Revised Aboltabol History on the “birth-mystery” of Bangla San
abu
[An unintentional spelling mistake in an important word occurred in
the earlier version. Earlier spelling of bichhaahaar was wrong. The
word is now dropped altogether because the ditto form is not that
common, though it may occur in a dictionary. We made another
inelegant, but less serious from the main point of view, mistake in
the earlier version. Project for creating a Vedic calendar was started
by mathematician Samuel Davis (d.1819) not Prinsep. Davis was the
director of the East India Company from 1810 to 1819. Prinsep, an
architect, engineer and assay-master in the Benares mint, was in
charge of minting and finding coins and finding copper-plates, in
addition to researching calendars.
The part on the names of Jahangir’s mother is improved. Few typos are
corrected. One word is removed and the place is shortened for a more
befitting one. A sentence is added seeking a list of the South Indian
variants of the word called “Vyassie”.
We take this opportunity to talk about padree Beschi. Missionary
Beschi (1680-c.1747) lived forty years in Madura, and is considered a
worthy successor of Roberto Nobili who reportedly forged Voltaire’s
Ezur Veda.
“Venetian born Jesuit Constanzio (Constantinus) Beschi who wrote a
Tamil grammar and a classic named Tembaavani joined the Madura mission
in 1710. He took a Tamil name: Viiramaamunivar.” He left an account of
Graha-Parivrithi cycle of 90 years. Robert Sewell and Sankara
Balakrishna Dikshita in their “The Indian Calendar: with tables …,”
1896, say referring to Warren that the calendar was prevalent only
near Madura and its solar year began with Mesha.
We feel that to understand the origin of Bengali calendar and possible
activities of the Madras Council in this regard one also needs to
investigate his activities.
In view of the alleged forgery of Ezur Veda, a question arises
naturally who was behind the calendar correspondence in Sivsingha’s
copper-plate grant in favor of Vidyapati dated in La Sa.m 293, Sana
807, Samvat 1455, Saka 1321. North Indian Benares of English period
was like South Indian Madura of “Jesuit period.”]
Aboltabol History on the “birth-mystery” of Bangla San
If somebody writes that the idea of Akbar's so-called calendars
started with the old "Vesak" festival of the countries from Central
Asia to Southeast,
one must first honestly write that the "Vesak" festival was a Buddhist
festival, associated with Buddah's birth, enlightenment and nirpaan.
What is the point in jumping to the mahabishub sankranti while it is
well-known that Buddhism was the only organized religion of this vast
region in pre-Islamic time, particularly since the spread of the mesha
sankranti of the Hindus of Bengal periphery was most likely to be
designed to engulf the Buddhist festival by confusing the Buddhists in
an effort to Hinducize them?
One must also noticed how the month of Ardi-behest in Akbar’s so-
called calendars is broken into two months namely Ardi and Vihishu
(with the resultant loss of Khordad) in the dubious list provided. We
see a disparate attempt to forge out Bichhaa (Baisakh) from Behest and
to defraud simple-minded people.
Although in our local dialect people called an ornament (haar) bichhaa
and the insect (scorpion) bichchhaa, both of them are called brishchik
in tatsama. Two of the four stars of the asterism (nakkhatra)
“Bisakha” was identified by a Sanskrit scholar with alpha Librae and
gamma Scorpii. The name Bisakha (rather its appropriate variant) is
old and is found among the Aryans and Kushans of Central Asia. It
appears that the Zoroastrians mixed it up with the Bani Sem tradition
they got, and created a new meaning namely the Best Truth.
Muslims of Bangladesh had nothing to do with the Buddhist "Vesak"
festival or its stolen Hindu form, before 1900. This was probably true
generally even before 1947.
During 1947-1954 a group of young intellectuals in Bangladesh guided
the old people as regards national festivity. Young people should
learn history from their grandparents. This was another kuttaay lez
naare naa, leze kuttaa naare situation. Of course descendants of Mir
Jafarian nobles did not have any glorious thing to tell their
children.
Although from the turn of the 20th century some Bengali Muslim authors
were complaining that Bengali Muslim society does not have enough
festivals, it appears that it is during the movements of 1947-1954 the
concerns about Bengali New Year celebration and Bengali calendar
affected Bangladesh.
Recently an indophil author wrote about this Bengali calendar, “kaar
san,kaar sankskaar!” If Dr. Muhammad Shahidullah cannot say that this
calendar is his, then this calendar cannot belong to Bangladesh. Who
else can be considered representative Bangali or Bangladeshi? Indian
immigrants (Hindu means Indian), children of Mir Jafarian nobles,
bijaati-bidharmir ----chata corrupt buddhijibis, skinny-dipping little
boys of missionary schools, junior partners in development?
M. A. Hamid, who persistently struggled for the implementation of the
Bengali calendar in Bangladesh, used one argument that date-fixing by
cunning people exploited ordinary people as regard defaulting and
attending courts in time. Why should Muslim Nawabs use a calendar that
Muslims did not understand?
