Bengali Hindus () are adherents of Hinduism who ethnically, linguistically and genealogically identify as Bengalis. They make up the majority in the Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Assam's Barak Valley region and make up the largest minority in Bangladesh. Comprising about one-third of the global Bengali population, they are the largest ethnic group among Hindus.
Bengali Hindus speak Bengali language, which belongs to the Indo-Aryan language family and adhere to the Shaktism school of thought of Hinduism (majority, the ) or Vaishnavism (minority, Gaudiya Vaishnavism and Vaishnava-Sahajiya) of their native religion Hinduism with some regional deities.[.]
Around the 8th century, the Bengali language branched off from Magadhi Prakrit, a derivative of Sanskrit that was prevalent in the eastern region of the Indian Subcontinent at that time.
At the time of the independence of India in 1947, the province of Bengal was partitioned between India and East Pakistan, part of the Muslim-majority state of Pakistan. Millions of Bengali Hindus numbering around 2,519,557 (1941–1951) have Mass migration from East Bengal (later Bangladesh) and settled in West Bengal and other states of India. The migration continued in waves through the fifties and sixties, especially as a results of the 1950 East Pakistan riots, which led to the migration of 4.5 million Hindus to India, according to one estimate.
Ethnonym
The Hindus are a religious group,
native to the Indian subcontinent, speaking a broad range of Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages and adhering to the native belief systems, rooted in the
. The word Hindu is popularly believed to be a
Persian language exonym for the people native to the Indian subcontinent. The word is derived from
Sindhu,
the
Sanskrit name for the river
Indus and it initially referred to the people residing to the east of the river. The Hindus are constituted into various
ethno-linguistic subgroups, which in spite of being culturally diverse, share a common bond of unity.
The word Bengali is derived from the Bengali language word bangali. The English word Bengali denoting the people as well as the language is derived from the English word Bengal denoting the region, which itself is derived ultimately from the Bengali word Vanga kingdom which was one of the five historical kingdoms of Eastern India. According to Harivamsa, Mahabali, the king of the had five sons from his wife Sudeshna through sage Dirghatama. The five sons namely Anga, Vanga kingdom, Kalinga, Pundra and Suhma kingdom went on to found five kingdoms of the same name in the eastern region of the Indian subcontinent. In ancient times Vanga proper consisted of the deltaic region between Hooghly River, Padma River and Madhumati River, but later on extended to include the regions which now roughly comprise Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal.
In India, they tend to identify themselves as Bengalis
Ethnology
The Bengali Hindus constitute of numerous
endogamy , which are sometimes further subdivided into endogamous subgroups. The caste system evolved over centuries and became more and more complex with time. In the medieval period, several castes were boycotted by the ruling classes from time to time and this isolation continued till the 19th century. These social boycotts were somewhat discriminatory in nature. After the Renaissance, the rigidity of the caste system ceased to a great extent, so much so that the first celebrated intercaste marriage took place as early as in 1925.
The Bengali Hindu families are patriarchy as well as patrilocal and traditionally follow a joint family system. However, due to the Partition and subsequent urbanisation, the joint families have given way to the nuclear family. The Bengali Hindus were traditionally governed by the Dāyabhāga school of law, as opposed to the Mitākṣarā school of law, which governed the other Hindu ethno-linguistic groups. In India, after the promulgation of the Hindu code bills, the Bengali Hindus along with other Hindus are being governed by a uniform Hindu law.
There are two major social subgroups among the Bengali Hindus – the ghotis and the . The Bengali Hindus who emigrated from East Bengal (Bangladesh) at the wake of the Partition and settled in West Bengal, came to known as the bangals, while the native Bengali Hindus of West Bengal came to known as ghotis. For several decades after partition, these two social subgroups possessed marked difference in their accents and their rivalry was manifested in many spheres of life, most notably in the support for the football clubs of East Bengal and Mohun Bagan respectively. Several such differences have eased with passing years.
History
Prehistoric period
20,000-year-old stone weapons including small axes,
Pottery and
charcoal remains have been unearthed from Chandthakurer Danga in Haatpara mouza, 8 km northeast of Sagardighi in Murshidabad.
