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Bhadralok
Bhadralok (, literally 'gentleman', or 'well-mannered person') is Bengali for the new class of 'gentlefolk' who arose during British rule in India in the Bengal region in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent. Caste and class makeup According to Sekhar Bandyopadhyay, the ''Bhadraloks'' primarily, though not exclusively, belonged to "the three traditional upper castes of Bengal", Brahmin, Baidya and Kayastha. Wealth, English education, and high status in terms of administrative service were the factors which led to the rise of this 'new aristocracy' and since a large number of the three upper castes had administrative skills and economic advantages, they formed the majority of Bhadralok in 19th century Bengal, but the ''Bhadralok'' "was never a closed status group", rather in practice it was an open social group. Majority of the Brahmins and Kayasthas being poor and illiterate were not regarded as ''Bhadralok''. By late 19th century many of middle ranking peasant and trading c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baidya
Baidya or Vaidya is a Hindu community located in Bengal. Baidyas, a caste ('' jāti'') of Ayurvedic physicians, have long had pre-eminence in society alongside Brahmins and Kayasthas. In the colonial era, the Bhadraloks were drawn primarily, but not exclusively, from these three upper castes, who continue to maintain a collective hegemony in West Bengal. Etymology The terms ''Baidya'' means a physician in the Bengali and Sanskrit languages. Bengal is the only place where they formed a caste or rather, a ''jati''. Origins The origins of Baidyas remain surrounded by a wide variety of overlapping and sometimes contradictory myths, and are heavily contested. Aside from Upapuraṇas and two genealogies(Kulajis), premodern Bengali literature does not discuss details of the caste's origins; no literature from outside the region discuss them either. The semi-legendary Ambastha connection of Baidyas who mostly held to be of a Kshatriya origin in Hindu scriptures is tenuous. It ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bengali Brahmin
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 and Kayasthas, are regarded among the three traditional higher castes of Bengal. In the colonial era, the Bhadraloks of Bengal were primarily, but not exclusively, drawn from these three castes, who continue to maintain a collective hegemony in West Bengal. History Multiple land-grants to Brahmins, from since the Gupta Era have been observed. The Dhanaidaha copper-plate inscription, dated to 433 CE, is the earliest of them and records a grantee Brahmin named Varahasvamin. The 7th-century Nidhanpur copperplate inscription mentions that a marshy land tract adjacent to an existing settlement was given to more than 208 Vaidika Brahmins (Brahmins versed in the Vedas) belonging to 56 gotras and different Vedic schools. It is traditionally believ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bengali Kayastha
A Bengali Kayastha is a Bengali Hindu who is a member of the Kayastha community. The historical caste occupation of Kayasthas throughout India has been that of scribes, administrators, ministers and record-keepers; the Kayasthas in Bengal, along with Brahmins and Baidyas, are regarded among the three traditional higher castes that comprise the "upper layer of Hindu society." During the British Raj, the Bhadraloks of Bengal were drawn primarily, but not exclusively, from these three castes, who continue to maintain a collective hegemony in West Bengal. History The social and religious patterns of Bengal had historically been distinctively different from those in the orthodox Hindu heartland of North India and this impacted on how the caste system developed there. Bengal, being located east of the traditional Aryavarta (Aryan) region between the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, remained insulated from the full impact of Brahminical orthodoxy for many centuries, and the impact of Budd ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nastanirh
''Nastanirh'' (also ''Nashtanir''; Bengali: নষ্টনীড়, ''Nôshţoniŗh''; English: 'The Broken Nest') is a 1901 Bengali novella by Rabindranath Tagore. It is the basis for the noted 1964 film ''Charulata'', by Satyajit Ray. Background According to Mary Lago in the introduction to the English translation of ''Nashtanir'' (translated by Lago and Supriya Sen), the novella was released three times: in 1901 in serial format, in 1909 as part of a special short story collection, and in 1926 as part of Tagore's standard collection of fiction (p. 9). Scholarship indicates that this story might have been based upon the relationship between Tagore's elder brother Jyotirindranath; his brother's wife, Kadambari Devi (who committed suicide shortly after Tagore's marriage); and Tagore (who spent a great deal of time with Kadambari, reading and writing poetry).Ketaki Kushari Dyson, trans., Rabindranath Tagore, ''I Won't Let You Go: Selected Poems'' (London: Penguin, 2011), 68. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bengali Language
Bengali ( ), generally known by its endonym Bangla (, ), is an Indo-Aryan language native to the Bengal region of South Asia. It is the official, national, and most widely spoken language of Bangladesh and the second most widely spoken of the 22 scheduled languages of India. With approximately 300 million native speakers and another 37 million as second language speakers, Bengali is the fifth most-spoken native language and the seventh most spoken language by total number of speakers in the world. Bengali is the fifth most spoken Indo-European language. Bengali is the official and national language of Bangladesh, with 98% of Bangladeshis using Bengali as their first language. Within India, Bengali is the official language of the states of West Bengal, Tripura and the Barak Valley region of the state of Assam. It is also a second official language of the Indian state of Jharkhand since September 2011. It is the most widely spoken language in the Andaman and Nic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chandrabindoo (band)