Farmers do not need calendar. Pre-colonial Bengali farmers did not,
and had no need to, follow the Hindu (Indian) astrologers. As the name
Grahabipra suggests these astrologers did not have any genuine Bengali
name. Some of them were considered Sakdipi Brahmans having connection
with Ujjain.
It is highly doubtful whether the part where the problem of collecting
taxes according to Hijri calendar is discussed in Ain-i-Akbari was
written by Abul Fazl himself. Although it is sometime recognized that
Ain-i-Akbari was not written by a single author, the chain of custody
is never discussed critically. This is important because in Hindustan
even Aurangzeb did not find enough qualified and willing Muslim
officers to serve in the fiscal division.
But Bangladesh was not Hindustan. Here Muslims were majority. Mirza
Nathan, who used to consider Akbar as Pir-i-Murshid, used only Hijri
dates (together with Akbar's regnal year) in the history of the Mughal
occupation of Bangladesh.
Important Muslim rulers were not idiot that they could not calculate
how to tax properly. Nor they were unjust. Beside there are
indications that in Bengal Sultanate taxes were collected in eight
installments over the year and not on a single day, and officials of
Bengal Sultans treated defaulting traders and farmers having no
criminal intent with due sympathy.
It is possible that the single day tax collection started with
Aurangzeb's governor Murshid Quli Khan who employed huge number of
Hindus because it was easy to squeeze them and to send them to the
baikuntha (a heaven) if they defaulted. This means the defaulter was
placed in a pile of shit with his nose above. It is strange that such
a punnah will now become a festivity. Clearly a staunch Muslim Murshid
Quli Khan would not taunt Islamic heaven.
Abul Fazl reportedly says about Ilahi era that it was established in
“order to remove the perplexity that a variety of dates unavoidably
occasions (Cunningham).” Yet Akbar reportedly ended up with creating
two new eras the so-called Fasli era of Bengal and Ilahi era.
According to Cunningham the Fasli era of Bengal began with the 1st
Vaishakh “of the Hindu solar year”. ["Book of Indian eras, with
tables for calculating Indian dates," by Sir Alexander Cunningham,
1883, Varanasi reprint 1970].
Muslim rulers with huge number of non-Muslim citizens, like 12th
century Iran, or Ottomans in Serbia, possibly felt the need of local
reference calendars so that non-Muslim religious fairs and gatherings
can be taxed and administered properly. On scrutiny very little
substance and much hostile exaggerations are found in the history of
this type of phenomena everywhere.
Jahangir's mother (her title was Mariyam Zamani. Her name was
Arifunnesa Begum), despite her Hindu Rajput origin, was a virtuous
Muslim lady like her mother-in-law. It is idiotic to suggest that she
had pagan influence on Akbar.
Akbar did not replace the Hijri calendar. A silver coin issued by
Akbar from Patna dates 1007 AH. It has kalima in the square and names
of the Companions in the margin. A similar coin was issued in 1001 AH,
possibly, from Mungir.
This is consistent with the report that Akbar changed his religious
outlook during old age. However it appears that some Hijri era coins
were always minted from the Ajmir mint.
Some people confuse Jahangir’s mother persistently with one of his
Rajput wives named Jodhabai from Jodhpur. Jahangir’s mother Hindu name
was Shantali. She was also called Jiya Rani. She was from Amber (later
named Jaipur).
Badauni’s reported description of Ilahi era shows a non-smooth
addition over his report of the minting of coins in the Millennium
year. Possibly Rihlat era has been translated as the era of the
“Millenium”. Rihlat era was lunar years counted from the death of the
Prophet SM. I am not sure but I vaguely remember that most discovered
coins minted during the relevant years show Ilahi year not Rihlat
year. Of course some coins were forged by collectors during the
colonial period.
The reported story that Akbar never liked counting year from Hijrat
because it smacks of celebrating a defeat is more like interpreting
Hijrat as “flight,” an interpretation smacks influence of Christian
criticism. Akbar possibly knew that when Hazrat Ali (RA) proposed to
Hazrat Umar (RA) the counting of years from Hijrat he meant it the
beginning of Islamic statehood by severing all kafir connection.
Even Bengali Hindus used to follow Hijri calendar. A stone inscription
on a bridge built at Chapatali in Sonargoan by Lala Rajmal, chief
revenue officer of Munawar Khan, shows 1102 Hijri. Krishnachandra,
raja of Nadia, who it is claimed was entrusted by the Nawab to publish
the Bengali calendar, and stories were invented to justify this claim,
submitted an application to the English dated "the 23rd of Tulhaide
(sic) and the 4th August, of Bengal year 1166".
Another villain Rajballabh from so-called Bikrampur (Abdullahpur-
Rampal) kept a long lasting proof of the dubious activity. His
pundits, or trailanga swamis he brought, possibly with European help,
used a number for the difference of longitudes of Ujjain and Bikrampur
in calendrical calculations. When those calculations spread to
Krishnachandra’s Nadia, and then to Calcutta, nobody cared to correct
the difference for a long time.
Rajballabh could also get help from Muslim astronomers. In the past
the main mosque of the big cities had an astronomer. Last famous
Mughal astronomer Muhammad Tizini worked under the Raja of Jaipur
(India). Unfortunately the destruction of Bengal was so complete that
not a single story survived about these astronomers.