Microliths dating to 10000 BC has been excavated from Birbhanpur, situated in Paschim Bardhaman district on the
Damodar River valley near Durgapur. Microliths, potteries, copper fishhooks and iron arrowheads have been found at Pandu Rajar Dhibi.
Ancient period
In the ancient times, some of the Bengali Hindus were
seafaring people as evident from the tales of merchants like
Chand Sadagar and Dhanapati Saudagor whose ships sailed to far off places for trade and establishment of colonies in South East Asia. By the 3rd century B.C.E. they were united into a powerful state, known to the
Ancient Greek as
Gangaridai, whose military prowess demoralised Alexander from further expedition to the east.
["When he (Alexander) moved forward with his forces certain men came to inform him that Porus, the king of the country, who was the nephew of that Porus whom he had defeated, had left his kingdom and fled to the nation of Gandaridai... He had obtained from Phegeus a description of the country beyond the Indus: First came a desert which it would take twelve days to traverse; beyond this was the river called the Ganges which had a width of thirty two stadia, and a greater depth than any other Indian river; beyond this again were situated the dominions of the nation of the Prasioi and the Gandaridai, whose king, Xandrammes, had an army of 20,000 horse 200,000 infantry, 2,000 chariots and 4,000 elephants trained and equipped for war".... "Now this (Ganges) river, which is 30 stadia broad, flows from north to south, and empties its water into the ocean forming the eastern boundary of the Gandaridai, a nation which possesses the greatest number of elephants and the largest in size." –Diodorus Siculus (c.90 BC – c.30 BC). Quoted from The Classical Accounts of India, .]
Medieval period
In the middle of the 8th century, the Bengali Hindu nobility democratically elected
Gopala as the ruler of Gauda, ushering in an era of peace and prosperity in Bengal, ending almost a century of chaos and confusion. The Buddhist
Pala Empire rulers unified Bengal into a single political entity and expanded it into an empire, conquering a major portion of
North India. During this time, the Bengali Hindus excelled in art, literature, philosophy, mathematics, sciences and statecraft. The first scriptures in Bengali
Charyapada was composed during the
Pala Dynasty. The Pala were followed by the Senas who made far reaching changes in the social structure of Bengali Hindus, introducing 36 new castes and orthodox institutions like
Kulinism.
The literary progress of the Pala and Sena period came to a halt after the Turkish conquest in the early 13th century. Except for Haridas Dutta Manasar Bhasan no significant literary work was composed for about a century after the conquest.["When the Islamic missionaries arrived they found in several instances that the conquering armies had destroyed both the temples of revived Hinduism and the monasteries of the older Buddhism; in their place—often on the same sites—they built new shrines. Moreover, they very frequently transferred ancient Hindu and Buddhist stories of mir." Quoted in The Interaction of Islam and Hinduism . Retrieved 9 September 2015.] Local chieftains like Akananda, Dakshin Ray and Mukut Ray, resisted the missionary activities.
During the Pashtun people occupation of Bengal, some regions were held in sway by different Bengali Hindu rulers. Islam religion gradually spread throughout the Bengal region, and many Bengali Hindus converted to Islam.
Early modern period
During the decline of the
Mughal Empire, Nawabs of Bengal (who were Muslim) ruled a large part of Bengal. During the reign of
Alivardi Khan. a Nawab, the severe taxation and frequent
Maratha Empire raids made the life miserable for the ordinary Bengali Hindus.
[Chaudhuri, B.B. (2008). Peasant history of late pre-colonial and colonial India. Pearson Education India, p. 184.] A section of the Bengali Hindu nobility helped the British East India Company in overthrowing the Nawab
Siraj ud-Daulah regime. After obtaining the revenue rights, the East India Company imposed more oppressive taxation. In the famine of 1770, approximately one third of the Bengali population died.
The British began to face stiff resistance in conquering the semi-independent Bengali Hindu kingdoms outside the pale of Muslim occupied Bengal. In some cases, even when their rulers have been captured or killed, the ordinary people began to carry on the fight.[ Bangali Charitabhidhan Volume I. Sansad, p. 489.]
