A Study on History and Development of Bengali Language

INTRODUCTION

The Buddhists and the Jains, at one time, changed over about the entire populace of Bengal to their new ideologies, and the Brahmanic impact was for quite a long time at a low ebb here. The absolute most noteworthy Buddhist scholars and reformers of India were conceived in Bengal, among whom the names of Atiça Dīpankara (conceived. 980 A.D.) and Çīla-Bhadra are known all through the Buddhistic world. Çanta Rakṣit, the eminent High Priest of the cloister of Nālandā—a local of Gauḍa, spent numerous long stretches of his life in Tibet on a religious mission, and a famous band of Bengalis, inside the initial couple of hundreds of years of the Christian time, ventured out to China, Corea and Japan, conveying there the light of the Buddhist religion. The scriptures of the Japanese clerics are as yet written in Bengali characters of the eleventh century which shows the once-incredible ascendency of the ambitious Bengali ministers in the Land of the Rising Sun. The radiant sculptural plan of the Boro Buddor sanctuary of Java owed its execution, in no unimportant degree, to Bengali specialists, who worked next to each other with the general population of Kalinga and Guzrat, to whom that island was obliged for its old human advancement. In the huge scene of bas-reliefs in that sanctuary, we discover various portrayals of boats which the general population of lower Bengal manufactured, and which conveyed them to Ceylon, Java, Sumatra, Japan and China,— nations visited by them to promulgate the Buddhistic confidence and leading business exchanges. The notable story of how sovereign Vijay Siṁha, child of King Siṁhabāhu of Bengal, migrated to Ceylon with seven hundred supporters and built up his kingdom there in 543 B.C. is narrated in Mahāvaṁça and other Buddhist works. Buddhism thrived in Ceylon under the support of the lords of the Siṁha tradition—and the island is called 'Siṁhal' after them. The Ceylonese period dates from the initiation of the rule of Vijay Siṁha. The natives of Champā in Bengal had as of now, in a still prior age of history, established a province in Cochin China and named it after that acclaimed old town. About the center of the ninth century, Dhīmān and his child Bit Pālo, occupants of Varendra (North Bengal), established new schools of painting, model and works in cast metal, which stepped their effect on show-stoppers in Nepal, from whence the specialty of the Bengali experts spread to China and other Buddhistic nations. In Bengal new thoughts in religion have ever discovered a fit soil to develop upon, and it is intriguing to watch, that out of the twenty-four Tīrthankaras (divine men) of the Jains, twenty-three achieved Mokṣa (salvation) in Bengal. The place of their religious action was Samet-çekhara or the Pārçvanāth slopes in the district of Hāzāribāgh and a significant number of the

years of his life lecturing his confidence in Rāḍa Deça (Western Bengal). The nation was for quite a long time in open rebel against Hindu conventionality. Buddhistic and Jain impacts here were great to the point, that the codes of Manu, while including Bengal inside the geographical limit of Āryyāvarta, particularly restrict all contact of the Hindus with this land, inspired by a paranoid fear of sullying. Ānanda Tīrtha, the celebrated pundit of Aitereya Āraṅyaka, proclaims Bengal to be occupied by Rākṣasas and Piçāchas. Truth be told it is likely, that Bengal was for the most part inhabited by the relatives of the early natives of Magadah, consequently Brahmanism couldn't flourish for a long time in the midst of a people, who were the pioneers of Buddhism. The Buddhist clerics had as of now, in the last piece of the tenth century, started to compose books in Prākrita called the Gouḍa Prākrita. This Prākrita was called by the grammarian Kriṣṅa Pandit, who prospered in the twelfth century, as a type of Paiçāchī Prākrita or a Prākrita talked by the detestable spirits. The principles indicated by him, in his celebrated punctuation Prākrita-Chandrikā, as exceptional to our tongue, apply to it up right up 'til today. As per him র and ণ change into ল and ন, and য় is articulated as জ in this type of Prākrita, and of শ, ষ, স, one shape just is found in current utilize. These are, as a rule, the trademark highlights of communicated in Bengali up right up 'til the present time and our old original copies are loaded with models of them.

