Tag: history

Traditional food habits are generally based on locally available items of food. Bengal is a riverine plain which produces plenty of rice and fish.

Brahmanas were not allowed to eat non vegetarian food, but the popularity of fish in the local diet in Bengal made the Brahmanical authorities relax this prohibition for the Bengal Brahmanas. The Brihaddharma Purana, a thirteenth-century Sanskrit text from Bengal, permitted the local Brahmanas to eat certain varieties of fish.

Traditional food habits are generally based on locally available items of food. Bengal is a riverine plain which produces plenty of rice and fish. Understandably, these two items figure prominently in the menu of even poor Bengalis. Fishing has always been an important occupation and Bengali literature contains several references to fish. What is more, terracotta plaques on the walls of temples and viharas (Buddhist monasteries) depict scenes of fish beingdressed and taken to the market in baskets.

Bengal also witnessed a temple-building spree from the late fifteenth century, which culminated in the nineteenth century. Temples and other religious structures were often built by individuals or groups who were becoming powerful to both demonstrate their power and proclaim their piety. Many of the modest brick and terracotta temples in Bengal were built with the support of several low social groups, such as the Kolu (oil pressers) and the Kansari (bell metal workers). With the coming of the European trading companies, their socio-economic conditions improved. As their social and economic position improved, they proclaimed their status through the construction of temples.

From the 16th century onwards, when local deities, once worshipped in thatched huts in villages, gained the recognition of the Brahmanas, their images began to be housed in temples. The temples began to copy the double-roofed (dochala) or four-roofed (chauchala) structure of the thatched huts.  This led to the evolution of the typical Bengali style in temple architecture.

Syncretism, a combination of Buddhism and local beliefs in Vietnam, aimed at bringing together different beliefs and practices,  thus emphasizing on their essential unity.