FOOTNOTE:_Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Bedlam" to "Benson, George" Volume 3, Slice 5

[1] These were (1) the prolongation of the Via Appia from Capua, (2)

its continuation to Tarentum and Brundisium, of which there were two

different lines between Beneventum and Aquilonia at different dates

(see APPIA, VIA), (3) the Via Traiana to Brundisium by Herdoniae, (4)

the road to Telesia and Aesernia, (5) the road to Aesernia by

Bovianum, (6) the road to Abellinum and Salernum.

BENEVOLENCE (Lat. _bene_, well, and _volens_, wishing), a term for an

act of kindness, or a gift of money, or goods, but used in a special

sense to indicate sums of money, disguised as gifts, which were extorted

by various English kings from their subjects, without consent of

parliament. Among the numerous methods which have been adopted by

sovereigns everywhere to obtain support from their people, that of

demanding gifts has frequently found a place, and consequently it is the

word and not the method which is peculiar to English history. Edward II.

and Richard II. had obtained funds by resorting to forced loans, a

practice which was probably not unusual in earlier times. Edward IV.,

however, discarded even the pretence of repayment, and in 1473 the word

_benevolence_ was first used with reference to a royal demand for a

gift. Edward was very successful in these efforts, and as they only

concerned a limited number of persons he did not incur serious

unpopularity. But when Richard III. sought to emulate his brother's

example, protests were made which led to the passing of an act of

parliament in 1484 abolishing benevolences as "new and unlawful

inventions." About the same time the Chronicle of Croyland referred to a

benevolence as a "nova et inaudita impositio muneris ut per

benevolentiam quilibet daret id quod vellet, immo verius quod nollet."

In spite of this act Richard demanded a further benevolence; but it was

Henry VII. who made the most extensive use of this system. In 1491 he

sent out commissioners to obtain gifts of money, and in 1496 an act of

parliament enforced payment of the sums promised on this occasion under

penalty of imprisonment. Henry's chancellor, Cardinal Morton, archbishop

of Canterbury, was the traditional author of a method of raising money

by benevolences known as "Morton's Fork." If a man lived economically,

it was reasoned he was saving money and could afford a present for the

king. If, on the contrary, he lived sumptuously, he was evidently

wealthy and could likewise afford a gift. Henry VII. obtained

considerable sums of money in this manner; and in 1545 Henry VIII.

demanded a "loving contribution" from all who possessed lands worth not

less than forty shillings a year, or chattels to the value of L15; and

those who refused to make payment were summoned before the privy council

and punished. Elizabeth took loans which were often repaid; and in 1614

James I. ordered the sheriffs and magistrates in each county and borough

to collect a general benevolence from all persons of ability, and with

some difficulty about L40,000 was collected. Four counties had, however,

distinguished themselves by protests against this demand, and the act of

Richard III. had been cited by various objectors. Representatives from

the four counties were accordingly called before the privy council,

where Sir Edward Coke defended the action of the king, quoted the Tudor

precedents and urged that the act of 1484 was to prevent exactions, not

voluntary gifts such as James had requested. Subsequently Oliver St John

was fined and imprisoned for making a violent protest against the

benevolence, and on the occasion of his trial Sir Francis Bacon defended

the request for money as voluntary. In 1615 an attempt to exact a

benevolence in Ireland failed, and in 1620 it was decided to demand one

for the defence of the Palatinate. Circular letters were sent out,

punishments were inflicted, but many excuses were made and only about

L34,000 was contributed. In 1621 a further attempt was made, judges of

assize and others were ordered to press for contributions, and wealthy

men were called before the privy council and asked to name a sum at

which to be rated. About L88,000 was thus raised, and in 1622 William

Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele, was imprisoned for six months for

protesting. This was the last time benevolences were actually collected,

although in 1622 and 1625 it was proposed to raise money in this manner.

In 1633 Charles I. consented to collect a benevolence for the recovery

of the Palatinate for Charles Louis, the son of his sister Elizabeth,

but no further steps were taken to carry out the project.

See W. Stubbs, _Constitutional History of England_, vol. iii. (Oxford,

1895); H. Hallam, _Constitutional History of England_, vol. i.

(London, 1855); T.P. Taswell-Langmead, _English Constitutional

History_ (London, 1896); S.R. Gardiner, _History of England, passim_

(London, 1893).

BENFEY, THEODOR (1809-1881), German philologist, son of a Jewish trader

at Norten, near Gottingen, was born on the 28th of January 1809.