LANGUAGE

The reasons which made Kriṣṅa Pandit give our language the scornful name of Paiçāchī Prākrita, are not far to look for. The equivalent influenced Manu to censure all touch with this land. The vernacular of the Buddhist individuals, in which the Buddhist priests were composing books, couldn't be acknowledged by the Sanskritic school which emerged with the revival of Hinduism. A few works written in the tenth and the eleventh hundreds of years of the Christian time in an exceptionally old type of Bengali, have of late been found by Mahāmahopādhyāya Hara Prasāda Çāstrī in Nepal. These are (1) Charyyācharyya Viniçchaya, (2) Bodhicharyyāvatāra and (3) Dākārṅava. The composition of Budhicharyyāvatār is deficient. They their ideology. In spite of the fact that these examples have now been almost all lost, we trust some segment of them might be yet recouped via watchful research conveyed into the abstract chronicles of Nepal and Chittagong,— the present resorts of Buddhism in Eastern India. This exertion with respect to the Buddhists to raise Bengali to the status of a composed language, at any point, came abruptly to a stop on the revival of Hinduism in Bengal. Buddhist works were conveyed by the vanquished types of that confidence to Nepal and Burma; and all hints of the belief, which was once ascendant in the nation, were obliterated there. Whatever might be encouraged for the hypothesis of "the slow, relatively numb, digestion of Buddhism to Hinduism" there can be no uncertainty that Buddhism was frequently smothered in India by a tempest of Brahmanic mistreatment. With the debauchery of the power of the Buddhist priests, who in their energy to advance their statement of faith, had not thought about the Vernacular of Bengal as a shameful mechanism for proliferating their religious perspectives, Bengali lost the support which it had anchored of the lettered men of the nation; and its future appeared to be horrid and uncheerful. We have demonstrated that the type of Prākrita predominant in Bengal was in disgrace with the Sanskritic school which gave it a derisive designation. Sanskrit scholars, who realized a revival of Hinduism in Bengal, were instilled with a desire for the firm guidelines of established sentence structure, and had an unmixed detestation for the laxities of Prākrita embraced by the Buddhists. Bengali appeared to have no prospects with such scholars:— nay they passionately restricted the endeavors of the individuals who offered to help the Vernacular of the nation to state its case as a composed language. The accompanying understood Sanskrit couplet bears declaration to their hostility. This height of Bengali to an artistic status was achieved by a few impacts, of which the Mahammadan victory was without a doubt one of the first. On the off chance that the Hindu Kings had kept on getting a charge out of autonomy, Bengali would hardly have a chance to discover its way to the courts of Kings. The Pāthāns involved Bengal right off the bat in the thirteenth century. They originated from a far separation—from Bulkh, Oxus or Transoxina, however they settled in the fields of Bengal and had no psyche to come back to their uneven home. The Pāthān Emperors learned Bengali and lived in close touch with the overflowing Hindu populace

sanctuaries. The hints of the conch-shells and ringers radiating from the last mentioned, were heard while the new-comers gathered in the Mosques to state their night petitions. The affected parades and the religious ceremonies of the Hindus—their Durgāpujā, Rāsa and Dolotsava—displayed a religious excitement which equalled their own, while commending the Maharam, Id. Sabebarāt and different celebrations. The Emperors knew about the expansive distinction of the Sanskrit legends, the Rāmāyaṅa and the Mahābhārata, and watched the superb impact which they practiced in embellishment the religious and household life of the Hindus, and they normally felt a longing to be familiar with the substance of those lyrics.

