Prologue

Naru embarked on a journey to pursue the ‘spectre’ that he felt was present in the history of Bengal. However, it challenged him, as it did for all other travellers throughout history, to lift the veil associated with it and reveal its true character.

 

At some point in his life, Naru began to believe that whatever he had been shown by life or whatever life had placed in front of him had some meaning. There was nothing that had happened in his life without a purpose. The book "Origin of Bangla, Ninth Part Bengal, Bengali, Culture, and the Spectre" contains an elaboration on that thought.

 

Whenever he started thinking deeply along that line, avenues towards new horizons started opening for him. In the last book, ‘Origin of Bangla Ninth Part Bengal, Bengali, Culture, and The Spectre’ it has been seen that Naru started thinking about the issues that the ‘Wisp’ brought to his attention, and that process opened a new line of thinking for him.

 

Wisp's recent absence from his life has caused many bottlenecks in his cerebral journey. Naru became stymied, and his journey was put on hold for an extended period of time. That was the time when he started concentrating his thoughts on the ‘Wisp’ itself. He started thinking about the purpose of the Wisp’s appearance in his life. Why had his destiny introduced the ‘Wisp’ into his life? With conscious effort, he tried to shift the role of the ‘Wisp’ from that of a guide to that of an instrument for uncovering the mystery associated with the Bengal Basin. He decided to transfer all of his understanding related to that basin, which he had managed to gather thus far, to ‘Wisp’ , to check whether a new door could be thrown open.

 

Surprisingly, that step worked and opened up a new horizon.

Preface

Naru spent almost his entire life searching for answers to certain questions. The majority of those questions were related to the Bengal Basin that appeared in his mind in his early teens.

 

Probably, it was his fate that brought him in touch with the ‘will-o-the-wisp’ during the course of his journey through life. When he first came in touch with the 'Wisp', during that time, he was engaged in a game of continuously evading a chasing creature that was called life. Life was hell-bent on sending his existence into oblivion.

 

‘Wisp’ also embarked on a journey to seek, to find, and to enjoy the indescribable delight of discovering. For natural reasons, ‘Wisp’ did not feel the need for an external guiding light.

 

After their first meeting, within a short period of time, ‘Wisp’ became an integral part of Naru’s cerebral journey. For most of the time, instead of being physically present beside Naru, the ‘Wisp’ remained as a virtual being in Naru’s consciousness.

 

At the end of the initially intended part of his journey, where he sensed and became convinced of the presence of a ‘spectre’ in the past of the Bengal Basin, he summoned the simulated form of the ‘Wisp’ that he had successfully created in his mind to provide the necessary guidance. Addressing the ‘Wisp’,  Naru said, "I believe that there is a clue that can shed light on the obscure past of the Bengal Basin." ‘Wisp’ stared into Naru’s eye in disbelief. "The proof is there in front of you," Naru continued. Wisp replied, "I have studied a lot in that line. I have not come across any mention of such evidence; where have you seen the evidence?" Naru smiled and said, "The entire Bengal Basin is the evidence. That is why you could not see the evidence. You are living within that evidence, 'Wisp'."

 

‘Wisp’ winked for the first time, and said, "Start your journey, dear." Naru became mesmerised by the choice of words of the ‘Wisp’. Taking a deep breath, Naru dived into the unknown.

 

In his early fifties, Naru got the opportunity to settle down and initiate a process that would meaningfully reorganise the thoughts that he had harboured since childhood in light of the experiences that he had gathered in life up to that point. He had no clue about the line on which he would arrange that hugely diverse array of information. Later, when he was able to make some progress on his self-assigned task, he was astounded to realise that something unfelt and previously unseen had influenced the progress of his work in ways that he could never have achieved with his conscious efforts. He felt that he got some handholding from a guide whom he had never met.

 

After analysing the verifiable and tangible scientific information related to subjects like geology, geography, history, archaeology, toponymy, language, culture, etc., his journey took him to the domain of a relatively intangible field of study known as culture. When Naru reached the culture of Bengal in the process of diving deep into the past of the Bengal Basin, he found that some thoughts that occurred to him very early in his effort would fit seamlessly into his upcoming journey.

 

During his quest into the field of Bengali culture, Naru felt the presence of a spectre, firmly embedded in Bengal's past. Any journey to the past of the Bengal Basin through any of the fields of study abruptly halts at a point in time around 5000 years before the present. Scientists, as well as academicians from other streams, have extensively written that it was around that time that the Bengal Basin began its transition from a lagoon to patches of dry land. On the other hand, mention of ‘Banga’ has been found in the prehistoric Indian literature that is perceived to have been created much earlier than that period. Apart from the prehistoric literature, some legacies carried by Bengal, as demonstrated by archaeological excavations and the history of the development of the Bengali language, indicate the presence of at least one glorious civilisation in the region known as the Bengal Basin at a much earlier period than 5000 years before present.