Chandrabindoo (often spelled Chandrabindu), based in Kolkata, is a Bengali band known for satirical, colloquial lyrics, with references to current affairs and cultural phenomena. The band is chiefly popular in the Indian city of Kolkata, and in cities like Delhi and Mumbai that have a large expatriate Bengali population. Name Origin The band shares its name with the last letter (technically a modifier) of the Bengali alphabet, ◌̐. The name is a reference to a piece of dialogue from Sukumar Ray's ''হযবরল'' ''HaJaBaRaLa'', a well-known work of literary nonsense in Bengali. বেড়াল বলল, “বেড়ালও বলতে পার, রুমালও বলতে পার, চন্দ্রবিন্দুও বলতে পার।” আমি বললাম, “চন্দ্রবিন্দু কেন?” শুনে বেড়ালটা “তাও জানো না?” বলে এক চোখ বুজে ফ্য� ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bengal Presidency
The Bengal Presidency, officially the Presidency of Fort William and later Bengal Province, was a subdivision of the British Empire in India. At the height of its territorial jurisdiction, it covered large parts of what is now South Asia and Southeast Asia. Bengal proper covered the ethno-linguistic region of Bengal (present-day Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal). Calcutta, the city which grew around Fort William, was the capital of the Bengal Presidency. For many years, the Governor of Bengal was concurrently the Viceroy of India and Calcutta was the de facto capital of India until 1911. The Bengal Presidency emerged from trading posts established in Mughal Bengal during the reign of Emperor Jahangir in 1612. The East India Company (HEIC), a British monopoly with a Royal Charter, competed with other European companies to gain influence in Bengal. After the decisive overthrow of the Nawab of Bengal in 1757 and the Battle of Buxar in 1764, the HEIC expanded ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Class In India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north; and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives; its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand, Myanmar, and Indonesia. Modern humans arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa no later than 55,000 years ago., "Y-Chromosome and Mt-DNA data support the colonization of South Asia by modern humans originating in Africa. ... Coalescence dates for most non-European populations average to between 73–55 ka.", "Modern human beings—''Homo sapiens''—originated in Africa. Then, inter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Anthropology
Social anthropology is the study of patterns of behaviour in human societies and cultures. It is the dominant constituent of anthropology throughout the United Kingdom and much of Europe, where it is distinguished from cultural anthropology. In the United States, social anthropology is commonly subsumed within cultural anthropology or sociocultural anthropology. Comparison with cultural anthropology The term ''cultural'' anthropology is generally applied to ethnographic works that are holistic in spirit, are oriented to the ways in which culture affects individual experience, or aim to provide a rounded view of the knowledge, customs, and institutions of a people. ''Social'' anthropology is a term applied to ethnographic works that attempt to isolate a particular system of social relations such as those that comprise domestic life, economy, law, politics, or religion, give analytical priority to the organizational bases of social life, and attend to cultural phenomena as somewha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cultural History Of Bangladesh
Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tylor, Edward. (1871). Primitive Culture. Vol 1. New York: J.P. Putnam's Son Culture is often originated from or attributed to a specific region or location. Humans acquire culture through the learning processes of enculturation and socialization, which is shown by the diversity of cultures across societies. A cultural norm codifies acceptable conduct in society; it serves as a guideline for behavior, dress, language, and demeanor in a situation, which serves as a template for expectations in a social group. Accepting only a monoculture in a social group can bear risks, just as a single species can wither in the face of environmental change, for lack of functional responses to the change. Thus in military culture, valor is counted a typical be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gentleman
A gentleman (Old French: ''gentilz hom'', gentle + man) is any man of good and courteous conduct. Originally, ''gentleman'' was the lowest rank of the landed gentry of England, ranking below an esquire and above a yeoman; by definition, the rank of ''gentleman'' comprised the younger sons of the younger sons of peers, and the younger sons of a baronet, a knight, and an esquire, in perpetual succession. As such, the connotation of the term ''gentleman'' captures the common denominator of gentility (and often a coat of arms); a right shared by the peerage and the gentry, the constituent classes of the British nobility. Therefore, the English social category of ''gentleman'' corresponds to the French ''gentilhomme'' (nobleman), which in Great Britain meant a member of the peerage of England. In that context, the historian Maurice Keen said that the social category of gentleman is "the nearest, contemporary English equivalent of the ''noblesse'' of France." In the 14th century, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bengal Renaissance
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, predominantly covering present-day Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal. Geographically, it consists of the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta system, the largest river delta in the world and a section of the Himalayas up to Nepal and Bhutan. Dense woodlands, including hilly rainforests, cover Bengal's northern and eastern areas, while an elevated forested plateau covers its central area; the highest point is at Sandakphu. In the littoral southwest are the Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest. The region has a monsoon climate, which the Bengali calendar divides into six seasons. Bengal, then known as Gangaridai, was a leading power in ancient South Asia, with extensive trade networks forming connections to as far away as Roman Egy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
