If, perchance, you have reached this page trying to find a varna, jati, gan, gotra, veda or rashi match for your son, daughter, brother, sister or yourself, please be warned that I am no matchmaker, nor a believer in such mumbo jumbo. This blog tries to remove your superstitions. Please also note that the comments and discussions below the blog are far more interesting.
(Originally in response to a question on caste in my Schools for Patriotism post; edited not so minimally for conversion to a stand-alone blog.)
I don’t know how you reached this blog site with your question, but, now that you have, here is my considered response. I had said virtually the same things over and over again to many curious Bengalis in Lalit Patil’s excellent blog, Concatenated Bengali Last Names. This is virtually a cut-and-splice version of those. Let me remind you, however, that many language and history scholars have said virtually the same things in different words and forums with much greater authority than I shall ever carry. It’s a pity nobody wants to hear them. Conversely, many more contrary theories have been postulated by people with vested interests for aggrandizement and perpetuation of the caste system or their own familial history; they are not the least bit scholastic but are certainly more voluble and easy to believe if the audience is already inclined to believe through generations of conditioning. These charlatans had gone so far as to forge several kuluji (কুলুজি) granthas—caste and lineage manuscripts—that never withstood scrutiny, invented a king of Bengal called Ādiśura (আদিশূর) whom nobody could trace through history or archaeology, and fabricated tales of how this king had imported five brāhmaņas (and five kāyasthas in some versions) of pure Aryan descent ostensibly from Kānyakubja, as if they were pure-bred Aryans and hence the purest of pure Hindus — as if such animals exist. (The truth is that the many Aryan tribes that had entered India via Khyber Pass in many waves over centuries had never had a name for their idolatory, nor were they pure-bred even as they entered India.)
The net is full of rabidly Hindu propagandists, though, I shall never understand how bigotry would help the cause of Hinduism. What pains me is that it has infected many seemingly educated persons. Prejudice, all said and done, is no respecter of schooling, and schooling does not always confer wisdom.
None of the early societies had surnames to start with; no one on the subcontinent had ever had one till well into the Islamic period.
The Name of Our Land
In fact, there was no unified land called India (or Hindustan or Bhāratavarṣa) then. Scanning Rāmāyaņa and Mahābhārata with a fine-tooth comb you will never come across any single geographical name for the entire region that we now call India. There was no need, for India was not a realm then. Despite Aśoka’s remarkable efforts and Aurangzeb’s expansionist zeal, the entire subcontinent was never a single realm before the British Raj. They called it India after the Greeks. In fact, entire Europe followed Megasthenes. The Greeks got it from ancient Persians (Skt. Sindhu> Pers. Hindhu> Hind). Mughals rechristened it Hindustan: land of the Hind people (Pers. stān is cognate with Skt. sthāna= land). What did the pre-Aryan Indus people call their own land? Meluhha, as recorded in Akkadian cuneiform tablets of king Sargon’s time — last quadrant of the third millennium BCE.
The highly civilised and technology-savvy Indus people also had a good head for international commerce and hence the chance mention in Akkadian trade records. [There are some speculations, unfounded as yet, that the Sanskrit word mlechchha for foreigners was derived from Meluhhā]. Aryan settlers who composed the wonderful verses of Ṛgveda (1200 to 800 BCE) called it Saptasindhava (সপ্তসিন্ধব) — the (land of) seven rivers. Locale of the earliest of the Vedas was unmistakably Pañjāb (পঞ্জাব) (pañcha= five, ap= river), counting two less after recognising tributaries and distributaries for what they actually were. Bharata (ভরত) was one of the early Aryan tribes that had settled in Saptasindhava. Bharata (ভরত) was also a personal name: remember Rāma’s sibling and the son of Śakuntalā of Mahābhārata fame. Bhārata (ভারত) means the son (or progeny) of Bharata. Bhāratavarsha was actually a small region once ruled by the Bharata tribe, with no claim on the entire subcontinent. Meluhhā, Saptasindhava, Bhāratavarṣa or Hind were only segments of the vast subcontinent.
