Bengali civilization could merely be dated back to the age
of Buddhist-roving-monks called Charjapadis. These monks used to go around the
neighbourhoods of North-Bengal (for alms as sustenance).They used to observe
the life-styles of the local populace and wrote ballads about their life,
problems and dreams etc in the form of folk-poems and ballads. Religious
content or Buddhist doctrines were not much in those ballads though . That was
however the first people's literature of Bengal and was supposed to be as of
now the first literature. The pattern of ballad literature went on being
carried through oral and aural traditions from generations to the next.This
same type was found throughout the history henceforth in many ballads,
collected by many over the years. The collection as we know now are in
Purbo-BAnga gitika( a collection in 8 volumes), we find epics called Manasha
Mangal KAvya , Chandi Mangal Kavya and other Mangal kavyas. This was a style
which recounted the various myths of the popular culture and showed the
value-systems the Bengalis had during the middle ages. The period of these
kavyas were a broad spectrum from late Charyapad to the Nawabi period (Of
course they were compiled and published in the Nineteenth Century). The
Pre-Modern age or the Nawabi age in literature started mainly after the
consolidation of the kingdom of GAud by Hossain Shah.He gave bengal a
centralized territory independant of the Delhi Sultanate and started seriously
the development the Bengali culture and language in full steam. Before him
various Pathan and Moghul rulers came to Bengal mostly opposing the Delhi
rule,but never started so to say a cultural movement in Bengali. Hossain Shah
was a benevolent but shrewd Gaudadhipati or King. He wanted the kingdom to have
a culture and religion different from that in North_India, different from the
state-religion and state-culture of Delhi sultanate and also different from the
North Indian hindu culture.This he did to make Bengalis have a different
culture and different value-system than that of the rest of India. He undertook
to translate all the hindu epics in Bengali ,interesting to note that
Mahabharat and Ramayan was first translated by muslims like PARAGAL KHAN. And
for this Hossain Shah was called by the hindus as the Avatar of Krishno.
In the religious world occured a revolution of sorts, the
first of its kind in Bengal, a complete social revolution which upturned the
whole orthodox hindu-brahminical structure, the concept of civil disobediance,
mass movement and mass rallies were first introduced, just imagine 600 years
ago.
The Bhakti culture that Chaitanya popularised is a unique
version started in Bengal in parallel to other uniques versions that were introduced
by Kabir and Nanak and more or less comparable to the Sufi/Bhakti/Fakir
sub-culture of Lalan and Siraj Sai(n). Philosophically the cue was taken from
the Bhedabhed or Dvaitadvaito school of Indian philosophy.As against Adyaitavad
of Sankaracharya, the Dvaityadvaito philosophy of Madhavachrya retains the
distinction of Jivatma and the Paramatma and considers that the Reality or the
Supreme is always manifested in terms of a human or humanoid figure, i,e the
Supreme God head "Sat-chit-ananda" is manifested through a
"Sat-Chit-Ananda-Vigraha" .This Vigrahas are reincarnations of Vishnu
the Supreme-God-head.Now since the concept of "Aham Brahmasmi" i,e I
am the God is absent here, in this philosophy the best path to God in order to
be in unison with the God-head is to completely surrender oneself (one's ego
that is) to the manifestations. According to this school a Bhakti marg or
Bhakti-Jog is more important than Karma or Jnan jog.Only through a complete
surrender and Bhakti one can attain a near unity with Vishnu.Incidentally this
is very similar to the Sufi school of Islam which sees the surrender to Allah
the eternal as the core of Islam, The movement started with certain necessities
and had to struggle it out with some orthodoxy in the society but after Chaitanya
the effects of the movement increased manifold and left a mark in practically
all aspects of bengali life and all other philosophies to come .
Bengal was very anarchist right from the beginning, as a
matter of fact from the days of Charyapad the main-stream of Hindu orthodoxy
never could have a strong footing in Bengal.The influence of the Tantrism
coming through Tibet was very high, Bengal never had any Shaiva community and
was mostly because of the tantric influence almost totally feminine-idol-worshippers
and Shakta. Because of the power concept of the Shaktas, the philosophical root
was the Advaita school of Sankara.Coupled with the Sankara school came in the
Tantrik influence creating a unique Shakti thread in hinduism.Ironically
Vaishnavism of Chaitanya came out with one deity (Krishno) and a male-oriented
religion, yet unlike the south-indian counterpart it did not have the strict
monastic or ascetic style of functioning. This creed started to take religion
as a veritable private matter as a communication with the ishtodevata(the
personal god) even as against the kuladevata(family god) or
jati-devata(ommunity god).THe concept of Radha-govinda as a kula-devata could
not be lineated to Chaitanya or his teachings. This concept was so revolutionary
(in spite of having coming from a different route of Shakti) that not only it
made the religious practices unfettered off the shackles of rituals and
strictures of the Tantrik and the Brahminical pattern, but also it changed the
religious practices of the other schools, The Brahminical structure of
non-touchability and strict class-barricades broke down (the famous episode of
KAlidas in Chaitanya charitamrito , where we find a son of Brahman Vaishnav is
waiting to eat off of the left-overs of the untouchables and is only living off
the alms from the un-touchables or "lowly-born" , when asked he
explained this is the best way unite with the ishto-devata as these so-called
lowly-borns are the manifestations of the SAt-chit-ananda-vigraha.)The Shakta
pattern of worship underwent a revolutionary change.We have Bama Khyapa(an
erstwhile Tantrik),Ramprosad who started conceiving Kali as Shyama , the
beutiful domesticized deity in terms of a daughter of the family. The whole
concept of rigidity in tantrism was replaced by a bhakti-editioned
Shakti-vigraha.The wonderful era of experimentations in syncretism started. In
the BAul tradition the tantric concept of sexuality was mingled through a
Bhakti-edition of DEHATATVIK (relating to esoteric concept with the human body)
philosophy.The FAKIR tradition started viewing KAnai(krishno) and Allah as one
and the same. Came the fantastic concept of conceiving Rasul in the lap of Ma
AMina, an icon directly borrowed from the JAsoda-Krishno figure. The AULIA
tradition which came through Hazrat Nizamuddin Ahulia of Delhi and Pir
Nooruddin(Nanda Rishi as it is known in parts of Gaud) of Cherar-e-sharif fame
of Kashmir got transformed here in terms of conceiving Krishna and Allah as the
SAt-Chit-Ananda.All these philosphies came very close to each other.People used
to worship the pirs,darvishes,baul-goshains,sannyasins(ascetics) with the same
reverence. The tradition went on unabetted till Ramkrishno when he accepted
KAlma and used to follow namazes five times a day. There was never a question
asked about any difference of any religion or philosophical school.It went so
as that Rev KrishnoMohan BandoPadhay a protestant missionary wrote or oversaw
the writing of Kristokirtan in the same style as HAri-nam-Sankirtan. Still the
Bengali Christians sing on their mass the KRishto-kirtans insteas of the
western hymns in bengal villages.Politically a natural withdrawal from the
institutional politics and power bickerings and anarchism is still the main
prop of Bengal politics and cultural life .Still even now any bengali family
would consider any professional job more desirable than an administrative job.
If there is one factor that forms the backbone of a bengali sahajiya culture
that is the movement of Sri Chaitanya .This is the logical starting point of
modern bengali civilization and if there is one book that epitomizes the ideal
of a bengali it is the Chaitnya charitamrita.