Bipradas Pipilai was a 15th-century poet. He was the son of Mukunda Pipilai, the family hailed from Baduria-Batagram in 24 Parganas, now in the Indian state of West Bengal. [1]
He was one of the poets who contributed to the Manasamangal genre of poems in praise of the serpent-goddess, Manasa. So far, three of his manuscripts have been discovered. Initially, an incomplete version of his work was edited and published by Haraprasad Shastri in 1897 based on two manuscripts discovered till then. In 1953, a complete version of the text was edited and published by Sukumar Sen under the title Vipradāsa's Manasā-Vijaya [2] as a part of the Bibliotheca Indica series of the Asiatic Society, Calcutta. It was based on all three manuscripts. [3] In these manuscripts, the date of his work is found as 1417 Saka era (1495-96). [4] Bijay Gupta of Barisal wrote his Manasamangal at around the same time. [1]
Bipradas is particularly well known for his vivid description of the journeys of the merchant Chand Sadagar, giving details of Saptagram and the lower reaches of the Hooghly-Saraswati rivers. [1]
Nityānanda, also called Nitai, was a primary religious figure within the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition of Bengal. Nitai was Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's friend and disciple. They are often mentioned together as Gaura-Nitai or Nimai-Nitai. Followers often refer to Nityānanda as "Sri Nityananda", "Prabhu Nityananda" or "Nityananda Rama".
Mahakavi Krittibas Ojha was a medieval Bengali poet. His major contribution to Bengali literature and culture was Indian epic Rāmāyaṇa in Bengali. His work, the Śrīrām Pā̃cālī, is popularly known as the Krittivasi Ramayan. His work, edited by Jaygopal Tarkalankar, was published by the Serampore Mission Press.
The Charyapada is a collection of mystical poems, songs of realization in the Vajrayana tradition of Buddhism from the tantric tradition in Assam, Bengal, Bihar and Odisha.
Śrī Caitanya-bhāgavata is a hagiography of Caitanya Mahāprabhu written by Vrindavana Dasa Thakura. It was the first full-length work regarding Chaitanya Mahaprabhu written in Bengali language and documents his early life and role as the founder of the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition. The text details Chaitanya's theological position as a combined Avatar of both Radha and Krishna within the belief of his close associates and followers. The writing of Chaitanya Bhagavata was commissioned by Nityananda, who was the guru of Vrindavana Dasa Thakura and close friend of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.
Sukumar Sen was an Indian linguist and historian of the Bengali literature, who was also well versed in Pāli, Prakrit and Sanskrit.
Advaita Acharya, , was a companion of the founder of the Gaudiya Vaishnava movement, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, and guru of Haridasa Thakur. He was born in the village of Nabagram in Laud, in 1434, some fifty years before Chaitanya, and spent most of his adult life in the town of Shantipur in Nadia with his wife and family. Advaita Acharya had six sons, Acyutananda Das, Krisna Mishra, Gopala Das, Balarama Das Mishra, Swarupa Das and Jagadisa Mishra.
Bengali literature denotes the body of writings in the Bengali language and which covers Old Bengali, Middle- Bengali and Modern Bengali with the changes through the passage of time and dynastic patronization or non-patronization. Bengali has developed over the course of roughly 1,300 years. If the emergence of the Bengali literature supposes to date back to roughly 650 AD, the development of Bengali literature claims to have 1,600 years of old. The earliest extant work in Bengali literature is the Charyapada, a collection of Buddhist mystic songs in Old Bengali dating back to the 10th and 11th centuries. The timeline of Bengali literature is divided into three periods: ancient (650-1200), medieval (1200-1800) and modern. Medieval Bengali literature consists of various poetic genres, including Hindu religious scriptures, Islamic epics, Vaishnava texts, translations of Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit texts, and secular texts by Muslim poets. Novels were introduced in the mid-19th century. Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore is the best known figure of Bengali literature to the world. Kazi Nazrul Islam, notable for his activism and anti-British literature, was described as the Rebel Poet and is now recognised as the National poet of Bangladesh.
Shreekrishna Kirtana Kabya or Sri Krishna Kirtana Kabya is a pastoral Vaishnava drama in verse composed by Boru Chandidas. It is considered to be the most significant work after Charyapada in the history of Bengali literature and Mixed Assamese literature. These verses are believed to be written in the pre-Chaitanya era of the later half of 14th century CE.
Bharatchandra Ray Gunakor was an 18th-century Bengali and Sanskrit Sakta court poet and song composer. He is mostly known for his poetic work, Annadamangal or Annapurnamangal. He is often referred to simply as Bharatchandra. Maharaja Krishnachandra of Nadia conferred him with the title Gunakor, after which he became famous as Ray Gunakor Bharatchandra.
Raghunatha dasa Goswami (1494–1586), a.k.a. Dasa Goswami, was a disciples of the Śrī Yadunandan-ācārya one of the apostle of the Vaishnava saint, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, the primary six of which were collectively known as the Six Goswamis of Vrindavan. Together the Six Goswamis established the philosophical writings and records which became the theological basis of the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition. Among the six, Raghunatha dasa was renowned for his qualities of simplicity and renunciation.