Hinduism: Facts and Myths
It was only during the Mughal rule, perhaps in Akbar’s time, that the name Hindu, was applied to the apparent religion followed by the residents of Hindustan. Apparent — because it was not a single religion then (not by a long chalk): it had no founder like Zoroaster, Moses, Confucius, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammad or Nanak; no uniform theology or cosmogony; had too large a pantheon, akin to those of the Greeks and Romans but larger, with each godhead having his (or her) own following; and there were local variations of each. You had Viṣṇu, Śiva, tribal gods, animal totems, animistic gods, deified heros, each with its followings but no unity of thought even after Śaṁkarāchārya. Even the caste system, not to be confused with vedic varṇāśrama (বর্ণাশ্রম), had far too many regional variations. Varṇāśrama, clearly related to varṇa (skin pigmentation), was perhaps akin to apartheid — tainted by xenophobia, though it had functional divisions of society, with many examples of inter-varṇa mobility and marriage. One must not forget that Śaṁkarāchārya’s sanātana dharma had no semblance whatsoever with the vedic religion: neither in the size and gods of the pantheon, nor in the theology and cosmogony. He invented a central philosophy for the religion which was paid lip-service to without rigid adherence across the diverse country. The current form of Hinduism, for all its conservatism, continues to enrich its pantheon with ersatz, Bollywood godesses like Santoṣī-mā and deified heroes of real and dubious deeds. It actively propagates untenable miracles like Gaņeśa idols drinking milk, allows deification of god-men (Satya Sāi-bābā), and patronises ritualisms like daily pūjās, sacred thread ceremonies, fasts on specific days, vegetarianism, kŗchchhasādhana (কৃচ্ছসাধন) to mourn the death of elders, untouchability, satī (সতী) and other practices that never had much religious content.
Saffron-brand Hindus have also imitated many traits of other religions, despite their collective turned up noses. Buddhists were much given to tonsure or muņḍan (মুণ্ডন); do we see its remnant — context conveniently forgotten — in the practice of present-day Biharis (modern Bihar was an important Buddhist centre) when they shave off the head whenever someone dies in his village, related or not? The custom of wearing saffron clothes by sannyāsīs began patently in imitation of Buddhist monks’ kaṣāya (কষায়) dress. Shivaji’s flag was saffron; it is uncertain if his choice was deliberate or not. Bal Thackeray’s saffron jalebiya (alkhalla আলখাল্লা in Bengali could, perhaps, be a variation once used by the Libyan tribe of the same name) is Arabic-Islamic in origin and commemorates Shivaji. The purdah (پرده) system of hiding women from public eye was in imitation of Islamic practice. The bhakti cult of the medieval sants (Kabir, Dadoo, Mirabai, Chaitanya etc) was strongly influenced by sufiism.
Assimilation is not condemnable; denial of obligation is.
All these, somehow, got included in the religious fold now loosely called Hinduism. Can their origins be traced? Does anybody claim responsibility for starting such practices?
Origin of Surnames
Coming back to the point of surnames, there were in ancient times patronymic (father‘s name) or metronymic (mother’s name) identities, rarely used, such as Dāśarathī Rāma, Pāshupata Droņa, Satyakāma Jābālī, Kaunteya Karṇa. To distinguish two persons of the same name, geonymic (place name) identities were also used: Droņa of Hastināpura, Surya of Bandyo-grāma; the latter, a Bengali geonymic surname for some Brahmins, was later upgraded to Bandojjhā (ojhā <upādhyāya, teacher)>Bañdujje, whence the logically anglicised Bannerji. Bandyo-pādhyāya is a fairly recent Sanskritisation .
None of these special identities were surnames before the Islamic period in India. The Dravidian-speaking people in the southern states of India continue to use a combination of patronyms and geonyms. A friend of mine is called Tirunelvelli Viśvanāthan Rāmachandran Iyer; the first handle of his name is his place of birth, the second his father’s given name, the third his personal name, and the fourth identifies the god his family owes allegiance to. His wife calls him Rām and so do we. The famous Srilankan art critic and author was called Ānand Kentishtown Kumāra-swāmī: here the christian name was placed first, followed by the place of birth, and finally the patronym. It shows that the southerners don’t have surnames till this day.