Although originally designed for the medical profession, his taste for

philology was awakened by a careful instruction in Hebrew which he

received from his father. After brilliant studies at Gottingen he spent

a year at Munich, where he was greatly impressed by the lectures of

Schelling and Thiersch, and afterwards settled as a teacher in

Frankfort. His pursuits were at first chiefly classical, and his

attention was diverted to Sanskrit by an accidental wager that he would

learn enough of the language in a few weeks to be able to review a new

book upon it. This feat he accomplished, and rivalled in later years

when he learned Russian in order to translate V.P. Vasilev's work on

Buddhism. For the time, however, his labours were chiefly in classical

and Semitic philology. At Gottingen, whither he had returned as

privat-docent, he wrote a little work on the names of the Hebrew months,

proving that they were derived from the Persian, prepared the great

article on India in Ersch and Gruber's _Encyclopaedia_, and published

from 1839 to 1842 the _Lexicon of Greek Roots_ which gained him the

Volney prize of the Institute of France. From this time his attention

was principally given to Sanskrit. He published in 1848 his edition of

the _Sama-veda_; in 1852-1854 his _Manual of Sanskrit_, comprising a

grammar and chrestomathy; in 1858 his practical Sanskrit grammar,

afterwards translated into English; and in 1859 his edition of the

_Pantscha Tantra_, with an extensive dissertation on the fables and

mythologies of primitive nations. All these works had been produced

under the pressure of poverty, the government, whether from parsimony or

from prejudice against a Jew, refusing to make any substantial addition

to his small salary as extra-professor at the university. At length, in

1862, the growing appreciation of foreign scholars shamed it into making

him an ordinary professor, and in 1866 Benfey published the laborious

work by which he is on the whole best known, his great _Sanskrit-English

Dictionary_. In 1869 he wrote a history of German philological research,

especially Oriental, during the 19th century. In 1878 his jubilee as

doctor was celebrated by the publication of a volume of philological

essays dedicated to him and written by the first scholars in Germany. He

had designed to close his literary labours by a grammar of Vedic

Sanskrit, and was actively preparing it when he was interrupted by

illness, which terminated in his death at Gottingen on the 26th of June

1881.

A collection of his various writings was published in 1890, prefaced

by a memoir by his son.

BENGAL, a province of British India, bounded on the E. by the province

of Eastern Bengal and Assam, the boundary line being the Madhumati river

and the Ganges; on the S. by the Bay of Bengal and Madras; on the W. by

the Central Provinces and United Provinces; and on the N. by Nepal and

Sikkim. It has an area of 141,580 sq. m. and a population of 54,096,806.

It consists of the provinces of Behar, Orissa and Chota Nagpur, and the

western portion of the Ganges valley, but without the provinces of

Northern and Eastern Bengal; and is divided into the six British

divisions of the presidency, Bhagalpur, Patna, Burdwan, Chota Nagpur and

Orissa, and various native states. The province was reconstituted in

1905, when the Chittagong, Dacca and Rajshahi divisions, the district of

Malda and the state of Hill Tippera were transferred from Bengal to a

new province, Eastern Bengal and Assam; the five Hindi-speaking states

of Chota Nagpur, namely Chang Bhakar, Korea, Sirguja, Udaipur and

Jashpur, were transferred from Bengal to the Central Provinces; and

Sambalpur and the five Oriya states of Bamra, Rairakhol, Sonpur, Patna

and Kalahandi were transferred from the Central Provinces to Bengal. The

province of Bengal, therefore, now consists of the thirty-three British

districts of Burdwan, Birbhum, Bankura, Midnapore, Hugli, Howrah,

Twenty-four Parganas, Calcutta, Nadia, Murshidabad, Jessore, Khulna,

Patna, Gaya, Shahabad, Saran, Champaran, Muzaffarpur, Darbhanga,

Monghyr, Bhagalpur, Purnea, Santal Parganas, Cuttack, Balasore, Angul

and Khondmals, Puri, Hazaribagh, Ranchi, Palamau, Manbhum, Singhbum and

Sambalpur, and the native states of Sikkim and the tributary states of

Orissa and Chota Nagpur.

The name Bengal is derived from Sanskrit geography, and applies strictly

to the country stretching southwards from Bhagalpur to the sea. The

ancient Banga formed one of the five outlying kingdoms of Aryan India,

and was practically conterminous with the delta of Bengal. It derived

its name, according to the etymology of the Pundits, from a prince of

the Mahabharata, to whose portion it fell on the primitive partition of

the country among the Lunar race of Delhi. But a city called Bangala,

near Chittagong, which, although now washed away, is supposed to have

existed in the Mahommedan period, appears to have given the name to the

European world. The word Bangala was first used by the Mussulmans; and

under their rule, like the Banga of old Sanskrit times, it applied

specifically to the Gangetic delta, although the later conquests to the

east of the Brahmaputra were eventually included within it. In their

distribution of the country for fiscal purposes, it formed the central

province of a governorship, with Behar on the north-west, and Orissa on

the south-west, jointly ruled by one deputy of the Delhi emperor. Under

the English the name has at different periods borne very different

significations. Francis Fernandez applies it to the country from the

extreme east of Chittagong to Point Palmyras in Orissa, with a coast

line which Purchas estimates at 600 m., running inland for the same

distance and watered by the Ganges. This territory would include the

Mahommedan province of Bengal, with parts of Behar and Orissa. The loose

idea thus derived from old voyagers became stereotyped in the archives

of the East India Company. All its north-eastern factories, from

Balasore, on the Orissa coast, to Patna, in the heart of Behar, belonged

to the "Bengal Establishment," and as British conquests crept higher up

the rivers, the term came to be applied to the whole of northern India.

The presidency of Bengal, in contradistinction to those of Madras and

Bombay, eventually included all the British territories north of the

Central Provinces, from the mouths of the Ganges and Brahmaputra to the

Himalayas and the Punjab. In 1831 the North-Western Provinces were

created, which are now included with Oudh in the United Provinces; and

the whole of northern India is now divided into the four

lieutenant-governorships of the Punjab, the United Provinces, Bengal,

and Eastern Bengal and Assam, and the North-West Frontier Province under

a commissioner.

_Physical Geography._--Three sub-provinces of the present

lieutenant-governorship of Bengal--namely, Bengal proper, Behar and

Orissa--consist of great river valleys; the fourth, Chota Nagpur, is a

mountainous region which separates them from the central India plateau.