British rule
According to author James Jeremiah Novak, as British rulers took power from Bengal's ruling Muslim class, they strategically catered to Bengali Hindus (a majority in Bengal region at that time).
The British rule destroyed the bases of Bengali Muslim society.
Bengali Hindus got favours from the British rulers, and experienced development in education and social mobility. In the 19th century, the elite class of Bengali Hindu people underwent radical
and rapid modernisation; the phenomenon came to be known as the Bengal Renaissance.
Public media like
News media and
Bengali theatre became vents of nationalist sentiments, apolitical organisations had given way to political platforms, secret revolutionary societies emerged and the society at large became restive.
With rising nationalism among Bengalis, the British rulers applied divide and rule policy, and started to make favours to Bengali Muslims.[Das, S.N.(ed). The Bengalis: The People, their History and Culture. Genesis Publishing, p. 214. ][Beck, Sanderson. Ethics of Civilization Volume 20: South Asia 1800–1950. World Peace Communications ] The British Raj finally annulled the Partition in 1911. The Raj, however, carried out some restructuring, and carved out Bengali Hindu majority districts like Manbhum, Singbhum, Santal Pargana and Purnia awarding them to Bihar and others like Cachar that were awarded to Assam, which effectively made the Bengali Hindus a minority in the united province of Bengal. The Britishers also transferred the capital from Calcutta to New Delhi.
The revolutionary movement gained momentum after the Partition. Bengali revolutionaries collaborated with the Germans during the War to liberate British India. Later the revolutionaries defeated the British army in the Battle of Jalalabad and liberated Chittagong. During the Quit India Movement, the revolutionaries liberated the Tamluk and Contai subdivision of Midnapore district from British rule and established the Tamralipta National Government.
The British, unable to control the revolutionary activities, decided to hinder the Bengali Hindu people through administrative reforms. The Government of India Act 1919 introduced in the 144 member Bengal Legislative Assembly, 46 seats for the Muslims, 59 for the institutions, Europeans and others and left the rest 39 as General,[There were no separate electorates for Hindus, in spite of them being minorities in the province.] where the Bengali Hindus were to scramble for a representation. The situation worsened with the Communal Award of 1932, where in the 250 member Bengal Legislative Assembly a disproportionate 119 seats were reserved for the Muslims, 17 for Europeans, and , 34 for the institutions, and the rest 80 were left as General.[The Caste Hindus were supposed to contest in the 70 General seats. However as per the Poona Pact between Mahatma Gandhi and Ambedkar, 20 General seats were reserved for Scheduled Castes.] In response the leading Bengali Hindu , lawyers and professionals signed the Bengal Hindu Manifesto on 23 April 1932 rejecting the justification of reservation of separate electorates for Muslims in the Bengal Legislative Assembly.
After the failure of the United Bengal plan, it became evident that either all of Bengal would go to Pakistan, or it would be partitioned between India and Pakistan. Direct Action Day and the Noakhali genocide prompted the Bengali Hindu leadership to vote for the Partition of Bengal to create a Hindu-majority province.[Rup Narayan Roy and Jyoti Basu, the two Communist Party MLAs abstained.]
The Boundary Commission implementing the Radcliffe Line announced that the Khulna District (with a marginal Hindu majority of 51%) would be given to East Pakistan in lieu of the Murshidabad district (with a 70% Muslim majority) to be went to India.
Post-partition period
After the Partition, the majority of the urban upper class and middle class Bengali Hindu population of East Bengal immigrated to West Bengal. The ones who stayed back were the ones who had significant landed property and believed that they will be able to live peacefully in an Islamic state. However, after the genocide of 1950, Bengali Hindus fled East Bengal in thousands and settled in West Bengal. In 1964, tens of thousands of Bengali Hindus were massacred in East Pakistan and most of the Bengali Hindu owned businesses and properties of
Dhaka were permanently destroyed.