Bengalis, you must realize, have much more ādivāsī (aboriginal Austro-Asiatics: santhal, kol, bhil, munda, ho etc) blood flowing in their veins than Aryan. Most of us have physical features to prove it (with my dark skin, thick lips, flat nose and crinkly hair, at least I do). We speak with non-Aryan accents (our vowels are quite unlike those in the Hindi belt—absent short ‘a’, which is sometimes ‘o’ and ‘au’ as in audience at others, but often silent; the absence of long vowels; diphthongs ‘ai’ and ‘au’ of different values etc) and we continue to count partly in ādivāsī terms (upto āthero 18, unish 19, in IE but then we say kudi 20—not bis (from Skt. viṁśati) like most of our compatriots north of river Godavari. A large share of the words in our lexicon is of Austro-Asiatic origin.
It is quite obvious from literary and linguistic studies that in very ancient times a handful of Aryans (people who spoke Indo-European dialects) had entered the eastern part of India. Grierson called them outer Aryans to distinguish them from the inner (vedic). The dialects they spoke and the religious or socio-cultural practices they subscribed to were different. Those who came to Bengal very early in their eastward journey did not have the poetic gift of the vedics. A handful of migrants, with very few, if any, of their own females, couldn’t have populated the vast land without serious blood dilution. The same is also true for India at large and even the fabled Aryabhūmī of Saptasindhava. They had not much to offer to the local tribals except seeds of their loin: no attributes of physical civilisation except a vastly superior language, no technology, no agricultural techniques or architecture or magic medicines. How can the people of later Bengal, mixed progeny of a few Aryans and many rank ādivāsī wombs, have a caste then in the orthodox sense?
The Aryan varņāśrama labelled all non-Aryans as outsiders — rightly so. Those with mixed blood — children of anuloma marriage (Aryan daddy and ādivāsī mom) were śudras; children of pratiloma marriage (reverse parentage) were the lowliest of low outsiders, sometimes called chandālas, without a place in society. Even in proto-Bengali Charyāpada, a collection of motely Buddhist mystic songs composed roughly between 800 and 1000 years ago, the domni’s (dom is one of the outcastes in Bengal, outsiders-turned-outcastes; domni is the feminine form) hut is outside the town but is frequented by Brahmins and Buddhist monks, obviously for immoral reasons. [Please note that the operating word is outsider, not outcaste in earlier times. Later, with social degeneration, the two words had somehow merged in the general Indian psyche. That’s why foreigners still can’t be converted to Hinduism, though, in the past, when Hinduism was nameless, it had welcomed all with open arms without ceremony. No baptism was necessary.]
In that sense, all non-brahmin Bengalis are either śudras or outcaste chandālas. How, then, all that brouhaha over six castes and thirty six subcastes (ছয় জাতি, ছত্রিশ উপজাতি)?
One more argument: Buddhism that arose in Magadha (modern Bihar) was virtually the universal faith of the eastern parts of India, Bengal inclusive, for several unbroken centuries before Śaśāṁka. Was Buddhism too contaminated with casteism right from its inception? How else would the man on the street know what his original caste was when Hinduism replaced it eventually many centuries later!
[I personally knew of a kāyastha primary school teacher, a widower with two small children, originally from Maimansingha, now in Bangladesh, with the surname Rāy, who had migrated to Hooghly in the wake of the partition and registered himself as a brahmin without changing his surname. He invented a modest and plausible genealogy for his family. His younger son went to college with me; he refused to taint — by his own admission — another brahmin family by marrying into it. The third generation is blissfully ignorant of their caste history and has embraced the worst bigotry of the current model of Hinduism through their religio-political allegiance. On the other side of the same coin, we see a veritable beeline to the affidavit courts to get enlisted in the scheduled caste roll, thanks to the reservation policy of the government of India.]