The Pāthān Emperors and Chiefs couldn't have the incredible tolerance of the Hindu Kings who were propelled by a religious enthusiasm to hear the Brahmin scholars discuss Sanskrit writings and their educated comments, well ordered, requiring the audience members many long a long time to finish a course of addresses on the Rāmāyaṅa or the Mahābhārata. They selected scholars to make an interpretation of the works into Bengali which they currently talked and comprehended. The principal Bengali interpretation of the Mahābhārata of which we hear, was attempted at the request of Nasirā Sāhā, the Emperor of Gauḍa who ruled for a long time till 1325 A.D. This interpretation has not yet been recouped, but rather we find notice of it, in another interpretation of the epic made by Kavīndra Parameçwara, at the order of Parāgal Khān, the legislative head of Chittagong. Nasira Shāh was an extraordinary benefactor of the Vernacular of this nation. The name of the Emperor of Gauḍa who delegated Krittivāsa to interpret the Rāmāyaṅa, isn't known with conviction. He may be Raja-Kaṁsanārāyaṅa or a Moslem Emperor, yet regardless of whether he was a Hindu King, there are plenteous verifications to appear, that his court was stepped with Moslem impact. The Emperor Husen Sāhā was an incredible benefactor of Bengali. Mālādhar Vasu, a local of Kulingrāma, and one of his retainers was utilized by him to make an interpretation of the Bhāgavata into Bengali, and after two parts of this work had been deciphered by him, in 1480 A.D., the Emperor was satisfied to give on him the title of Gunarāj Khān. We have just alluded to an interpretation of the Mahābhārata made by Kavīndra Parameçwar at the command of Parāgal Khān. This Parāgal Khān was a general of Husen Sāhā, deputed by him to overcome Chittagong. Visit references are found in old Bengali writing, Kavindra Parameçwar had interpreted the Mahābhārata upto the Striparva, and Chhuti Khān child of Parāgal Khān, who had succeeded his dad in the governorship of Chittagong, utilized another artist named Çrīkaraṅa Nandī for deciphering the Açvamedh Parva of that epic. Çrīkaraṅ Nandī's interpretation has of late been distributed by the Sāhitya Parisada of Calcutta. The writer Ālāol, who lived about the center of the seventeenth century, interpreted a Hindi work entitled Padmāvat by Mīr Mahammadin an exceptionally sanskritised Bengali at the order of Māgan Thākur, a Mahammadan pastor of the court of the Chief of Aracan. It ought to be noted here, that there are numerous occurrences where Mahammadans received Hindu names and the name Māgan Thākur ought not lead us to confuse him with a Mahamaden. Ālāol was likewise utilized by the Moslem boss—Solaman, to make an interpretation of a Persian work into Bengali. Occurrences of like nature, where Mahammadan Emperors and Chiefs started and disparaged interpretations of Sanskrit and Persian works into Bengali, are various, and we are persuaded, that when the powerful Moslem Sovereigns of Bengal conceded this acknowledgment to the Vernacular language in their courts, Hindu Rājās normally gone with the same pattern. The Brahmins couldn't avoid the impact of this high support; they were in this manner constrained to support the language they had abhorred so much, and hitherto they themselves approached to compose lyrics and accumulate works of interpretation in Bengali. From the record we have found in a portion of the early Bengali works of interpretation, we can have a look at the way in which court support was agreed to the Bengali writers. At the point when the shades of nightfall settled on the dull green clusters of shrubby trees on the far Sonāmurā ranges, Parāgal Khān the Governor used to call his clergymen, specialists and squires each night to his royal residence at Parāgalpur in Feni, and before this distinguished crowd, the interpreter of the Mahābhārata needed to recount parcels from his ballads—the senator himself giving cheers in profound respect of lovely and fascinating sections.

The artist complimented his honorable supporter by considering him a manifestation of Hari in Kaliyuga and it is interested to take note of, that the Pāthān boss, who was a faithful Mahammadan, delighted in this compliment of the Hindu artist and did not accept it as an attack.

large portion of crafted by our best artists committed to the rulers and respectable men who disparaged them. In this way crafted by Vidyāpati, the Maithil artist, are indistinguishably connected with Çiva Siṁha and different sovereigns of Mithilā. Mukundarām, the undying creator of Chandī, had for his supporter Bānkurā Rāi, the Rājā of Ārah-Brāhmanbhumi. Rāmeçvara who composed the "Çivāyana" delighted in the support of Yaçovanta Siṁha, Raja of Karnagaḍa. Ghanarām, the creator of "Dharmamangal" was the beneficiary of numerous favors from Kirttī Chandra, the Raja of Burdwan, and who can think about the incredible artist Bhārat Chandra without recollecting his extraordinary companion and benefactor Kriṣṅa Chandra of Navadwipa? Raja Jay Chandra utilized the artist Bhabānī Dās for arranging an interpretation of the Rāmāyaṅa; and numerous other important Sanskrit works were converted into Bengali under the protection of the Kings of Tippera. We will stay upon every one of these works in their legitimate places from now on.

1. Frazier, Jessica (2011). The Continuum companion to Bengali studies. London: Continuum. pp. 1–15. ISBN 978-0-8264-9966-0. 2. Bilimoria; et al., eds. (2013). Indian Ethics: Classical Traditions and Contemporary Challenges. p. 103. 3. Flood, Gavin (2014). "The Meaning and Context of the Puru-ārthas". In Lipner, Julius J. The Bhagavadgītā for Our Times. Oxford University Press. pp. 11–27. ISBN 978-0195650396.

Assistant Teacher, Puranpani High School (HS) District-Bankura, West Bengal