Orissa embraces the rich deltas of the Mahanadi and the neighbouring

rivers, bounded by the Bay of Bengal on the S.E., and walled in on the

N.W. by tributary hill states. Proceeding west, the sub-province of

Bengal proper stretches to the banks of the Ganges and inland from the

sea-board to the Himalayas. Its southern portion is formed by the delta

of the Ganges; its northern consists of the Ganges valley. Behar lies on

the north-west of Bengal proper, and comprises, the higher valley of the

Ganges from the spot where it issues from the United Provinces. Between

Behar and Orissa lies the province of Chota Nagpur, of which a portion

was given in 1905 to the Central Provinces. The valley of the Ganges,

which is now divided between Bengal and Eastern Bengal and Assam, is one

of the most fertile and densely-populated tracts of country in the

world. It teems with every product of nature. Tea, indigo, turmeric,

lac, waving white fields of the opium-poppy, wheat and innumerable

grains and pulses, pepper, ginger, betel-nut, quinine and many costly

spices and drugs, oil-seeds of sorts, cotton, the silk mulberry,

inexhaustible crops of jute and other fibres; timber, from the feathery

bamboo and coroneted palm to the iron-hearted _sal_ tree--in short,

every vegetable product which feeds and clothes a people, and enables it

to trade with foreign nations, abounds. Nor is the country destitute of

mineral wealth. The districts near the sea consist entirely of alluvial

formations; and, indeed, it is stated that no substance so coarse as

gravel occurs throughout the delta, or in the heart of the provinces

within 400 m. of the river mouths.

Climate.

The climate varies from the snowy regions of the Himalayas to the

tropical vapour-bath of the delta and the burning winds of Behar. The

ordinary range of the thermometer, on the plains is from about 52 deg.

F. in the coldest month to 103 deg. in the shade in summer. A

temperature below 60 deg. is considered very cold, while with care the

temperature of well-built houses rarely exceeds 95 deg. in the hot

weather. The rainfall varies from 37 in. in Behar to about 65 in. in the

delta.

Rivers.

Lower Bengal exhibits the two typical stages in the life of a great

river. In the northern districts the rivers run along the valleys,

receive the drainage from the country on either side, absorb broad

tributaries and rush forward with an ever-increasing volume. But near

the centre of the provinces the rivers enter upon a new stage of their

career. Their main channels bifurcate, and each new stream so created

throws off its own set of distributaries to right and left. The country

which they thus enclose and intersect forms the delta of Bengal.

Originally conquered by the fluvial deposits from the sea, it now

stretches out as a vast dead level, in which the rivers find their

velocity checked, and their current no longer able to carry along the

silt which they have brought down from northern India. The streams,

accordingly, deposit their alluvial burden in their channels and upon

their banks, so that by degrees their beds rise above the level of the

surrounding country. In this way the rivers in the delta slowly build

themselves up into canals, which every autumn break through or overflow

their margins, and leave their silt upon the adjacent flats. Thousands

of square miles in Lower Bengal annually receive a top-dressing of

virgin soil from the Himalayas,--a system of natural manuring which

renders elaborate tillage a waste of labour, and defies the utmost power

of over-cropping to exhaust its fertility. As the rivers creep farther

down the delta, they become more and more sluggish, and their

bifurcations and interfacings more complicated. The last scene of all is

a vast amphibious wilderness of swamp and forest, amid whose solitudes

their network of channels insensibly merges into the sea. The rivers,

finally checked by the sea, deposit their remaining silt, which emerges

as banks or blunted promontories, or, after a year's battling with the

tide, adds a few feet or it may be a few inches to the foreshore.

The Ganges gives to the country its peculiar character and aspect. About

200 m. from its mouth it spreads out into numerous branches, forming a

large delta, composed, where it borders on the sea, of a labyrinth of

creeks and rivers, running through the dense forests of the Sundarbans,

and exhibiting during the annual inundation the appearance of an immense

sea. At this time the rice fields to the extent of many hundreds of

square miles are submerged. The scene presents to a European eye a

panorama of singular novelty and interest--rice fields covered with

water to a great depth; the ears of grain floating on the surface; the

stupendous embankments, which restrain without altogether preventing the

excesses of the inundations; and peasants going out to their daily work

with their cattle in canoes or on rafts. The navigable streams which

fall into the Ganges intersect the country in every direction and afford

great facilities for internal communication. In many parts boats can

approach by means of lakes, rivulets and water-courses to the door of

almost every cottage. The lower region of the Ganges is the richest and

most productive portion of Bengal, abounding in valuable produce. The

other principal rivers in Bengal are the Sone, Gogra, Gandak, Kusi,

Tista; the Hugli, formed by the junction of the Bhagirathi and Jalangi,

and farther to the west, the Damodar and Rupnarayan; and in the

south-west, the Mahanadi or great river of Orissa. In a level country

like Bengal, where the soil is composed of yielding and loose materials,

the courses of the rivers are continually shifting from the wearing away

of their different banks, or from the water being turned off by

obstacles in its course into a different channel. As this channel is

gradually widened the old bed of the river is left dry. The new channel

into which the river flows is of course so much land lost, while the old

bed constitutes an accession to the adjacent estates. Thus, one man's

property is diminished, while that of another is enlarged or improved;

and a distinct branch of jurisprudence has grown up, the particular

province of which is the definition and regulation of the alluvial

rights alike of private property and of the state.