 

From their writings, it may be noticed that almost all the great scholars who tried to deal with the past account of Bengal hinted at the presence of that spectre. A detailed analysis of that ‘spectre’ has been provided in the book titled ‘Origin of Bangla Ninth Part Bengal, Bengali, Culture, and The Spectre’. Naru decided to chase that spectre to understand its true nature with the help of his ‘Wisp’. That journey was not easy for him as no physical markers were available. The absence of physical markers had blocked the quest of all the earlier travellers in history and forced them to limit their journey only to indicate the presence of that ‘spectre’. The path Naru took under the navigatorship of the ‘Wisp’, was the path that could not be traversed personally by the ‘Wisp'. In the course of that journey, it began to become clear to Naru that the entire Bengal Basin could be viewed as living proof of its history.

 

Physically, ‘Wisp’ was not around him anymore. To fill up that vacuum, he devised a mechanism by which he created a dummy of the ‘Wisp’ in his imagination, and used that dummy to take his quest forward. While talking to the ‘Wisp’, he always felt as if he were talking to himself, even when the ‘Wisp’ was an imitation of the original.

 

Place played an important role in Naru’s quest. A few entrancing places in the Lower and Middle Himalayas were the places where he got the chance to meet the physical ‘Wisp’ over a period of a few months of his life. Each one of those sessions augmented his thought process tremendously. In the present situation, he decided to reenact the earlier experience by paying a visit to the place where he met the ‘Wisp’ first time, in the Himalayas, at an elevation of around 5000 feet.

Introduction

It had not been a long time since their first encounter amidst the pristine nature of the lower Himalayas, when the ‘Wisp’ expressed a desire to go for a long walk with Naru. Later, he realised that moving on and going far were integral parts of that being that he knew as ‘Wisp’. He became elated at the prospect of receiving the close feel of that very attractive, soft radiance of the ‘Wisp’ in an uninterrupted manner for a considerable stretch of time.

 

Much later, when Naru looked back at that episode of his life once more, he realised that, like in many other aspects of his later-day life, on that very first day of the long walk too, ‘Wisp’ dictated the direction, and he suggested the path.

 

From that point forward, the ‘Wisp’ continued to direct many of Naru's efforts in his cerebral pursuit, either directly or indirectly, knowingly or unknowingly. It was always the ‘Wisp’, who decided whether to be a part of Naru’s endeavours and which areas to contribute to. Naru’s wishes did not find any place in determining the course that the ‘Wisp’ had ever dictated. That phase went on for a considerably longer period, spanning almost two decades.

 

In the very first stage of their chance encounter, the prospect of being close to the ‘Wisp’ started to allure Naru tremendously. Any event that allowed Naru to remain in close proximity to the ‘Wisp’ for a longer period was having an increasingly greater impact on him. The cerebral thrust he was receiving from each of those experiences was escalating his desire to get more of it. Within a couple of days of his acquaintance, all the barriers of expression with the ‘Wisp’ were breached. During that phase, one day Naru said, "My mind says to keep you confined, so that I can continue to get your warm radiance uninterrupted. Why can't you reach out and touch me, ‘Wisp’? Your warm radiance is fatally attractive to me. I often fantasise about your halo enveloping me."

 

"Confine me if you wish. But there is a rider associated with it. If I touch you, you will have to remain a part of me for the rest of your life. However, you may touch me. I am proof of any such problems," ‘Wisp’ replied. For Naru, the experience of being in close proximity to the ‘Wisp’ was proving to be like the thrust of a rocket engine. Each of those encounters pushed Naru's thoughts to ever newer heights.

 

"It is my and probably your destiny that only you have the option of coming close to me without disturbing my comfort, I do not have that permission. Any violation of that rule will result in a one-way trip. Once any such attempt is made on my part or you try to confine me, then you will have to remain captive with me for the rest of your life. You will lose all the freedom that you cherish so much. As you are attracted to my present format, I also felt attracted to the format that you are currently in. Let us not ruin this extremely motivating win-win situation." ‘Wisp’ replied.

 

It had been a long time since Naru had surrendered to logical thinking. With those words, ‘Wisp’ occupied an even higher place in his mind.