During the Bangladesh Liberation War, large number of Bengali Hindus were massacred. The Enemy Property Act of the
Pakistan regime which is still in force in the new incarnation of Vested Property Act, has been used by successive Bangladeshi governments to seize the properties of the Hindu minorities who left the country during the Partition of India and Bangladesh liberation war. According to Professor Abul Barkat of
Dhaka University, the Act has been used to misappropriate of land from the Bengali Hindus, roughly equivalent to the 45% of the total landed area owned by them.
In Assam's, Assamese dominated Brahmaputra Valley region Bongal Kheda movement (which literally means drive out Bengalis) was happened in the late 1948-80s, where several thousands of Hindu Bengalis was massacred by jingoists Assamese nationalists mob in various parts of Assam and as a result of this jingoist movement, nearly 500,000 Bengali Hindus were forced to flee from Assam to take shelter in neighbouring West Bengal particularly in Jalpaiguri division in seek for safety.Sanjib Baruah (1999). 081223491X, University of Pennsylvania Press. 081223491X
Discrimination against refugee Bengali Hindu population is not limited to the Northeast India. In Odisha, in a family of ten individuals, only half of them has been recognised as Indians while the rest were branded as Bangladeshis.
The Bengali refugees who had settled in Bihar after the partition of India are denied land owning rights, caste certificates and welfare schemes. However, the Nitish Kumar government had promised to solve this problems and also to raise the status of Bangla as a language in the state.
Geographic distribution
Bengali Hindus constitute a minority
ethnic group of the total population in both Bangladesh and India,
forming less than 10% of the population in both countries.
West Bengal
Hinduism has existed in Bengal before the 16th century BC and by the third century, Buddhism has also gain popularity in
Bengal.
West Bengal was created in 1947 as an act of Bengali Hindu Homeland Movement to save guard the political, economical, cultural, religious, demographic and land owning rights of Bengali Hindus of undivided
Bengal region and as a result predominantly Hindu majority West Bengal became a part of Indian union. The vast majority of Hindus in West Bengal are Bengali Hindus numbering around 5.5 crore out of the total estimated state population of 10 crore,
but a notable section of non-Bengali Hindus also exist, particularly among
Marwaris,
Bihari people,
Odias,
,
Punjabis,
Sindhis,
Gujaratis and various tribal communities such as
Koch Rajbongshi,
Santals,
Munda people and particularly
Adivasi numbering around 1.557 crore comprising rest 15% of the state population.
Bangladesh
Hinduism has existed in what is now called Bangladesh since the ancient times. In nature, the Bangladeshi Hinduism closely resembles the ritual and customs of Hinduism practised in the Indian state of West Bengal, with which Bangladesh (at one time known as
East Bengal) was united until the partition of India. While in Bangladesh, Bengali Hindus are the second largest community with a population of 12.8 million out of 149.77 million people constituting (8.5%) of the country as per 2011 year census.
But distinct Hindu population also exist among indigenous tribes like
Garo people,
Khasi people,
Jaintia people,
Santal people, Bishnupriya Manipuri,
Tripuri people,
Munda people,
Kurukh people,
Dhanuk etc. In terms of population, Bangladesh is the third largest Hindu populated country in the world after India and
Nepal.
Out of 21 million population of Dhaka as far estimated by 2020, Bengali Hindus are at present the second largest community just after Bengali Muslims in Dhaka numbering around at 1,051,167 (5% of population) and are mainly concentrated in Shankhari Bazaar.
Indian States other than West Bengal
Assam
The Barak Valley comprising the present districts of
Cachar,
Karimganj and
Hailakandi is contiguous to
Sylhet (Bengal plains), where the Bengali Hindus, according to historian J.B. Bhattacharjee, had settled well before the colonial period, influencing the culture of Dimasa Kacharis.
Bhattacharjee describes that the Dimasa kings spoke Bengali and the inscriptions and coins written were in Bengali script.
Migrations to Cachar increased after the British annexation of the region.
Bengalis in plains of Cachar valley were a significant, and sometimes dominant tribe/group/demographic for at least a period since the reign of
Dhanya Manikya in the 15th century who hosted several Bengali Brahmin scholars in his court during his reign/rule.