The first day of the so-called Ilahi year of Akbar is February 19th
starting from 1556 (Gregorian) not nouruz (11 March). The impulse of
connecting 1st Vaishak with the so-called calendars of Akbar was so
great that Prinsep gave 11th April of 1556 1st Vaishak. Cunningham
says that it was clearly a mistake (“as his own Tables give the same
date for the beginning of the Fasli year in 1856.”).
On the other hand the idea that Akbar started the year from nouruz
might have been picked up by confusing Akheri Chahar Shamba
(commemorating the believed last Wednesday recovery of the Holy
Prophet SM) in reference to the Rihlat era with Chaharshanbe Suri,
feast of the last (akheri) Wednesday of the Zoroastrian era before
nouroz.
Kartik-Agrahayan New Year prevailed among the non-Muslims of North
India till the establishment of British power. Actually British
colonial effort was the reason for its demise.
Newari year of Nepal that started in 880CE used to began in October.
In 1768 its use was replaced by Saka era. The year 1768 is important.
Because this could be interpreted that influence from Bengal went
towards Nepal after the defeat of Bangladesh in 1757.
Hunter says in the Statistical Account of Momenshahi (page 448) that
an era prevails in Susang Pargana different from that in ordinary use
throughout the rest of the District. "The year commences with the
month of Aswin (September-October) instead of with that of Baisakh
(April-May), and the reckoning is a year and a half in advance of the
ordinary Bengal era."
The way Bengali New Year day was mixed up with nabanna in discussions
one suspects that Kartik-Agrahayan New Year was more widespread among
the non-Muslim tribes than what Hunter observed in his time. Still
many discussions of the New Year day invariably bring the topic of
nabanna and halkhata. At present a clever writer includes a discussion
on nabanna or halkhata under the title Bangalir Utsab published on the
occasion of the Bengali New Year day.
We did a detail discussion about the origin of nabanna in Bangladesh
in a longer article on the origin of the Bengali calendar. Since the
subject is very complicated we do not know when we shall finish this
long article.
The bottom-line is the very word nabanna is a suspect that it
originated in the Bengal of Mir Jafarian period. Bengalis called Nadia
Nauda (naya=new, dia=island, or water for boats). They did not call it
Nabadwip which is so peculiar that forgers themselves fell into the
trap of thinking Nabadwip as a collection of nine islands.
Propagators of dubious history sometime use example from the margin as
representative examples. Ancestors of this Hazara tribe of Pakistan
were originally pagan Mongols who were settled there after their
defeat. Some people believe that they came with Halaqu's eldest son.
Even today they could not mix sufficiently with other Afghan tribes.
Their isolation made them susceptible to colonial missionary
enterprise and foreign occupations. Collaboration of Ayub Khan with
the British is an example. Ayub Khan was reportedly criticized for
"tactical timidity" but he managed to become the army chief of idiot
Pakistanis and Pakistanis missed another chance of liberating Kashmir
during the 1962 Sino-Indian war.
Though the names of the asterisms were not forgotten, the Kushan-Saka
calendar was discontinued long time ago in Bangladesh. As a result
there was tremendous confusion in forged papers of early colonial
period about the calendar supposedly used by minority non-Muslim
population the size of which increased significantly after the great
killings of 1760-70. We see this confusion in names like Lakkhanabda,
Paganati sans and Ballali san.
Of course there is a rahasya (mystery) about the birth of Bangla San.
However an attempted resolution must talk about Madras Council, the
Telinga soldiers English brought to subjugate Bangladesh in 1757 and
Telinga swamis of Rajballabh, prime ministership of Nunkumar and
dewanship of Gangagovinda Singh. Mesha corresponded to old Tamil month
corresponding to Chait (Cittirai in wikipedia. “The Book of Calendars”
by Frank Parise, 1982 says Chaitram) before it was changed to
“Vassi” (Vaikaci, Vyassie).
An open problem is to list the South Indian variants of the word what
Frank Praise called Vyassie (page 171, The Book of Calendars, 1982).
Even an attempt to attribute the change of the beginning month from
Chait to Baisakh to the possible “khay” (month-loss) in 1700-1701
should first be interpreted in the light of European hope at the start
of the 18th century. Murshid Quli Khan will not get royal permission
to change the calendar. Besides religious Murshid Quli Khan must have
known that intercalation is strongly forbidden in the Koran.
Unless there is an acknowledgement that anti-Muslim Christian
missionaries had an interest in removing the Hijri calendar from
Bangladesh, rahasya would remain a rahasya.
Bangla calendar was a result of murky collaboration of European
colonists, Islam-hating missionaries, and local nimakharams of that
period. It was enforced by Nunkumar when he was the executive head of
Mir Jafar's administration. Later possibly reinforced by Hasting's
dewan Ganga Sinha, the calendar was spread by numerous local journals
and books that came out from early nineteenth century. ”
As far as present Bangladesh is concerned one can say that the father
of Bengali New Year festival is Dr. Ashraf Siddiki and the father of
Bengali calendar is M. A. Hamid of Gurudaspur.