The question of gotra is even more contentious. Go is cognate with cow (cattle). And gotra is a signature mark of an owner that was imprinted on his cattle, usually branded with hot metal behind one ear or on one rump. The early Aryans, despite the beauty of their verses, were decidedly pre-literate. [Asokan edicts on stone and iron, in Brāhmī and Kharoshthī, of the third century BCE are the earliest preserved Aryan scripts found till date in and around the subcontinent. Scholars estimate that Aryan scripts came into being around 800 BCE or later, though the early examples, presumably written on perishable materials such as palm or birch leaves, animal hides or textiles, have never been unearthed.] Brahmins, we learn from surviving oral traditions, were then the wealthiest varņa, and their wealth was measured in the number of cattle they owned. The gotra marks were very necessary to avoid commotion and quarrel over ownership at the end of the day when the cattle had to be taken back from the common pasture. The gotras, let us assume that they were like the signs ‘x‘, ‘y‘ and ‘z‘ , were called by the name of the founding brahmins of the owning family: x stands for Śāņdilya, y for Śaktŗ, and z Bharadvāja. Now, the cowherd, or the washerman, or the weaver, or the charlady, or the valet of the brahmin, each claimed identity by the same gotra — irrespective of their own varņa or caste. It was like saying Madhav Biswas, assistant engineer, ore-beneficiation department, TISCO; or Moumita Das, history teacher in Bandel Don Bosco School. Do you think who was the employer of our ancestor three thousand years ago is relevant still? I would promptly ask you how your family had preserved the gotra memory for 120 generations and what for!
Sen (<Sena) was not a surname at all. The son of Taraņisena may have been called Bhīmasena, and his son Vasantasena … obviously for pleasing alliteration that linked generations of a family. When, in the Islamic period, surnames became necessary, this family may have had detached the last part of their given names, sena, and registered that as their surname. I am a Sen myself and grew up listening to many wishful tales – within the family – of how we were vaidya-brāhamaṇas (there is no such caste in the very few authentic lists that have come down to us from the pre-Islamic past that had no surnames) once, and possessed the gupta (secret) vidyā (knowledge) of medicine and anatomy, and, hence, also had that handle as well (Sengupta, a concatenation). Patriarchs in our family used to sign letters of invitation to weddings, first-rice and śrāddha ceremonies as Sena-śarmanah, the second half of this concatenation actually reserved for brāhamaņas. The few authentic kula panjikas do not list a caste called vaidya. In the Hindi belt vaids are barbers, far lower in social hierarchy. Physicians and medical practitioners, if non-Brahmin, presumably belonged to a long vanished caste — ambaṣtha. Some Sens went so far as to claim lineage from the Sena dynasty (Ballāla, Lakṣmaņa etc). At that rate I can claim descent from Sun Yat-sen and, why not, Ali Hussen or Amundsen!
There never was any truth in such arbitrary and unsubstantiated claims.
Sens can also be kayasthas, benes, tilis or kaivartas; I know at least a dozen Sens of these castes.
So, please don’t lose any sleep over the caste issue; it will never lead you anywhere.
thnx for your reply…..i learned a lot..thnx again..now i have discovered that sen (those who are shudras belongs from Bagdi subcaste with kasyap gotra) in westbengal. i search wiki about bagdi subcaste & their gotras mainly those who are bengali,but there is nothing such information..may be wiki does not have much information about bagdi subcaste of west bengal.
I am sure those sen of bagdi subcaste have changed their surname to sen from bagdi or majhi long ago.
anyways..thanks again for your valueable reply.
thankyou sir..!!!
Can Sen be an OBC?
Dipankar Gupta to me by email (unrelated to this blogpost)
Dear Phalguni,
I hope you are aware of the branch of science/skill that predicts or tries to predict the dates of important mythological events.
I read about it about 10 to 15 years ago.
The guiding factors are some astronomical occurrences associated with the events, whose dates are found with great degree of accuracy from almanac.
The other things that are associated are catastrophic natural disaster, like tsunami, earthquake, flood etc, which are in case part of the event.
The third item could be some tell-tale geographical signs that survives the passage of time.
Supposing you are asked to find out the time of occurrence of parting of Red Sea during the time of Ten Commandments – how will you start ??
In this connection I found that date of Krishna’s birth has been predicted as indicated below :
“Based on scriptural details and astrological calculations the date of Krishna’s birth, known as Janmashtami is 18 July 3228 BCE and departed on 3102 BCE.”
I am quite astounded reading the above.
Hope you will be able to through some light on this.
