Bangladesh

India

In The Name Of The People

History

The ancient, medieval, and colonial history of Bangladesh covers a period from antiquity to 1947, when India was partitioned. So the history of Bangladesh prior to 1947 is a history of India of which Bangladesh was a part. Today it is an independent nation within the Indian subcontinent, but is half the old Bengal or Bangla.

For the first civilization of India and later empires go to Ancient India

NOVO, 17th July 2000

Ancient History:

(NOTE: Bangla, Banga, Bengal will be used interchangably as will Bengali, Bangalee and at times Bangla)

Contributions and Achievements by Ancient Bangla:

In ancient times, Bangla was a great nation with a distinct culture and history. There were different dravidian and mongoloid people in Bengal before the coming of the Aryans. They were probably united in the Prasoi and Gangaridai kingdoms that existed there before the 3 century BC and probably until the Gupta Empire and were probably ruled by Varman kings. From here Bengals went far and wide to spread their culture.

Expansion and Spread of Culture:

• Tradition has it that Sri Lanka was colonized by a Bengali (Bengal) Prince Vijayasingh who established the first political organization in that island in 544 BC.

• Gadadhara, another Bengalee, founded a kingdom in the Madras state in South India.

• Before the coming of the Tibeto-Chinese tribes into Burma and Thailand, they were inhabited by the Mon-Khmer peoples. It was the Bengali-Kalinga people that were the rulers of these empires. The Khmer empire of Cambodia was ruled by Indians (Bengals) and later by the Barman (Varman) dynasty and was one of the greatest of the Eastern Indian empires. They created the Angkor Wat. The Mon-Khmers were one of the original people of Bangla in ancient times.

• Another Bengali empire in Laos/Vietnam called Champa had its capital called Vijaya. Champa on the other hand was the name of the capital of Gaur (ancient Bangla) where the Champas originated. Interestingly, Vijay(a) means victory in Indian languages today and is a popular name. Was Sri Vijaya an ancient conqueror?

• It is possible that from Bengal, Indian culture spread to south east Asia. It is even plausible since the sea outlet on the East was Bengal. This is possible at least in Java if not the other Indian empires in the east. In Java was once a great Indian empire that existed from before 135 AD and continued to dominate the region past the 14th century AD. Nobody knows when or how Java became Indian. However, it can be seen that the Javanese script from the sculptures of ancient times resemble that of Proto-Bangla. (Modern Bangla was formulated later.) (Hasna Jasimuddin Moudud)

Trade:

• Bengal is known as a great trading nation from the Mauryan era but few know that Bangla was a great trading nation even before the Mauryans. It is also known that Bengal was the greatest fabric producer in midieval times but Kautilya's Artha-Sastra shows that Bengal was the greatest fabric centre from before the end of the fourth century BC. This book was written at the end of the 4th century BC and it describes the fine quality of silk and other crafts made in Pundra, Suvarnakudya and Vanga or Banga. (Hasna Jasimuddin Moudud)

• When Greek historian Periplus talks about India in the first century AD, apparently he speaks of Bangla. He says, "There is a river near it called the Ganges (Ganga)" ... "On its bank is a market town which has the same name as the river, Ganges (Ganga). Through this place are brought malabathrum and Gangetic spikenard and pearls and muslins of the finest sorts, which are called Gangetic. It is said that there are gold mines near these places, and there is a gold coin which is called caltis. And just opposite this river there is an island in the ocean, the last part of the inhabited world towards the east, under the rising sun itself, it is called Chryse (I wonder what island this is!); and it has the best tortoise-shell of all the places on the Erythrean Sea" (Quote from Sudheer's   India's Contribution to the World's Culture).

Learning:

• Bengal taught India elephant rearing. The oldest Indian treatise on the training and diseases of elephants is the Hastyayur Veda, ascribed to Pala Kapya, is a work compiled during the Sutra period (600-200BC). This was written by a man from "where the Lauhitya (Brahmaputra, a river in Bangladesh) flows towards the sea". (Hasna)

• Bengali alphabet was used by Buddhist Shrong Tsan who conquered Northern India between 581-600 AD. (Hasna).

• Many of the venerated Buddhist scholars are Bangalee; Shilabhadra, Chandragomin, Abhayakaragupta, Jetari, Shantiraksmit (from Sabhar, Dhaka, Bangladesh) and Jnanasrimitra to mention a few. Bangla Buddhist monks also helped in the establishment of the Nalanda, the greatest learning centre of its time. ShilaBhadra (Bengal) was in charge of Nalanda (greatest learning centre of its time) when Hiuen Tsang came there to study. There were several other ancient universities scattered throughout Bengal and some of the ruins survive today.

Religion:

• Ancient Bengal was a centre of Shib (Shiva) worship and elements of Shib worship existed there such as Yoga and transmigration of the soul. The north Indians probably learned these concepts through their contact with the Bengals.

• Ancient Bangalees spread Mahayana Buddhism into the islands of Indonesia. 

• They went to Tibet and spread Buddhism there. Bangalee scholar Santirakshit was one of the founders of the Buddhist monastic order in Tibet. The great Buddhist sage Dipankara Srijnana also known as Atish Dipankar(Dhaka, Bangladesh) was another great Buddhist from Bangla to have crossed the Himalayas to go to Tibet. He reformed the monastic order in Tibet.  