_Geology._--The greater part of Bengal is occupied by the alluvial

deposits of the Ganges, but in the south-west rises the plateau of Chota

Nagpur composed chiefly of gneissic rocks. The great thickness of the

Gangetic alluvium is shown by a borehole at Calcutta which was carried

to a depth of about 460 ft. below the present level of the sea without

entering any marine deposit. Over the surface of the gneissic rocks are

scattered numerous basins of Gondwana beds. Some of these are

undoubtedly faulted into their present positions, and to this they owe

their preservation. In the Rajmahal Hills basaltic lava flows are

interbedded with the Gondwana deposits, and in the Karharbari coalfield

the Gondwana beds are traversed by dikes of mica-peridotite and basalt,

which are supposed to be of the same age as the Rajmahal lavas. The

Gondwana series is economically of great importance. It includes

numerous seams of coal, many of which are worked on an extensive scale

(at Giridih, Raniganj, &c.). The quality of the coal is good, but

unfortunately it contains a large amount of ash, the average being as

high as 17%.

_People._--In the sub-provinces under the lieutenant-governor of Bengal

dwell a great congeries of peoples, of widely diverse origin, speaking

different languages and representing far separated eras of civilization.

The province, in fact, became so unwieldy that this was the chief reason

for its partition in 1905. The people exhibit every stage of human

progress, and every type of human enlightenment and superstition from

the educated classes to primitive hill tribes. On the same bench of a

Calcutta college sit youths trained up in the strictest theism, others

indoctrinated in the mysteries of the Hindu trinity and pantheon, with

representatives of every link in the chain of superstition--from the

harmless offering of flowers before the family god to the cruel rites of

Kali, whose altars in the most civilized districts of Bengal, as lately

as the famine of 1866, were stained with human blood. Indeed, the very

word Hindu is one of absolutely indeterminate meaning. The census

officers employ it as a convenient generic to include 42 millions of the

population of Bengal, comprising elements of transparently distinct

ethnical origin, and separated from each other by their language,

customs and religious rites. But Hinduism, understood even in this wide

sense, represents only one of many creeds and races found within Bengal.

The other great historical cultus, which during the last twelve

centuries did for the Semitic peoples what Christianity accomplished

among the European Aryans, has won to itself one-fifth of the population

of Bengal. The Mahommedans number some 9,000,000 in Bengal, but the

great bulk of their numbers was transferred to Eastern Bengal and Assam.

They consist largely of the original inhabitants of the country, who

were proselytized by the successive Pathan and Mogul invasions. In the

face of great natural catastrophes, such as river inundations, famines,

tidal waves and cyclones of the lower provinces of Bengal, the religious

instinct works with a vitality unknown in European countries. Until the

British government stepped in with its police and canals and railroads,

between the people and what they were accustomed to consider the

dealings of Providence, scarcely a year passed without some terrible

manifestation of the power and the wrath of God. Mahratta invasions from

central India, piratical devastations on the sea-board, banditti who

marched about the interior in bodies of 50,000 men, floods which drowned

the harvests of whole districts, and droughts in which a third of the

population starved to death, kept alive a sense of human powerlessness

in the presence of an omnipotent fate. Under the Mahommedans a

pestilence turned the capital into a silent wilderness, never again to

be re-peopled. Under British rule it is estimated that 10 millions

perished within the Lower Provinces alone in the famine of 1769-1770;

and the first surveyor-general of Bengal entered on his maps a tract of

many hundreds of square miles as bare of villages and "depopulated by

the Maghs." But since the advent of British administration the history

of Bengal has substantially been a record of prosperity; the teeming

population of its river valleys is one of the densest in the world, and

the purely agricultural districts of Saran and Muzaffarpur in the Patna

division support over 900 persons to the square mile, a number hardly

surpassed elsewhere except in urban areas.

_Language._--Excluding immigrants the languages spoken by the people of

Bengal belong to one or other of four linguistic families--Aryan,

Dravidian, Munda and Tibeto-Burman. Of these the languages of the Aryan

family are by far the most important, being spoken by no less than 95%

of the population according to the census of 1901. The Aryan languages

are spoken in the plains by almost the whole population; the Munda and

Dravidian in the Chota Nagpur plateau and adjoining tracts; and the

Tibeto-Burman in Darjeeling, Sikkim and Jalpaiguri. The most important

Aryan languages are Bengali (q.v.), Bihari, Eastern Hindi and Oriya. On

the average in the province, before partition, out of every 1000 persons

528 spoke Bengali, 341 Hindi and Bihari, and 79 Oriya. As a rule Bengali

is the language of Bengal proper, Hindi of Behar and Chota Nagpur, and

Oriya of Orissa.

_Agriculture._--The staple crop of the province is rice, to which about

66% of the cropped area is devoted. There are three harvests in the

year--the _boro_, or spring rice; _aus_, or autumn rice; and _aman_, or

winter rice. Of these the last or winter rice is by far the most

extensively cultivated, and forms the great harvest of the year. The

_aman_ crop is grown on low land. In May, after the first fall of rain,

a nursery ground is ploughed three times, and the seed scattered

broadcast. When the seedlings make their appearance another field is

prepared for transplanting. By this time the rainy season has thoroughly

set in, and the field is dammed up so as to retain the water. It is then

repeatedly ploughed until the water becomes worked into the soil, and

the whole reduced to thick mud. The young rice is then taken from the

nursery, and transplanted in rows about 9 in. apart. _Aman_ rice is much

more extensively cultivated than _aus_, and in favourable years is the

most valuable crop, but being sown in low lands is liable to be

destroyed by excessive rainfall. Harvest takes place in December or

January. _Aus_ rice is generally sown on high ground. The field is

ploughed when the early rains set in, ten or twelve times over, till the

soil is reduced nearly to dust, the seed being sown broadcast in April

or May. As soon as the young plants reach 6 in. in height, the land is

harrowed for the purpose of thinning the crop and to clear it of weeds.