With love,
Dipu-da
Aniruddha Phalguni Sen to Dipankar by email
Palaeo-astronomical dating of mythical events began over hundred years ago. Bal Gangadhar Tilak had great faith in it but, then, he was a self-professed religionist. The astronomical (astrology, invented by ancient Iranians, whence the words Magi and Magic, was always a lot of mumbo-jumbo) references on which such dating depends are usually hopelessly inadequate, inaccurate, or wrapped in veils of faith, or misinterpreted deliberately and maliciously, by palaeo-astrologers with vested interest (sensationalism, self-glory, proving religious supremacy over other faiths and what have you). You may note that the birthdays of many historical and mythical figures are celebrated according to lunar reckoning (Buddha Pûrņimā, Rāma Navamī etc). History records very few authenticated instances of PA. Birth of Jesus under the star of Bethlehem is a rare one, but it places Jesus’s birth about five years BEFORE the tradition and, then, definitely NOT at yuletide.
1. Kŗshņa, often treated as an historical figure (cf Mahābhārata) who was deified later, is not even mentioned till well into the puranic Common Era as a godhead. Porus’s soldiers are known to have fought Alexander with “banners of the Indic Heracles” flying high. This Heracles is believed to have been Vāsudeva, not Kŗshņa. Later, many gods were rolled into the Kŗshņa identity and many more lores added with the usual geographical variations.
2. It is known that Aryans first came to India around 1800 BCE and definitely not before 2000 BCE. The earliest Ŗgveda verses were composed (not written, for they did not invent writing before 800 BCE) around 1500 BCE in pre-partition Punjab.
3. Bits and pieces of the great epic, perhaps memorable events and a bloody, fratricidal war, were composed at different places over a great period of time, perhaps centuries. Tales tend to be adorned with the tellers’ fancy and, after several repetitions, become myths (cognate notably with Samskŗta mithyā). Vyāsa’s version of Mahābhārata, on linguistic and other considerations of dating, was not written before 800 BCE. Vyāsa himself says that many other bards had sung the same saga for many generations before him. Vyāsa was a learned bard but can you credit him to put down astronomical events long long before his time? Many parts of the epic, such as the Gītā and the references to Buddha, were later insertions.
4. Kurukshetra of the epic, if we go by the archaeolological evidence or the lack of it, could not have been in today’s Haryana. Bards, when they retold a story, are known to have used (and, sometimes, even inserted) the geography and dialect he/she was familiar with. Facts were not foremost in their minds.
5. Vyāsa’s Kŗshņa was from Dvārakā in Gujarat; godhead Kŗshņa from the dwab of Ganga and Jumna. Kŗshņa #1 was definitely a wise strategist and a man of the world (definitely not a god, for the Gītā and certain related parts of Mahābhārata, linguistically, was a later inclusion by rabid religionists of yore who are called fundamentalists in today’s parlance). Could Kŗshņa #2, Bālagopāla, Nanīchora, Rādhā’s paramour, morally and sexually degraded, be the same?
6. Exactly on which scriptural descriptions of which astronomical event did they place “…janmāshtamī on 18 July 3228 BCE and departure on 3102 BCE”? Who were the estimating astronomers? Or were they not astronomers at all but astrologers, charlatans one and all?
7. 3000 BCE is about the time when the Sumerian-Akkadian (Mesopotamia) and Egyptian civilisations flourished. The so-called Indus civilisation was also nearing its peak. Where were the Indo-European tribes then? They were, a semi-nomadic pastoral people (hunter-gatherer-animal herders who also grew crops in the scratch-sow-reap-burn-move on method), roaming the vast grasslands of Central Asia, trying to domesticate horses. They radiated thence to the west and south in several small groups around 2500 BCE.
8. If Kŗshņa was an Aryan, he was definitely not a milksop or vegan.
Why do you have to pay heed to such balderdash?
Dear Phalguni Kaka,
I came to this blog directed by Baba, in connection with his question about PA dating. Your answer was illuminating and the historical references are quite fascinating. Thanks a lot for sharing the knowledge! I plan to re-visit your blog periodically to read your entries.
Rana
Thanks, Rana. Read my short August entry tiltled ‘Bengal, Banga, Bangla’ written in a lighter note.
Mr. Sen has tried to explain the origin of surnames, through the origin of names of Hinduism, Hindusthan, etc.
However, it is extremely difficult to find the details at micro level, because of no recorded document.
The recorded notes are available for people , who were literate and were allowed to read and write. The fairness of these documents are also now questioned.
I tried to reply , but it tends to becomes very lengthy reply and hence dropped.
On some points modern historians agree with his view and on some points it differs.