The Bengalis have been living in Barak Valley for at least 1,500 years, settling there much earlier than the
Koch people,
Dimasa people and the
Tripuris.
The Koches settled in Barak Valley in the 16th century, while the Dimasas settled in the late 16th - early 17th century A.D respectively.
Bengali Hindus first came into Assam's Brahmaputra Valley during the time of British era of 1826 from neighbouring
Bengal region as colonial official workers, bankers, railway employees, bureaucrats and later on during the time Partition of Bengal in 1947.
Between the period of first patches (1946–1951), around 274,455 Bengali Hindu refugees have arrived from what is now called Bangladesh (former East Pakistan) in various locations of Assam as permanent settlers and again in second patches between (1952–1958) of the same decade, around 212,545 Bengali Hindus from Bangladesh took shelter in various parts of the state permanently.
[India (1951). "Annual Arrival of Refugees in Assam in 1946–1951". Census of India. XII, Part I (I-A): 353 – via web.archive.org.][http://iussp2005.princeton.edu › ...PDF
The Brahmaputra Valley of India can be compared only with the Indus ...] After the 1964 East Pakistan riots many Bengali Hindus have poured into Assam as refugees and the number of Hindu migrants in the state rose to 1,068,455 in 1968 (sharply after 4 years of the riot).
The fourth patches numbering around 347,555 have just arrived after Bangladesh liberation war of 1971 as refugees and most of them being Bengali speaking Hindus have decided to stay back in Assam permanently afterwards.
Bengali Hindus are now the third largest community in
Assam after
Assamese people and Bengali Muslims with a population of 6,022,677 (million), comprising (19.3%) of state population as of 2011 census.
They are highly concentrated in the Barak Valley region where they a form a slide majority and the population of Bengali Hindus in Barak Valley is 2 million, constituting 55% of the total population of the region.
In Assam's Brahmaputra Valley region, their numbers are 4 million covering up 14.5% of the valley population respectively and are mainly concentrated in
Hojai District where Bengali are spoken by (53%) of the district population, Goalpara District,
Nagaon district, Bongaigaon district,
Barpeta District,
Kamrup District,
Darrang district,
Dhubri District, Morigaon district, Tinsukia district,
Karbi Anglong,
Guwahati, Bodoland, Dibrugarh district,
Jorhat district, Sonitpur district with percentage ranging 15-25% in all those districts mentioned above.
In January 2019, the Leftist organisation Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS) claimed that there are around 2 million Hindu Bangladeshis in Assam who would become Indian citizens if the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill is passed. BJP, however claimed that only eight lakh Hindu Bangladeshis will get citizenship.
Jharkhand
Most Bengali Hindus came into
Jharkhand during the colonial period, brought up by the British as colonial workers mainly from the western part of Bengal.
In
Jharkhand, the Bengali Hindu population is over 2.5 million comprising 8.09% but the overall Bengali speaking population are a slight majority there and the percentage of Bengali speakers ranges from 38%–40%.
Tripura
The non-tribal population of Tripura, the mostly Bengali-speaking Hindus and Muslims, constitute more than two-thirds of the state's population. The resident and the migrant Bengali population benefitted from the culture and language of the
Manikya dynasty thanks to embracement of Hinduism and adoption of Bengali as the state language by the Maharajahs of Tripura much before Indian independence.
Since the partition of India, many Bengali Hindus have migrated to Tripura as refugees fleeing religious persecution in Muslim-majority East Pakistan, especially after 1949 and this is primarily attributed by the immigration of 610,000 Bengalis — the figure almost equal to the State's total population in 1951 — from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) between 1947 and 1951.
Settlement by Hindu Bengalis increased during the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, where around at that time, nearly 1,381,649 Bengalis (mostly Hindus) have came into various parts of Tripura to take refugees and most of them have settled here permanently afterwards.
Parts of the state were shelled by the
Pakistan Army during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. Following the war, the Indian government reorganised the North East region to try to improve control of the international borders – three new states came into existence on 21 January 1972: Meghalaya, Manipur, and Tripura.
Before independence, most of the population was indigenous.