The crop is harvested in August or September. _Boro_, or spring rice, is

cultivated on low marshy land, being sown in a nursery in October,

transplanted a month later, and harvested in March and April. An

indigenous description of rice, called _uri_ or _jaradhan_, grows in

certain marshy tracts. The grain is very small, and is gathered for

consumption only by the poorest. Wheat forms an important food staple in

Behar, whence there is a considerable export to Calcutta. Oil-seeds are

very largely grown, particularly in Behar. The principal oil-seeds are

_sarisha_ (mustard), _til_ (sesamum) and _lisi_ or _masina_ (linseed).

Jute (_pat_ or _kosta_) forms a very important commercial staple of

Bengal. The cultivation of this crop has rapidly increased of late

years. Its principal seat of cultivation, however, is Eastern Bengal,

where the superior varieties are grown. The crop grows on either high or

low lands, is sown in April and cut in August. Apart from the quantity

exported and the quantity made up by hand, it supports a prosperous mill

industry, chiefly in the neighbourhood of Calcutta and Howrah. In 1905

there were thirty-six jute mills in the province and 2-1/4 million acres

were cropped. The value of jute and of the goods manufactured from it

represents more than a third of the aggregate value of the trade of

Calcutta. Indigo used to be an important crop carried on with European

capital in Behar, but of late years the industry has almost been

destroyed by the invention of artificial indigo. Tea cultivation is the

other great industry carried on by European capital, but that is chiefly

confined to Assam, the industry in Darjeeling and the Dwars being on a

small scale. Opium is grown in Behar with its head station at Patna. The

cultivation of the cinchona plant in Bengal was introduced as an

experiment about 1862, and is grown on government plantations in

Darjeeling.

_Mineral Products._--The chief mineral product in Bengal is coal, which

disputes with the gold of Mysore for the place of premier importance in

the mining industries of India. The most important mine in point of

area, accessibility and output is Raniganj, with an area of 500 sq. m.

Another of rising importance is that of Jherria, with an area of 200 sq.

m., which is situated only 16 m. to the west of Raniganj; while

Daltonganj also has an area of 200 sq. m. The small coalfield of

Karharbari with an area of only 11 sq. m. yields the best coal in

Bengal. Besides these four coalfields there are twenty-five others of

various sizes, which are only in the initial stages of development.

_Commerce._--The sea-borne trade of Bengal is almost entirely

concentrated at Calcutta (q.v.), which also serves as the chief port for

Eastern Bengal and Assam, and for the United Provinces. The principal

imports are cotton piece goods, railway materials, metals and machinery,

oils, sugar, cotton, twist and salt; and the principal exports are jute,

tea, hides, opium, rice, oil-seeds, indigo and lac. The inter-provincial

trade is mostly carried on with Eastern Bengal and Assam, the United

Provinces and the Central Provinces. From the United Provinces come

opium, hides, raw cotton, wheat, shellac and oil-seeds; and from Assam,

tea, oil-seeds and jute. The frontier trade of Bengal is registered with

Nepal, Sikkim, Tibet and Bhutan, but except with Nepal the amount is

insignificant.

_Railways._--Bengal is well supplied with railways, which naturally have

the seaport of Calcutta as the centre of the system. South of the

Ganges, the East Indian follows the river from the North-Western

Provinces, with its terminus at Howrah on the Hugli, opposite Calcutta.

A chord line passes by the coalfield of Raniganj, which enables this

great railway to be worked more economically than any other in India.

The Bengal-Nagpur, from the Central Provinces, also has its terminus at

Howrah, and the section of this railway through Midnapore carries the

East Coast line from Madras. North of the Ganges the Eastern Bengal runs

north to Darjeeling, and maintains a service of river steamers on the

Brahmaputra. The Bengal Central serves the lower Gangetic delta. Both of

these have their termini at Sealdah, an eastern suburb of Calcutta.

Northern Behar is traversed by the Bengal & North-Western, with an

extension eastwards through Tirhoot to join the Eastern Bengal. In

addition there are a few light lines and steam tramways.

_Canals and Rivers._--Rivers and other waterways still carry a large

part of the traffic of Bengal, especially in the delta. The government

maintains two channels through the Sundarbans, known as the Calcutta and

Eastern canals, and likewise does its best to keep open the Nadiya

rivers, which form the communication between the main stream of the

Ganges and the Hugli. There is further a route by water between Calcutta

and Midnapore. The most important canals, those in Orissa (see MAHANADI)

and on the Sone river in southern Behar, have been constructed primarily

for irrigation, though they are also used for navigation. Except as a

protection against famine, expenditure on irrigation is not remunerative

in Bengal, on account of the abundance of rivers, and the general

dampness of the climate.