I have studied the civilization of Bengalis in a integrated way and some of my articles are available on articlebase.com and others. These are available on line on Google search.
people who are interested in Bengali civilization ( Land, religion, society and Caste, politics etc) may go through the same
Dear Dr. Debnath,
To the best of my meager knowledge, there was never any Bengali civilisation. People may not like to be reminded, but the only non-Aryan civilisation of the region was set up by the Koch people in relatively recent times. The Mauryas were Arya Biharis and the Guptas too were IE conquerers. Śaśānka, Divya (the Kaivarta king), the Pālas et al were local kings (who may be called Bengali by stretching ones imagination to the limit) variously ruling IE civilisations in this region. The history of the region is old and can be dated to Palaeolithic settlements along the Dāmodar and Ajaya river coasts. There was no Bengal then but different kingdoms (Samatata সমতট, Banga বঙ্গ, Kajangal কজঙ্গল, etc). But the Bengali identity is purely an ethnic label and the language began separating from the pûrvī dialects of Māgadhī Abahatta only about 800 to 1000 years ago (cf Prākŗtapaingala and Caryāpada).
Niharranjan Roy’s oft-quoted history of the Bengali people and the region and later additions to that do not change the fact that the Ahoms and Odiyas have older histories than Bengal. There is no shame in admitting that. I feel quite proud to have Austro-Asiatic blood flowing through my veins. Anthropologically they (the proclaimed Adivasis) are our ancestors because very few of Aryan extraction came this way. Ethnically we are indebted to those very few Aryans who shaped the subcontinent long ago.
When India was a British colony, how many English people actually came to and lived in India. But, having acknowledged the superiority of their language, we have made it the medium of college/university instruction.
Please wake up from the caste-gotra-clan-kulin-akulin-vaishnava-sakta-hindu-ahindu-bangali-abangali nightmares and look around with your OWN eyes; as an humble Bengali it is my sincere request to all Bongs.
Dear Mr. Sen,
In this connection , there is a research article by me available on Google, I wish you may kindly go through it. It is an integrated study on Bengali civilization.
Title: “History of Bengalis- An introspection” by Dr. KK Debnath.
I will welcome your suggestion, for modification.
This blog post surely could exhibit the thing it wants to communicate to your scaners. Many experts have an effective approach which often came towards a financially rewarding production for those who were sufficiently fortunate to get discovered that!
But my blog posts are not for earning money, darling!
[…] HINDUTVA, SURNAMES AND CASTES: A MODERN BENGALI OBSESSION […]
The genetic contribution of IE-speaking migrants to caste groups in Bengal displays a vertical cline with Brahmins having the highest European + SW Asian component (please see the Harappa Ancestry Project). In fact, Bengal Brahmins have a similar ‘IE’ fraction as other Gangetic Brahmins and, indeed, cluster with North Indian groups. As for Kayasthas and Vaidya, though they may have less of the ‘IE’ component than Brahmins and might actually cluster with South Indian groups, they are most definitely distinct from eastern Indian Austro-Asiatic tribals. This was confirmed by the component analysis of Indian populations published by the Indian Genome Variation Project. As for stories of origin being mythological (i.e. Adishura), there are plenty of copper plates in the Bengal archeological record confirming the large scale importation of brahmins into Bengal from upper India. I cannot speak to whether there are any copper plates describing land grants to shudra groups such as Kayasthas and Vaidyas.
Thanks for your comments.
Importation, howsoever large, cannot inundate a whole people. Yes, there had been human importations in the past for a variety of reasons and they were all absorbed into Bengali ethnicity; inseparably so. Land grant copper-plates, detailed as they are in many other ways, don’t always indicate the caste of the donee, unless he’s a Brahmin or a Bauddha. There are several plates that mention no caste at all. You are right, however, in pointing out that Kayasthas and Vaidyas are not mentioned in any one that I’ve known about.
I wrote the blog in disgust; why should healthy people have to be obsessed with caste, gotra, Adisura, Bangaja, bhangaja, kulin-akulin etc well into the twenty first century?
But, I’ve tried my utmost to avoid using dogma against dogma.
In this connection, I again recall the theory of Max Meular on Aryans in India. The theory became extremely popular to Indians, might be a desire due to brand name.