• Many branches of Buddhism and other local belief systems also developed in Bengal. Vajrayana, Shajayana, Kalachakrayana, Tantrayana, Nathism, the Bauls, and others originated in Bangla. Atish and ShilaBhadra converted Tibet and wrote both in Sanskrit and Tibetan enriching the Tibetan litterature.

Seafaring:

Bengals were naturally inclined towards being sea faring people living in a riverine land and on the coast. In old times the last name was given to a person by the nature of one's profession, the Shaontals were called Majhis and there was a kingdom of Malla in South West Bangla. Both Majhi and Malla mean sailor.

• Bengal had at least two seaports, one at Tamralipti in Soutwest Bangla and another in the southeast. Mauryan and Gupta kings used Bengali port at Tamralipti to trade. Some western historians often think (as in the American Library of Congress) that the Bengal sea faring days began with the Guptas. However, Tamralipti existed even during the Mauryan era and even when the Bengals (Dravirs) were being Aryanized, they were considered ocean travellers. The earliest Buddhist literary reference to Vanga (Bangla) in the Milinda-panho mentions Vanga as a maritime country where trading ships came from various parts of the world. The Aryans themselves were landlubbers and considered seafaring to be sacrilegious and were introduced to seafaring by the Bengals during the Mauryan period.

• From the Tamralipti port Buddhists went to Sri Lanka to spread Buddhism. And naturally there were famous Bengali seamen. One was a Bengali Captain BuddhaGupta. Inscriptions from Malay in present day Malaysia talk about him as a great Captain. On the west Kerala traded by sea and on the east Bengal traded.

• One of the first wars between the Aryans and the Bengals is recorded and from here comes an interesting revealation. In Bhishma-parvan the Bengali kings heroically face attacks from the Pandus or conquerors of Upper India. In the text it is said that while some of the Bengal kings fought on elephants, others rode on ocean-bred steeds of the hue of the moon. These were possibly warships. Was there a past history of Bengal that is forgotten?

Art and Architecture:

Not much architecture from the first century BC survives in Bengal. Some ruins have been found from the first millennium AD. However, from ancient references to cities like Gaur or Garh and Pundhra it seems Bengal was an urban nation. One of the reasons why ruins of cities may not survived is the chaotic movement of the rivers. The rivers over long periods of time shift and devour whatever is on its banks. It may also be that the regular floods have covered the ruins deep in the ground. Moreover, it is also possible that the first millennium cities such as Chandrahketugarh have been built over older cities that were destroyed when Bengal was conquered .

• There are temples built  in Burma (Myanmar or Brahmadesh) that are in the model of  Bangla temples.

• The architecture, sculpture and art of Cambodia and Indonesia were inspired by that of Bangla. (Hasna Jasimuddin Moudud) These also show that these empires might have been created by Bengali migrants just as Champa.

• The Pal art of Bangla also influenced the Nepalese, Javanese and Tibetan paintings, as well as the Tang Art of China.

• According to Pag Sham Jon Zang, a book from Tibet, in the eleventh century, Bengal occupied first place in the field of art. Tibetan opera or old drama combines singing and dancing, which immediately reminds one of the Carya Nryta and Carya singing which is still found in Nepal and Bhutan today. Dance movements in Tibetan opera correspond with lyrics and melodies much as in the Carya Nrytas or dance. Some movements, such as bowing with the hands clasped and scriptures. (Hasna)

Parts of Bangla was taken by the Mauryan Empire in the third century BC and then it was conquered by the Guptas in the 4th century AD. Bangla was aryanized after being incorporated into the Gupta empire and served as their maritime outlet for both the Mauryan and Guptas. But soon Bengals achieved independence again and contributed to the world as the great Pal Empire. Bangla continued to be a major sea trader until recently.

However, doom was around the corner. An invasion on the west by Arabs and Turks was slowly advancing towards Bangla to again occupy her. Bangla would be ruled by foreigners once again for the next millennium.

A Brief Time Line Of India

Click here to visit the cities of Bangla

Possible ancient migration

Principal regions of Ancient Bangla

Pal Empire

Spread of Buddhism I

Spread of Buddhism II

Spread of Buddhism III

Spread of Buddhism IV

Bangla: A Buddhist Nation?

Virtual Bangladesh : Rajshahi Tour

Oops! The map is wrong!

Paharpur

Moinamoti

Nalanda (Bihar, India. Reached great heights during the Pal Empire.)

A Short History Of Bengal by Tanmoy Bhattacharya

A Thousand Year Old Bengali Mystic Poetry by Hasna Jasimuddin Moudud, daughter of famous poet Jashimuddin.

A History of the Indian People by D. P. Singhal

I am indebted to various sources for writing this history ... many books that I have read since I was a kid and those I read now both in paper and on the net. I thank the authors.

|Bangladesh|

|Majlish|Kashmir|NOVO1|NOVO2|NOVO3|

|ReligionQuest|ArchiveLinks|Ancient|

|HOME|

� 2001, NOVO, NOVO's Library, Majlish. All Rights Reserved. Do not reproduce without prior permission. Standard Disclaimers apply. Send permission/syndication requests to [email protected],    Thank you. Copyright Notice.