Atisa Dipankara Srijnan: Connecting Bangladesh, India & Tibet

A man born in Chittagong, Sharat Chandra Das was sent to Tibet as an envoy of the British empire in the latter part of the 1800s.  As it was highly restricted to travel freely, he snooped around the mountains and monasteries trying to understand the life and ways of the Tibetan monks there. He worked as a sort of spy for the British and needless to say, had to escape Tibet when he was found out, leaving those who had befriended him in risk.

The info he had gathered during his stay was later compiled into 2 books: Indian Pundits in the land of the SNows in 1893 by the Asiatic Society and Travel Accounts of Tibet by the British Geographical Society. He mentioned another son of Bangladesh who had made his indelible mark on the reclusive Buddhists of Tibet and was responsible for reviving and restoring the Buddhism practiced in Tibet.

Atisa Dipankaram Srijan, was born as Chandragarbha in 980 CE, in village Vajrajogini of Vikrampur or the Bikrampur we know of, now known as Munshigonj. Like the Buddha, Atisa was also born into a privileged family as a prince and as a child, showed the seeds of a scholar in him. later as he grew up, he joined a university and started studying more about Buddhism and soon became the star pupil, going on to become the prinicipal of Vikramashila Vihara, one of the 5 main Mahaviharas like Nalanda.

Ruins of Vikramashila in district Bhagalpur of Bihar, India

 By now he was called Dipankar Srijnan. At 32, he travelled a perilous journey to Java and Indonesia to spread the Gospel of Buddha and after 15 years he returned to India.

Tapestry found in Indonesia depicting Atisa

Here he headed Vikramashila and several other universities before being invited by the Tibetan king who wanted Buddhism revived in the mountainous region. Bidding his tearful disciples adieu, who felt Atisa leaving India would be catastrophic for the spread of Buddhism (Nalanda was already declining) Atisa then left India and lived for a year in Nepal before leaving for Tibet, through another arduous, perilous, dacoit ridden yet undoubtedly exiting journey to Tibet. he crossed the Manas Lake or Mannosarovar near the Kailash mountains to enter Tibet and was welcomed (like everywhere else) like a celebrity by the King. he was given a celestial drink of tea and the title of Atisa (the greatest one) was bestowed upon him here. Atisa lived in Tibet for 13 years before dying at the age of 73. he is responsible for reviving the Mahayana Buddhsim, as well as the concept of the Dalai Lama.

painting of Atisa found in Kadampa monastery of Tibet gifted to the Metropolitan Museum USA. 

Poor Atisa felt homesick and even composed songs in Bangla for his beloved place of birth called "Vajrasana Vajragiti", "Charyagiti", "Vajrayogini Stotra". However we have lost these ancient songs and now they are only contained within Tibetan Tanjurs, or their translated treaties.

Today, Bangladesh truly recognises the efforts of this great scholar and Atish Dipankar is commemorated with a China-Bangladesh joint venture, with a faux model of his house. Now known as "Nastik Ponditer Bhita" or the house of the atheist scholar, Prof. Sufi Mostafizur rahman and his team of archaoelogists have what they feel discovered a 1000 year old monastery in Munshigonj or ancient Vikrampura. this will certainly give us a better idea of the childhood days of Atisa and the world he was exposed to within Bangladesh.

Atisa Dipankara's house built as a symbol 

Excavations at the 1000 year old Vihara site

At atish Dipankar's house

East India Company, Communal Pujas and Mishti Inventors of Bengal 

Bengali Hindu households respond to the Mayer Dak as Durga Puja arrives in all its splendor,  as we prepare for this autumn festival of welcoming the mother home. An amalgamation of cross cultural cuisines and religious traditions which came as a result of Bengal’s active participation in the structure of the history of India, Durga Puja was celebrated inside the homes of people, in their own simple ways with the fervor of a devotee. Yet, today we enjoy it as a more large scale event.

Nobin Das was no inventor. At least he didn’t mean to become one until he learnt the complex art of making a cheese dessert or chhana from Orissa and tried to recreate it back home in Kolkata, in 1868. But the journey had been a long one and Mr. Das was a believer of saving time, so instead he invented what soon became the most popular dessert out of Bengal: the revered Sponge Roshogolla. This was around the time when the Durga Pujas had also become a lively festival, where the British leant their glamour quotient as honored guests and the hosts considered this a mark of their status.

Apparently one of the first recorded mass celebrations of Durga Puja happened in Malda and Dinajpur in the 16^th century. Patronized by the Nawabs of that era, 6 zamindars of Nadia, Burdwan, Natore, Dinajpur, Birbhum, and Bisnupur were given the privilege to display their wealth, fervour and share the joy with their communities. As much as these 6 zamindars contributed towards unifying the Hindu community while maintaining a relationship of religious tolerance with the ruling Nawabs, Raja Nabakrishna Deb, founder of the Shovbazar Raj family in Kolkata celebrated the decline of the Muslim rule at the hands of Robert Clive. After the battle of Plassey and Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah’s crushing defeat, in 1757 the Munshi or clerk to Warren Hastings, Nabakrishna offered his own home and the deity of goddess Durga to Robert Clive, for thanksgiving.  The famous nautch girl Nikki Bai was invited and amidst the ham consumed and the alcohol drunk, all religious intentions more or less dwindled and from then onwards, many Hindus of Kolkata considered it a privilege to invite the British over for Durga Puja festivities. They even went as far as to fashion the mother goddess statues to look more like Queen Victoria. The British encouraged this show of fervor till the 1840, after which they totally banned it. So much for religious harmony! Yet, as upstarts like Nabakrishna took the opportunity of his job and his position to make a lavish affair of a simplistic religious ritual, the Barowari (12 friends) of Guptipara are responsible for making this a group or communal festival in 1790. This could also be as a result of the Cornwallis agreement where zamindars could not extract tax from their tenants anymore which led to the Barowari chipping in from the community members. The Barowari tradition later culminated into Sarbajanin Durga Puja in 1910, or an “all inclusive” festival and Durga Puja became what we know it as today.

In Bangladesh, the family of R P Shaha of the Kumudini Welfare trust in Mirzapore, Tangail still host the most organized and festive of pujas in the country. With the students of the Bateshwari Homes volunteering to serve the guests, Hindus from the neighbouring areas, guests from all over the country and patrons of the trust all gather to participate in the Sarbojanin Puja. The vegetable mix or niramish served with rice and chholar daal, cooked in the customary fashion with coconut, is often followed by malpoa as a dessert (or at least on the 9^th day or nabammi when yours truly went).

The famous zamindar family of Muktagacha in Mymensingh, the Chowdhurys, always held the best pujas. Rani Bimola Devi of the Chowdhury family built a twin Shiva temple where Durga Puja was also celebrated as a Sarbojanin affair. The Chowdhurys welcomed everyone and today their legacy lives on through another one of Bangladesh’s most famous desserts, the famous Monda of Muktagacha. Mr. Gopal Pal enjoyed the privileges of being the official sweetmeat maker of the zamindar, after he presented Raja Chowdhury with this unique creation of his in 1824. Today, his shop is still operating and run by his great grand children.

So as dashami draws near and Hindus far and wide prepare for the final leg of festivities and bidding their mother goddess a teary farewell, we pay homage to the course of events that led to this once homebound tradition to become a public one, that brings people of all religions and sects closer, through music, the art work of the goddess statues and above all, food! 

(This article of mine was printed in the Dhaka Tribune's Weekend Magazine called Weekend Tribune:

http://www.dhakatribune.com/sites/default/files/issue/2014/10/Weekend%202%EF%80%A221.pdf)