This is another theory started floating again in the same direction.
genetically, it has been proved that Bengali Brahmins are closer to bengali sudras by blood than Brahmins of other areas, Panjabi Brahmis are closer to Panjabi Sudras than Bengali or South Indian Brahmins and so on.
However, There is no problem if some one desires to identify himself with people of fair colored skinned, tall and handsome race and feel proud on being a descendant of that race to enhance their prestige in the society.
I¡¦m now not positive where that you are finding your information, but very good topic. I needs to spend some time finding out significantly much more or working out much more. Thanks for great information I was seeking for this info for my mission.
Thank you Mr. Sen.
It is an integrated study,
References are mentioned at page 4 and 5.
These books were purchased at various points of time at Mysore, Bangalore, Banaras, Cooch Behar and Gorkhpur.
I was fortunate that many publishers allowed me to search and read books of interest at their Library for selection. However, I could not get any help from Kolkata Publishers in spite of my request on availability of certain books with them.
Besides, now a days Books becomes very costly and difficult to afford.
I think logical analysis may lead to good result.
Some more articles written by me about religion , caste etc are available on articlebase.com. You may kindly go through the same if you get some time.
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“So, please don’t lose any sleep over the caste issue; it will never lead you anywhere.” Sir it was great reading this blog, you have told the universal truth in the above sentence.I pity to the people who are still concerned about caste,creed, religion , skin colour blah blah. Today our country claims to be secular but we Indians do our best to prove the claim wrong. Blogs like this are necessary to justify the secularism of INDIA.
Thanks for reading my weblog and the comments that you have made. Usually I get hate mails for that blog. Many who visit my site actually look for confirmation of the caste of their prospective grooms.
Somehow, I had missed your comment thus far. Most visitors to that weblog seek some sort of support for their caste prejudices – usually before finalising marriage alliances of their wards. That way, yours was one of few rare exceptions. Thanks for the positive response, but, sadly, I’m no missionary of secularism, or any other ‘-isms, for that matter. It’s truth behind historic prejudices that I seek.
It’s a quite informative blog. I totally do not believe in caste system now (partially believed before reading this blog), somehow had few reservations about gotras but now i don’t believe in any of these.
Thanks for the post.
Thanks for your comments. I’m used to abuses hurled at me by those who seek justification of the caste system and/or some sort of ammunitions to justify rejection/approval of their daughters’ suitors. Yours is a rare exception.
Though I’m over a month late, I’d like to thank you for reading through my rather tedious blog post!
This design is steller! You certainly know how to keep a reader
entertained. Between your wit and your videos, I was almost moved to start my own blog (well, almost.
..HaHa!) Fantastic job. I really loved what you had to say, and more than that,
how you presented it. Too cool!
You failed to notice in your zeal that my blog posts are singularly bereft of designs of the decorative kind and that I never used any videos to date when posting a blog. So what’s the praise all about or would you claim wrong number?
CAN YOU PLEASE TELL ME WHAT IS THE CASTE OF “DAS”?
Das is a second part of many double-barreled given names, such as Vipradasa, Ramadasa, Haridasa etc. that had eventually split up to become a surname in Islamic times. For some inexplicable reason the Kaivartas of Bengal, a fighter class epitomised in king Divya (Divyadasa?) had sported this name-part. A sect of the Kaivartas was the Kahars (the boat people, fishermen); that caused many to believe that Das was a Dheevar surname. In reality, many Vaidyas sport this surname and so a whole host of Kayasthas and Vanikas.
bhattray is a bengali surname or not? if it is there then what is the caste
Bhatta, indeed, is a Bengali Brahmin surname, as it is in some other states. In Bengal, the Bhattas who ran a school used to add the suffix ‘Acharya’; those who owned land added ‘Ray.’
Can bhattray be SC caste?
Not to my knowledge.
can you advise Konar’s in Bengal belong to which cast and do they come under the OBC/ ST. Rgds
It would be better if you buy Lokeswar Mitra’s Bangalir Padabir Itihas and study yourself.
I chanced upon your blog and thoroughly enjoyed (and hopefully learned something from it) it. Unfortunately many of the commenters have started using you as the compendium of Bengali caste system. Quite ironic given the central message (or at least as I understood it) of your post.
Thanks for visiting my blog site, even if to the only post that draws an undue lot of traffic for the wrong reasons!
Excellent article. Although based on logical assumptions, some references could make it even better.