In
Tripura, now Bengali Hindus form a clear majority due to immigration from neighbouring East Pakistan during 1947 and 1971 and as a result Tripura has become a Bengali dominant state with Bangla as its official language along with Kokborok and English. Bengali Hindus comprise nearly 60% of the state population which is around 2.2 million whereas native Tripuris are 30% of the state population which is around 1.2 million as of 2011 census.
Andaman and Nicobar islands
There is also a significant number of Bengali Hindus residing in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, estimated approximately 100,000 comprising 26%–28% of the population. Bengali is also the most widely spoken language in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, despite it lacking official status.
Myanmar
The Bengali Hindus in Myanmar are present from long back historical times, when they were brought from
Bengal region to
Arakan by many Arakanese kings, especially the
Bengali Brahmins for the worship and teaching purpose in the
Pagoda.
Then afterwards 1920, most of them start settling to the urban areas and main cities, mainly in
Yangon,
Mandalay and in urban areas of
Rakhine State. In modern times, they have faced persecution which was mainly started after 1962 coup by
Ne Win.
Outside Indian subcontinent
Both the United States and United Kingdom have large immigrant Bengali Hindu populations, who are mostly from the professional classes and have migrated through education and employment. Former Cricketer
Isa Guha and
Rhona Mitra are prominent descendants of the Bengali Hindu diaspora.
Culture
Cuisine
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Bengali cuisine is mainly influenced by the diet habits similar to the
Hindus and includes a very large variety of sweets and dishes.
The
Bengali sweets includes desserts made by milk, includes
Rasgulla, Sandesh,
Cham cham, etc.
In
Hinduism, the consumption of meat is often avoided in diets due to the Hindu principle of
ahimsa which prohibits meat consumption. However, Bengali Hindus adore eating meat of
Mutton, chicken,
Duck meat and
Lamb meat. Most of the Hindus refrain from eating beef. Meat, especially beef is readily consumed in
Bangladesh and where it is considered the meal's main course and the Fish curry (or
Machher Jhol) with rice is considered as one of the most staple food by both Hindus and Muslims in Bengal.
Wedding
Society
Bengali Hindu society used to be caste-oriented throughout centuries and the professional status of men depended exclusively on the hierarchical caste divisions.
In traditional
Bengali Culture, nearly every occupation is carried on by a ranked hierarchy of
Hindu caste such as weaving, pottery, carpentry and blacksmithing. However, with the introduction of
British Raj and appearance of urban civilisation, the former rural agrarian and artisan economy gradually crumbled and gave way to modern middle class economy. However, agriculture, land tenure, farming and fishing form the predominant economic activity in most of the rural area till now.
According to the census in 1881, 12.81 per cent of Bengali Hindus belonged to the upper castes,
while a 2020
Deccan Herald publication puts the percentage of the upper castes (
Bengali Brahmin,
Bengali Kayastha and
Baidya) at 15 to 18 per cent of the Hindu population.
Economy
Literature
The proper Bengali literary history begins with the early
Vaishnava literature like the Shreekrishna Kirtana and the Vaishnava padavalis followed by translation literatures like
Ramayana and Srikrishna Vijaya. In the medieval period literary works on the life and teachings of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu were composed. This period saw the emergence of Shakta padavalis.
The characteristic feature of Bengali Hindu literature in the middle age are the
, that glorify various Hindu gods and goddesses often using folkloristic backgrounds.
The early modern period saw a flurry in the literary activity especially after the emergence of the Bengali press. The first Bengali prose Raja Pratapaditya Charitra was written during this time. The Renaissance saw a rapid development in modern Bengali literature. Most of the epics, poems, novels, short stories and dramas of the modern classical literature were written during this period. The Bengal Literary Society that later came to be known as Bangiya Sahitya Parishad was founded. Bankim Chandra Chatterjee wrote commentaries on Krishna Charita, Dharmattatva, Bhagavad Gita. The literary development during the Renaissance culminated in Tagore's Nobel Prize for Literature.[. pp. 2.]