 

It appeared to Naru that since time immemorial, human beings have wanted to experience the same thrust as the ‘Wisp’ was displaying a craving for new vistas. The same urge is ingrained and evident in one of the most basic mantras of the Vedas, known as the Gayatri Mantra. To be precise, that mantra is part of the Rig Veda, the oldest literature on earth known to man. The fourth line of that mantra says: "DHIYO YO NAHA PRACHODAYAT," which means "let the intellect be impacted mightily." The desire for such a boost is deeply ingrained in the human constitution.

 

As the ‘Wisp’ was getting intellectual boosts from Naru, the reverse also held true for Naru: the ‘Wisp’ was acting as the fuel for the lamp of his quest.

 

After nearly a decade of detachment with the ‘Wisp’, Naru once again started feeling the need to receive the same boost to move ahead with his quest. With the rapid advancement of technology, the world had become considerably more virtual by that time. Naru also started learning to be a part of the virtual world. On that very occasion, the dummy of the ‘Wisp’, which Naru was able to devise in his mind, filled up the absence of the real ‘Wisp’.

 

When Naru brought up the issue of the Bengal Basin for discussion by saying, "You are like the ‘Banga’ region. In spite of its being a very rich and attractive geographical area, people in general have stayed away from or avoided its core area for a very long time in history." Then ‘Wisp’ commented, "I can smell that you have managed to notice something very interesting. I am bubbling with excitement."

 

With the dummy ‘Wisp’, Naru embarked on a long walk in the Himalayas. As usual, he tried to initiate an intense conversation as a part of that stroll. What transpired seemed to Naru like historical fiction.

 

Having been guided by the ‘Wisp’, Naru restarted a new phase of his cerebral journey.

 

Earlier, Naru’s cerebral journey into the past of the Bengal Basin ended at a juncture in history that reached up to a period around 5000 years before the present. If only generally accepted geological concepts are considered, there should have been no meaningful human society in the Bengal Basin prior to that time, as at that time there was no meaningful habitable land available in that region. But other sets of information related to that land for the period prior to 5000 years BP, which are currently available in the public domain, try to pose challenges to that understanding.

 

From the angles of consideration of various subjects, it appeared to Naru that a spectre was trying its best to draw the attention of a traveller into the past of the Bengal Basin. 

 

 

Antecedents

 

In the course of his cerebral journey, Naru was able to realise that the presence of a particular type of geographical feature led to the naming of a region within the present-day Bengal Basin as ‘Bango’ or ‘Banga’.

 

When analysed in an inquisitive manner, it may be found that the word ‘Banga’ refers to a relatively depressed land where water accumulates in those seasons during which a sufficient supply of water is available and does not take much time to get absorbed in the ground when that supply is stopped. Some kind of inland delta forms in that area. That land is subsidence-prone to a considerable degree. ‘Banga’ region in India, as it was until a century ago, and ‘Okavango’ in Africa are the two places on earth where such geographical features were or are present with striking similarity. Geographically, the two locations are thousands of kilometres apart, but the widely accepted route of human migration from Africa to the rest of the world connects them. 

 

Within the Bengal Basin, the region that has been termed ‘Banga’, was primarily a gigantic marshland at around 3000 years ago from the present. A massive amount of colluvium from the Himalayas and Vindhya was carried to that area by the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Teesta rivers. In the ensuing period, that region gradually became a mud land. In even later periods, the deposition area of those colluviums shifted towards the south of that basin.

 

People began to arrive from all directions to populate the highly fertile and productive land, resulting in the formation of inhabitable patches within the mud land. For natural reasons, due to the existence of advantageous terrain for traversing by foot, the largest number of immigrants arrived from the north-eastern corner of the Ganga Plain proper. The northeastern corner of the Ganga Plain proper touches the northwestern corner of the Bengal Basin. The foothills of the Himalayas, which are known as ‘Terai’ region in the local parlance, provided the required elevated terrain for the movement of people on the ground. They got the chance to circumvent the gigantic marsh by walking through the relatively higher areas of the ‘Terai’. Essentially, most of the immigrants came from the west of the Bengal Basin. When they crossed the upper reaches of the Teesta Fan, they encountered very fertile, low land again. In their language, they pronounced ‘Banga Ail’ to denote the arrival of that region. They became settled in that area. Residents of the "Bangail" region began to be referred to and known as "Bangal" to the outside world. 

 

The book titled, ‘Origin of Bangla Fifth Part Bangal' contains a detailed account of the related ideas.

 

Two archaeological sites pose a little problem in comprehending the geographical past of Bengal. 'Pandu Rajar Dhibi' and 'Wari Bateshwar' are the sites that provide modern man with evidence that around 5000 years ago human inhabitation existed on the outskirts of the core area of the Bengal Basin. The existence of 'Wari Bateshwar' in particular, intends to challenge the common understanding of the geographical history of the Bengal Basin.