This blog, as I might have mentioned somewhere in the body of the post, began its life as a reply to inane and maddening questions about caste-surname relationships. That was why I didn’t bother to include citations. There was, however, nothing new in what I’ve had to say. I picked up the facts over a lifetime of reading from diverse sources. It would’ve cost me too much effort to research and dig up the references. The faithful wouldn’t disbelieve me less if I did that!
Thanks for visiting my post. Not all my posts are such scathing and platform-based, though. Shall be glad if the likes of you browse through.
your history about india is completely wrong. India was united throughout time under hindu rajya before invaders came. check your facts before you go about blabbering. Bharat name came from raja bharat, vikramaditya’s empire and numerous stretching back to mahabharat times. so please check facts. stop being ignorant.
Did your patrons ever hear of the Bharata (no relation to Śakuntalā-Duṣyanta’s son Bharata) tribe of the early Aryan waves? Bhāratavarṣa was a tiny territory somewhere in the North of the Bharata tribe. And don’t ever blabber loudly about Hindu Rajya. The term, Hindu, was NEVER applied to the diverse religions practiced in the so-called land of Indus. Even Śankarachārya didn’t ever call it Hinduism. The name tag began appearing in the Islamic era, and extensively used by Abul Fazl. Your education, alas, is so incomplete!
and for kind information gotra system is not what you say. Don’t misinterpret and fool people. Gotra system deals with X and Y chromosomes. That was done to prevent inbreeding between people cause inbreeding causes unhealthy children with less genetic diversity. Less genetic diversity causes limited gene pool which cause a population to be vulnerable to calamities and can be wiped out. Been experienced among lions of gir with high level of inbreeding. Gotra system was devised so that inbreeding is prevented in our population. And it doesn’t have to date back 5000 years for you to use it. It is relevant today, cause it was devised using scientific methods. You shouldn’t marry a person with same gotra.
In case the person is from other state and still have same gotra, you have to see gotra of the spouses paternal side 7 generations back and maternal side 5 generations back. If its different then you are not involved in any kind of inbreeding.
You could do with a bit of real study of history in general, history of the subcontinent, history of language(s) and religion(s) of the region, and, last but not the least, a bit of genetics! Please select standard texts, for the market is flooded with spurious pamphlets patronised by the Saffron Brigade for spreading hatred as also for political gains. Those who pen them can barely write two correct sentences (in any language). How are they different from the Quoranic fundamentalists?
I do agree with Mr. Anirudh Falguni Sen.
The basic problem with Indians is that they are not able to correlate The political history, with religious history and social history, History of Language, and races history. They completely found to be dependent on Western scholars. Reasons are many , some of them may be attributed to
1) Infancy of Scholarly Indians of Christian period (British period / European period).
2) Lack of Knowledge of Current historians, because, Brilliant students prefer Medical, Engineering, and applied Science, Science streams. Only 3rd rated fellows joins the course like History etc. To my experience, Non Historians are better than professional historians in India.
3) Saffron Brigade also equally blind, Without knowing Hinduism they speak on Hinduism……….
Thanks Mr. Debnath. If only the youngsters were interested in our own history!
that’s called historian…..
I didn’t quite get what you intend to mean, Mr. Deepak Sen.
I have heard that the baidya lineage started in Bikrampur. It could be that we Baidyas were a collection of scholars in Pala empire, who were later fit into the caste system by positioning in between Brahmins and Kayasthas during Sena empire time. There were scholars who originated from Bikrampur region during Pala empire, e.g. Atish Dipankar.
Miight be, if you can prove it with citations.
This is in connection with the comment of ” Sayantan Dasgupta:”
While looking at the ancient history of bengal, we need to look at Vedic, and sarmanic Tradition of India, the reason is that we ourselves burnt our own history of Civilization… The place Borendra or Dakha was always a seat of learning, we have Atish dipankar from this place. The origin of any community can not be traced out as all records were either destroyed or modified over a period of thousand years.
Loved the article. Have sent the link to many of my friends too. I too have grown up being told that we are baidik brahmins, presumably a very small group of pandits who were brought to Bengal by some raja from kanauj. My ancestors all performed as pujari brahmins. Was wondering as I have searched high and low on the net, did any such group really exist, how are we different.