_Administration._--The administration of Bengal is conducted by a

lieutenant-governor, with a chief secretary, two secretaries and three

under-secretaries. There is no executive council, as in Madras and

Bombay; but there is a board of revenue, consisting of two members. For

legislative purposes the lieutenant-governor has a council of twenty

members, of whom not more than ten may be officials. Of the remaining

members seven are nominated on the recommendation of the Calcutta

corporation, groups of municipalities, groups of district boards,

selected public associations and the senate of Calcutta university. The

number of divisions or commissionerships is 6, of which Chota Nagpur

ranks as "non-regulation." The number of districts is 33.

_Army._--In Lord Kitchener's reconstitution of the Indian army in 1904

the old Bengal command was abolished and its place taken by the Eastern

army corps, which includes all the troops from Meerut to Assam. The

boundaries of the 8th division include those of the former Oudh,

Allahabad, Assam and Presidency districts; and the troops now quartered

in Bengal only consist of the Presidency brigade with its headquarters

at Fort William.

_History._--The history of so large a province as Bengal forms an

integral part of the general history of India. The northern part, Behar

(q.v.), constituted the ancient kingdom of Magadha, the nucleus of the

imperial power of the successive great dynasties of the Mauryas,

Andhras and Guptas; and its chief town, Patna, is the ancient

Pataliputra (the Palimbothra of the Greeks), once the capital of India.

The Delta or southern part of Bengal lay beyond the ancient Sanskrit

polity, and was governed by a number of local kings belonging to a

pre-Aryan stock. The Chinese travellers, Fa Hien in the 5th century, and

Hsuan Tsang in the 7th century, found the Buddhist religion prevailing

throughout Bengal, but already in a fierce struggle with Hinduism--a

struggle which ended about the 9th or 10th century in the general

establishment of the latter faith. Until the end of the 12th century

Hindu princes governed in a number of petty principalities, till, in

1199, Mahommed Bakhtiyar Khilji was appointed to lead the first

Mussulman invasion into Bengal. The Mahommedan conquest of Behar dates

from 1197 A.D., and the new power speedily spread southwards into the

delta. From about this date until 1340 Bengal was ruled by governors

appointed by the Mahommedan emperors in the north. From 1340 to 1539 its

governors asserted a precarious independence, and arrogated the position

of sovereigns on their own account. From 1540 to 1576 Bengal passed

under the rule of the Pathan or Afghan dynasty, which commonly bears the

name of Sher Shah. On the overthrow of this house by the powerful arms

of Akbar, Bengal was incorporated into the Mogul empire, and

administered by governors appointed by the Delhi emperor, until the

treaties of 1765, which placed Bengal, Behar and Orissa under the

administration of the East India Company. The Company formed its

earliest settlements in Bengal in the first half of the 17th century.

These settlements were of a purely commercial character. In 1620 one of

the Company's factors dates from Patna; in 1624-1636 the Company

established itself, by the favour of the emperor, on the ruins of the

ancient Portuguese settlement of Pippli, in the north of Orissa; in

1640-1642 an English surgeon, Gabriel Boughton, obtained establishments

at Balasore, also in Orissa, and at Hugli, some miles above Calcutta.

The vexations and extortions to which the Company's early agents were

subjected more than once almost induced them to abandon the trade, and

in 1677-1678 they threatened to withdraw from Bengal altogether. In

1685, the Bengal factors, driven to extremity by the oppression of the

Mogul governors, threw down the gauntlet; and after various successes

and hairbreadth escapes, purchased from the grandson of Aurangzeb, in

1696, the villages which have since grown up into Calcutta, the

metropolis of India. During the next fifty years the British had a long

and hazardous struggle alike with the Mogul governors of the province

and the Mahratta armies which invaded it. In 1756 this struggle

culminated in the great outrage known as the Black Hole of Calcutta,

followed by Clive's battle of Plassey and capture of Calcutta, which

avenged it. That battle, and the subsequent years of confused fighting,

established British military supremacy in Bengal, and procured the

treaties of 1765, by which the provinces of Bengal, Behar and Orissa

passed under British administration. To Warren Hastings (1772-1785)

belongs the glory of consolidating the British power, and converting a

military occupation into a stable civil government. To another member of

the civil service, John Shore, afterwards Lord Teignmouth (1786-1793),

is due the formation of a regular system of Anglo-Indian legislation.

Acting through Lord Cornwallis, then governor-general, he ascertained

and defined the rights of the landholders in the soil. These landholders

under the native system had started, for the most part, as collectors of

the revenues, and gradually acquired certain prescriptive rights as

quasi-proprietors of the estates entrusted to them by the government. In

1793 Lord Cornwallis declared their rights perpetual, and made over the

land of Bengal to the previous quasi-proprietors or _zamindars_, on

condition of the payment of a fixed land tax. This piece of legislation

is known as the Permanent Settlement of the Land Revenue. But the

Cornwallis code, while defining the rights of the proprietors, failed to

give adequate recognition to the rights of the undertenants and the

cultivators. His Regulations formally reserved the latter class of

rights, but did not legally define them, or enable the husbandmen to

enforce them in the courts. After half a century of rural disquiet, the

rights of the cultivators were at length carefully formulated by Act X.

of 1859. This measure, now known as the land law of Bengal, effected for

the rights of the under-holders and cultivators what the Cornwallis code

in 1793 had effected for those of the superior landholders. The status

of each class of persons interested in the soil, from the government as

suzerain, through the _zamindars_ or superior landholders, the

intermediate tenure-holders and the undertenants, down to the actual

cultivator, is now clearly defined. The act dates from the first year

after the transfer of India from the company to the crown; for the

mutiny burst out in 1857. The transactions of that revolt chiefly took

place in northern India, and are narrated in the article INDIAN MUTINY.