In the Post-Partition period, the Bengali Hindus pioneered the Hungry generation, Natun Kabita and the little magazine movements. Of late, some of them have made their mark in contemporary English literature.
Art
The Kalighat school of painting flourished in Bengal in the early modern period, and especially after the first paper mill was set up in 1809.
During the rise of nationalism in the early 20th century, the Bengali Hindus pioneered the Bengal school of art.
It provided the artistic medium of expression to the Hindu nationalist movement.
Though the Bengal school later gave way to
modernist ideas, it left an enduring legacy. In the post-liberalisation phase of India, modern art acquired a new dimension as young artists like
Devajyoti Ray, Sudip Roy and
Paresh Maity started gaining international recognition. Devajyoti Ray is known for introducing
Pseudorealism, which is one of the most original genres of Indian art today.
Religion
The Bengali Hindus generally follow the beliefs and practices that fall under the broad umbrella of
Hinduism.
Majority of them follow either
Shaktism (the ) or
Vaishnavism (Gaudiya Vaishnavism, Vaishnava-Sahajiya,
), and some follow a synthesis of the two. The Shaktas belong to the upper
as well as lowest castes and tribes, while the lower middle castes are Vaishnavas. The minor traditions include
Shaivites. A small minority is
atheist who do not follow any rituals.
is also found among Bengali Hindus.
A part of the parent tradition, the Bengali Hindus usually affiliate themselves to one of the many sects that have come to be established as institutionalised forms of the ancient guru-shishya traditions.
The main of the Shakta Kalikula tradition are Kali, Chandi, Jagaddhatri, Durga, as well as regional goddesses such as Bishahari and Manasa, the snake goddesses, Shashthi, the protectress of children, Shitala, the smallpox goddess, Annapurna and Umā (the Bengali name for Parvati).
Festivals
File:Durga puja, garlands for her.JPG|Durga Puja, the largest festival of Bengali Hindus
File:Dakshina Kali 2 Shakespeare Sarani Arnab Dutta 2011.jpg|Kali Puja, a major Hindu festival of Bengal
File:Roth Procession.jpg|Ratha Yatra at Dhamrai in Dhaka district, Bangladesh
File:Durga Puja DS.jpg|A traditional Durga idol with Chalchitra
File:Durga Puja by countries.png|The Bengali Hindu diaspora celebrate Durga Puja all over the world.
According to a famous Bengali proverb, there are thirteen festivals in twelve months ().
Bengali Hindus celebrate all major Indian festivals. The year begins with the Bengali New Year's Day or
Pohela Boishakh which usually falls on 15 April. Traditional business establishment commence their fiscal year on this day, with the worship of
Lakshmi and
Ganesha and inauguration of the halkhata (ledger). People dress in ethnic wear and enjoy ethnic food. Poila Baishakh is followed by
Rabindra Jayanti,
Rath Yatra and
Janmashtami before the commencement of the Pujas.
The puja season begins with the Vishwakarma Puja and is followed up by Durga Puja—the last four days of Navaratri—the greatest and largest Bengali Hindu festival.[ Durga Puja.org .][.]
The winter solstice is celebrated a Makar Sankranti in mid January, followed by Netaji Jayanti and Saraswati Pooja, a puja dedicated to Goddess of Knowledge and music Goddess Saraswati.
The spring is celebrated in the form of Dolyatra or Holi. The year ends with Charak Puja and Gajan.
Durga Puja became the main religio-cultural celebration within the Bengal diaspora in the West (together with Kali and Saraswati Pujas, if a community is large and prosperous enough).
Temples
As per
David McCutchion, historically the religious architecture in Bengal may be divided into three periods: the early Hindu period (up to the end of the 12th century, or maybe a little later in certain areas), the
Bengal Sultanate (14th to early 16th century), and the Hindu revival period (16th to 19th century).
See also
-
All Assam Bengali Youth Students Federation
-
East Bengali refugees
-
Hinduism in Bangladesh
-
Hinduism in West Bengal
-
Bengali Hindu diaspora
-
Bengali Muslims
-
Bengali Buddhists
-
Bengali Christians
-
Culture of Bengal
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
External links
