
978-1-4610-9382-4
[7] .
[8] (https:/ / www. lds. org/ manual/ gospel-principles/ chapter-16-the-church-of-jesus-christ-in-former-times?lang=eng) Gospel Principles
(2011), 8793
[9] (https:/ / www. lds. org/ manual/ teachings-joseph-smith/ chapter-22?lang=eng#6-36481_000_026) Teachings of Presidents of the Church:
Joseph Smith (2007), 26170

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Syncretism
[10] Jerry Bentley, Old World Encounters: Cross-Cultural Contacts and Exchanges in Pre-Modern Times (New York: Oxford University Press,
1993).
[11] (http:/ / www. nytimes. com/ 2006/ 07/ 19/ world/ asia/ 19iht-feud. 2238466. html?pagewanted=1& _r=0)
[12] Sanjiao: The Three Teachings. Columbia University (http:/ / afe. easia. columbia. edu/ cosmos/ ort/ teachings. htm)
[14] Stockman, Robert (1997). The Baha'i Faith and Syncretism (http:/ / bahai-library. com/ articles/ rg. syncretism. html).
[15] Christopher Chapple, The concise Yoga Vsiha By Venkatesananda (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=fe_5bUKSaUEC& pg=PR12),
1985, pp. xii
[16] Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan, The 3 Objects of the Sufi Movement (http:/ / web. archive. org/ web/ 20071227021948/ http:/ / www.
ruhaniat. org/ readings/ 3Objects. php), Sufi Ruhaniat International (19562006).
[17] George D. Chryssides, "Unificationism: A study in religious syncretism", Chapter 14 in Religion: empirical studies, Editor: Steven Sutcliffe,
Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2004, ISBN 0-7546-4158-9, ISBN 978-0-7546-4158-2
[18] Religious Requirements and Practices of Certain Selected Groups: A Handbook for Chaplains, By U. S. Department of the Army, Published
by The Minerva Group, Inc., 2001, ISBN 0-89875-607-3, ISBN 978-0-89875-607-4, page 142. Google books listing (http:/ / books. google.
com/ books?id=6gDQfnMUI6gC)
[19] Jerry Bentley, Old World Encounters: Cross-Cultural Contacts and Exchanges in Pre-Modern Times (New York: Oxford University Press,
1993), viii.
[20] Peter J. Claus and Margaret A. Mills, South Asian Folklore: An Encyclopedia: (Garland Publishing, Inc., 2003).

102

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