In Bengal the rising began at Barrackpore, was communicated to Dacca in

Eastern Bengal, and for a time raged in Behar, producing the memorable

defence of the billiard-room at Arrah by a handful of civilians and

Sikhs--one of the most splendid pieces of gallantry in the history of

the British arms. Since 1858, when the country passed to the crown, the

history of Bengal has been one of steady progress. Five great lines of

railway have been constructed. Trade has enormously expanded; new

centres of commerce have sprung up in spots which formerly were silent

jungles; new staples of trade, such as tea and jute, have rapidly

attained importance; and the coalfields and iron ores have opened up

prospects of a new and splendid era in the internal development of the

country.

During the decade 1891-1901 Bengal was fortunate in escaping to a great

extent the two calamities of famine and plague which afflicted central

and western India. The drought of 1896-1897 did indeed extend to Bengal,

but not to such an extent as to cause actual famine. The distress was

most acute in the densely populated districts of northern Behar, and in

the remote hills of Chota Nagpur. Plague first appeared at Calcutta in a

sporadic form in April 1898, but down to April of the following year the

total number of deaths ascribed to plague throughout the province was

less than 1000, compared with 191,000 for Bombay. At the beginning of

1900, however, there was a serious recrudescence of plague at Calcutta,

and a malignant outbreak in the district of Patna, which caused 1000

deaths a week. In the early months of 1901, plague again appeared in the

same regions. The number of deaths in 1904 was 75,436, the highest

recorded up to that date.

The earthquake of the 12th of June 1897, which had its centre of

disturbance in Assam, was felt throughout eastern and northern Bengal.

In all the large towns the masonry buildings were severely damaged or

totally wrecked. The permanent way of the railways also suffered. The

total number of deaths returned was only 135. Far more destructive to

life was the cyclone and storm-wave that broke over Chittagong district

on the night of the 24th of October 1897. Apart from damage to shipping

and buildings, the low-lying lands along the coast were completely

submerged, and in many villages half the inhabitants were drowned. The

loss of human lives was reported to be about 14,000, and the number of

cattle drowned about 15,000. As usual in such cases, a severe outbreak

of cholera followed in the track of the storm-wave. Another natural

calamity on a large scale occurred at Darjeeling in October 1899.

Torrential rains caused a series of landslips, carrying away houses and

breaking up the hill railway.

The most notable event, however, of recent times was the partition of

the province, which was decided upon by Lord Curzon, and carried into

execution in October 1905. Serious popular agitation followed this step,

on the ground (_inter alia_) that the Bengali population, the centre of

whose interests and prosperity was Calcutta, would now be divided under

two governments, instead of being concentrated and numerically dominant

under the one; while the bulk would be in the new division. In 1906-1909

the unrest developed to a considerable extent, requiring special

attention from the Indian and home governments; but as part of the

general history of India the movement may be best discussed under that

heading (see INDIA: _History_).

See Parliamentary Papers relating to the reconstitution of the

provinces of Bengal and Assam (Cd. 2658 and Cd. 2746, 1905); Colonel

E.T. Dalton, _The Ethnology of Bengal_ (1872); Sir W.W. Hunter,

_Annals of Rural Bengal_ (1868), and _Orissa_ (1872); Sir H.H. Risley,

_Tribes and Castes of Bengal_ (1891); C.E. Buckland, _Bengal under the

Lieutenant-Governors_ (1901); and Sir James Bourdillon, _The Partition

of Bengal_ (Society of Arts, 1905).

BENGAL, BAY OF, a portion of the Indian Ocean, resembling a triangle in

shape, lying between India and Burma. A zone 50 m. wide extending from

the island of Ceylon and the Coromandel coast to the head of the bay,

and thence southwards through a strip embracing the Andaman and Nicobar

islands, is bounded by the 100 fathom line of sea bottom; some 50 m.

beyond this lies the 500-fathom limit. Opposite the mouth of the Ganges,

however, the intervals between these depths are very much extended by

deltaic influence. The bay receives many large rivers, of which the most

important are the Ganges and Brahmaputra on the north, the Irrawaddy on

the east, and the Mahanadi, Godavari, Kistna and Cauvery on the west. On

the west coast it has no harbours, Madras having a mere open roadstead,

but on the east there are many good ports, such as Akyab, Moulmein,

Rangoon and Tavoy river. The islands in the bay are very numerous,

including the Andaman, Nicobar and Mergui groups. The group of islands,

Cheduba and others, in the north-east, off the Burmese coast, are

remarkable for a chain of mud volcanoes, which are occasionally active.

Thus in December 1906 a new island of mud was thrown up, and measured

307 by 217 yds.

BENGALI, with ORIYA and ASSAMESE, three of the four forms of speech

which compose the Eastern Group of the Indo-Aryan Languages (q.v.). This

group includes all the Aryan languages spoken in India east of the

longitude of Benares, and its members are the following:--

Number of speakers in

British India, 1901.

Bengali 44,624,048

Oriya 9,687,429

Assamese 1,350,846

Bihari 34,579,844

----------

Total 90,242,167

Of these Bihari is treated separately. In the present article we shall

devote ourselves to the examination of Bengali together with the two

other closely connected languages. The reader is throughout assumed to

be in possession of the facts described under the heads INDO-ARYAN

LANGUAGES and PRAKRIT.

