Kulin Brahmins are the
Bengali Brahmins
The Bengali Brahmins are Hindu Brahmins who traditionally reside in the Bengal region of the Indian subcontinent, currently comprising the Indian state of West Bengal and the country of Bangladesh.
The Bengali Brahmins, along with Baidyas ...
belonging to
Hindu
Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...
religion. They trace their ancestry to five families of
Kannauj
Kannauj ( Hindustani pronunciation: ənːɔːd͡ʒ is a city, administrative headquarters and a municipal board or Nagar Palika Parishad in Kannauj district in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The city's name is a corrupted form of the class ...
who migrated to
Bengal
Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...
.
History
In the 11th century AD, after the decline of the
Pala dynasty, a Hindu king, Adi Sura brought in five Brahmins and their five attendants from
Kanauj
Kannauj ( Hindustani pronunciation: ənːɔːd͡ʒ is a city, administrative headquarters and a municipal board or Nagar Palika Parishad in Kannauj district in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The city's name is a corrupted form of the cl ...
, his purpose being to provide education for the Brahmins already in the area whom he thought to be ignorant, and revive traditional orthodox Brahminical Hinduism.
These Vedic Brahmins were supposed to have nine ''gunas'' (favoured attributes), among which was insistence on same rank marriages.
Multiple accounts of this legend exist, and historians generally consider this to be nothing more than myth or folklore lacking historical authenticity.
The tradition continues by saying that these incomers settled and each became the founder of a clan.
The five Brahmin clans, which later became known as
Mukherjee
Mukherjee, Mukerjee, Mookerjee, Mukerji, Mukherji, Mukhujje or Mookherjee is a Kulin Brahmin surname of the Hindu Religion, common among residents of the Indian state of West Bengal. The traditional Bengali version is ''Mukhopaddhae'', which is ...
s,
Chatterjees,
Banerjee
Banerjee or Bandyopadhyay is a surname of Brahmins originating from the Bengal region of the Indian subcontinent and from Bangladesh.
Lineage and ancestry
Banerjees are from the ancient Shandilya Gotra, which means all Banerjees are descended f ...
s,
Gangulys and
Bhattacharjee
Bhattacharya, Bhattacharyya, and Bhattacharjee are three common spellings of a Bengali Brahmin and surname. In Bengal, Bhattacharjees, together with Banerjees, Chatterjees, Gangulys and Mukherjees, form the Kulin Brahmins.
Notable persons with ...
s, were each designated as ''Kulina'' ("superior") in order to differentiate them from the more established local Brahmins.
See also
*
Kulin Kayastha
Kulin Kayasthas are a sub-caste of the Kayastha caste in West Bengal, India. They are also known as the Kulina Kayasthas.
The Kayasthas are regarded in Bengal, along with the Bengali Brahmins, Brahmins and Baidyas, as being the "highest Hindu ca ...
References
Further reading
*{{cite book , title=History of the Bengali-speaking People , first=Nitish , last=Sengupta , publisher=UBS Publishers' Distributors , year=2001 , isbn=8174763554
Brahmin communities of West Bengal