 

The problem of properly comprehending the Bengal Basin becomes aggravated again when the Bengali language, prehistoric Indian literature, and Bengali culture are discussed. The presence of some forms of the Bengali language may be traced back to a period when there should not have been any meaningful human habitation inside the Bengal Basin. The set of prehistoric Indian literature, which is estimated to have been created at least 3–4 millennia ago, contains direct reference to a place named ‘Banga’. The existence of any land in ‘Banga’ at that period is quite difficult to comprehend in light of verifiable scientific evidence.

 

The core of Bengali culture does not reflect the core features of the cultures of any of the groups, which are believed to have been the noticeable constituents of Bengali society, as it is known to modern people.

 

When a new human group is formed, the traits of the dominant members are reflected in that group in a better way than those of the other members. In Bengal, nothing of the sort happened. That region harboured people from all over the world, particularly from every corner of the Indian subcontinent, but in that situation also, it remained able to develop and carry forward a central theme of culture that was much softer than the culture of all the constituent groups. A detailed discussion on this may be found in the book titled ‘Origin of Bangla Ninth Part Bengal, Bengali, Culture, and The Spectre’.

 

Nobody on earth could put forward a probable scenario or a theory that had the capability to accommodate all the improbabilities ingrained in the concept of the Bengal Basin that are widely known and some of which have been listed above. Complete darkness and silence are present in the history of the Bengal Basin for the period prior to around 3000 years BC, i.e., 5000 years BP. 'Pandu Rajar Dhibi' and 'Wari Bateshwar' are the two archaeological sites that existed around that period. No other verifiable evidence is available within the area that is officially termed the 'Bengal Basin’ to make a sketch of the history prior to that period.

 

Great intellectuals wrote historical accounts of Bengal and Bengalis. A list of such writers includes the top-level luminaries of Bengali literature and a few of the brightest European scholars.

 

Naru’s thoughts in relation to the issue of the mysterious past of Bengal have been reflected in some details in the book titled ‘Origin of Bangla Ninth Part Bengal, Bengali, Culture, and The Spectre’. It may be learnt from that book that an inquisitive look into the ‘Bengal Renaissance’ may reveal that the entire process of that happening began as an offshoot of the chain of events in which Europeans, particularly the British, attempted to unravel the mystery surrounding the ancient as well as the prehistoric Indian literary creations. It is another matter that the mystery could not be solved. But in that process, a great leap had happened in the domain of Bengali intellect.

 

For natural reasons, the intellects of the Bengali scholars, who spearheaded the process of the Renaissance, were fundamentally influenced by the structured and 'tangible evidence based' approach practised by the Europeans towards academia. That influence is evident in the approach that the Bengali intellectuals exhibited towards deciphering the past of the Bengal Basin. All of them had halted their journeys leading into the past of the Bengal Basin, where concrete, tangible evidence ceased to exist. That should be the case with today's educational approach. None of those scholars attempted to highlight the loose ends that remain in that approach, and no model was proposed to address the logical, obvious, beyond-the-horizon scenario to which that modern approach leads us.

 

Starting from Marshman J. to Rakhaldas Bandopadhyay, everybody, except Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, expressed an apprehension that the introduction of something intangible and seemingly unexplainable was needed to to be introduced to explain the past of the Bengal Basin. Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar chose to ignore the unaccounted past of that land. None of those scholars zeroed in on the perceived mysterious component. It appears that, very consciously, all of them chose to avoid that component.

 

As it is evident from the writings of the experts, there is an ‘obscurity factor’ involved in the past geography and history of the Bengal Basin. An undeniable presence of a spectre is evident as far as the evolution of Bengali society is concerned.

 

Naru found an impression of the presence of that ‘spectre’ in the cultural development that started happening in Bengal during the 19th century. The term ‘renaissance’ essentially indicates a revival. In the 19th century, to describe Bengal’s intellectual progress, the top-level pundits preferred to use the term ‘renaissance’. Tangible and verifiable evidence indicates that the progress of human civilisation in the Bengal Basin progressed continuously over a few thousands of years. From the last phase of the Stone Age to the arrival of the British, the advancement of human society in that area was progressive. No missing link is required to be introduced to create a skeletal understanding of the past of that region.

 

Related to that understanding, no tangible proof is present

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Texte: Dibyendu Chakraborty
Bildmaterialien: Dibyendu Chakraborty and Google
Cover: Dibyendu Chakraborty
Lektorat: Dibyendu Chakraborty
Korrektorat: Dibyendu Chakraborty
Satz: Dibyendu Chakraborty
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 25.03.2023
ISBN: 978-3-7554-3686-7

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