Rakhal Das Banerji, also Rakhaldas Bandyopadhyay, was an Indian archaeologist and an officer of the Archeological Survey of India (ASI). In 1919, he became the second ASI officer deputed to survey the site of Mohenjo-daro by Sir John Marshall, director-general of the ASI, and returned there in the 1922-23 season. He was the first person to propose the remote antiquity of the site—which he did in a letter to Marshall in 1923—and in effect of the Harappan culture. After leaving the ASI, he held the Manindra Chandra Nandy professorship of Ancient Indian History and Culture at the Banaras Hindu University from 1928 until his premature death in 1930.
Byomkes Chakrabarti (1923–1981) was a Bengali research worker on ethnic languages. He was also a educationist and a poet. His major contribution to linguistics was in finding out some basic relationship between Santali and the Bengali language. He showed how the Bengali language has unique characteristics, absent in other Indian languages, under the influence of Santali. His contribution was fundamental to research on the origin and development of the Bengali language and provided scopes of research in newer horizons in linguistics.
Chand Sadagar was a rich and powerful sea merchant of Champaknagar in Eastern India. This merchant has been claimed by both the Assamese and Bengali people of India to be associated with their respective states and communities. Medieval Bengali poet Bipradas Pipilai mentioned in his "Manasamangal Kāvya" that merchant ship of Chand Sadagar used to proceed to the sea from ancient Champaknagar of Kamarupa after passing through Tribeni, situated at the junction of Saptagram and the confluence of Ganges, Saraswati and Jamuna River of modern-day West Bengal. Narayan Dev in the Assamese scriptures gave an account in his Manasamangal about the merchant ship of the trader Chand Saudagar proceeding to the sea from ancient Champaknagar of Assam passing through Saptagram and Tribeni, the tri-junction of the Ganges, Saraswati and Jamuna River. In the Padmapuran, account of Chand Bania (Sadagar) is specifically mentioned.
Ala-ud-din Husain Shah (Bengali: আলাউদ্দিন হোসেন শাহ was an independent late medieval Sultan of Bengal, who founded the Hussain Shahi dynasty. He became the ruler of Bengal after assassinating the Sultan, Shams-ud-Din Muzaffar Shah, whom he had served under as wazir. After his death in 1519, his son Nusrat Shah succeeded him. The reigns of Husain Shah and Nusrat Shah are generally regarded as the "golden age" of the Bengal sultanate.
Manasamangal Kāvya is the oldest of the Mangal-Kāvya and narrates how the snake-goddess Manasa established her worship in Bengal by converting a worshipper of Shiva to her own worship. Manasa was a non-Aryan deity and her worship was an ancient one in Bengal. It is believed she came to Bengal with the Dravidians who worshipped her in the hope that she would protect them against snakes. Manasa is also known as Bisahari, Janguli and Padmavati.
The Chandimangal is an important subgenre of mangalkavya, the most significant genre of medieval Bengali literature. The texts belonging to this subgenre eulogize Chandi or Abhaya, primarily a folk goddess, but subsequently identified with Puranic goddess Chandi. This identification was probably completed a few centuries before the earliest composition of the Chandimangalkavya. Most of the texts of this subgenre comprises two unrelated narratives. The narrative of Kalketu and Phullara is known as the Akhetik Khanda, and the narrative of Dhanapati and his wives, Lahana and Khullana is known as the Banik Khanda. Both of these narratives were probably mentioned in a sloka of the Brihaddharma Purana also. In Mukundaram's work an additional section, Deb Khanda is found. This section comprises the narratives of Sati and Parvati and has mostly followed the Puranas.
The Chaitanya Mangala of Lochana Dasa is an important hagiographical work on the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Sri Krishna Chaitanya - Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in Bengali. This work of Lochana Dasa or Lochananda Dasa is influenced by the Sanskrit Kadacha of Murari Gupta. The complete text is divided into four sections: the Sutra Khanda, the Adi Khanda, the Madhya Khanda and the Shesh Khanda. As this work was written for the purpose of singing only, it is not further sub-divided into chapters.
The Dharmamangal is an important subgenre of mangalkavya, with narratives of local deities of rural Bengal, the most significant genre of medieval Bengali literature. The texts belonging to this subgenre eulogize Dharmathakur, a folk deity worshipped in the Rarh region of Bengal. According to tradition, the earliest poet of Dharmamangal was Mayura Bhatta. The Dharmamangal texts were meant for singing during the twelve-day ritual ceremony, known as Gajan. These texts are part of a larger group of texts associated with the worship of Dharma. In addition to the Dharmamangal texts, this larger group includes a number of works known as the Dharmapurans, which narrate the story of creation and the liturgical works known as the Samjatpaddhatis.
The Kartabhaja, also known as the Kartabhaja Sampradaya, literally, the Worshippers of the Master, is a religious community of West Bengal in eastern India, which came into prominence in the mid 18th century. It had a significant following in the late 18th century and early 19th century, but its following declined considerably in the early 20th century.
Akinchan Chakrabarty was a Bengali poet. He wrote three narrative poems: Parvatir Sankirtan or Chandir Nutan Mangal, Shitala-Panchali and Ganga Mangal. He was greeted by the Brahmins as Kavindra and lived at Bengaral village near Ghatal in modern-day Paschim Medinipur district in the Indian state of Paschimbanga.