Language.

Bengali is spoken in the province of Bengal proper, i.e. in, and on both

sides of the delta of the Ganges, and also in the Eastern Bengal

portion of the province of Eastern Bengal and Assam. The name "Bengali"

is an English word, derived from the English word "Bengal." Natives call

the language _Banga-Bhasa_, or the language of Banga, i.e. "Bengal."

"Oriya" is the native name for the language of Odra or Orissa. Assamese,

again an English word, is spoken in the Assam Valley. Its native name is

_Asamiya_, pronounced _Ohamiya_. All these languages have alphabets

derived from early forms of the well-known Nagari character of northern

India. That of Bengali dates from about the 11th century A.D. It is a

cursive script which admits of considerable speed in writing. The

Assamese alphabet is the same as that of Bengali, but has one additional

character to represent the sound of _w_, which has to be expressed in

the former language in a very awkward fashion. In Orissa, till lately,

writing was done on a talipot palm-leaf, on which the letters were

scratched with an iron stylus. In such circumstances straight lines

would tend to split the leaf, and accordingly the alphabet received a

peculiar curved appearance typical of it and of one or two other South

Indian methods of writing.

The three languages are all the immediate descendants of Magadhi Prakrit

(see PRAKRIT), the headquarters of which were in south Behar, near the

modern city of Patna. From here it spread in three lines--southwards,

where it developed into Oriya; south-eastwards into Bengal proper, where

it became Bengali; and eastwards, through Northern Bengal, into Assam,

where it became Assamese. It thus appears that the language of Northern

Bengal, though usually and conveniently treated as a dialect of Bengali,

is not so in reality, but is a connecting link between Assamese and

Bihari, the language of Behar. It is noteworthy that Northern Bengali

and Assamese often agree in their grammar with Oriya, as against

standard Bengali.

Omitting border forms of speech, Bengali, as a vernacular, has two main

dialects, a western and an eastern, the former being the standard. The

boundary-line between the two may be roughly put at the 89th degree of

east longitude. The eastern dialect has many marked peculiarities,

amongst which we may mention a tendency to disaspiration, the

pronunciation of _c_ as _ts_, of _ch_ as _s_, and of _j_ as _z_. In the

northern part of the tract a medial _r_ is often elided, and in the

extreme east there is a broader pronunciation of the vowel _a_, like

that in the English word "ball," _k_ is sounded like the _ch_ in "loch,"

and both _c_ and _ch_ are pronounced like _s_. The letter _p_ is often

sounded like _w_, and _s_ like _h_, which again, when initial, is

dropped. The distinction between cerebral and dental letters is lost, so

that the words _ath_ and _sat_ are both pronounced _'at_. In the

south-east, near Chittagong, corruption has gone even further, and the

local dialect, which is practically a new language, is unintelligible to

a man from Western Bengal. Throughout the eastern districts there is a

strong tendency to epenthesis, e.g. _kali_ is pronounced _kail_. A more

important dialectic difference in Bengali is that between the literary

speech and the vernacular. The literary vocabulary is highly

Sanskritized, so much so that it is not understood by any native of

Bengal who has not received special instruction in it. Its grammar

preserves numerous archaic or pseudo-archaic forms, which are invariably

contracted in the colloquial speech of even the most highly educated.

For instance, "I do" is expressed in the literary dialect by

_karitechi_, but in the vernacular by _korcci_ or _kocci_. Oriya and

Assamese may be said to have no dialects. There are a few local

variations, but the standard form of speech, as a whole, is used

everywhere in the respective tracts where the languages are spoken.

The three languages, being all children of a common parent, present many

similar features. Oriya on the whole preserves the usual accentuation of

the Indo-Aryan Languages (q.v.), seldom having the stress syllable

farther back than the antepenultimate. Bengali, on the other hand,

throws the accent as far back as possible, and this produces the

contracted forms which we observe in the colloquial language, the first

syllable of a word being strongly accented, and the rest being hurried

over. Literary Bengali preserves the full form of the word, and in

reading aloud this full form is adhered to. Assamese follows Bengali in

its accentuation, but the language has never been the toy of euphuism.

In its literature colloquial words are employed, and are written as they

are pronounced colloquially.

In the following account of the three languages, Bengali, literary and

colloquial, will be primarily dealt with, and then the points of

difference between it and the other two will be described.

Abbreviations used: A. = Assamese, Bg. = Bengali, O. = Oriya, Pr. =

Prakrit, Mg. Pr. = Magadhi Prakrit, Skr. = Sanskrit.

_Vocabulary._--As already said, Literary Bengali abounds in

_tatsamas_, or words borrowed in modern times from Sanskrit (see

INDO-ARYAN LANGUAGES), and these have also intruded themselves into

the speech of the educated. So much has the false taste for these

learned words obtained the mastery that, in the literary language,

when a genuine Bengali or _tadbhava_ word is used in literature it is

frequently not put into writing, but the corresponding learned

_tatsama_ is written in its place, although the _tadbhava_ is read. It

is as though a French writer wrote _sicca_ when he wished the word

_seche_ to be pronounced. Similarly, the Bengali word for the goddess

of Fortune is _Lakkhi_, but in books this is always written in the

Skr. form _Laksmi_, although no Bengali would dream of saying anything

but _Lakkhi_, even when reciting a purple passage _ore rotunda_. In

fact, the vocal organs of most Bengalis are incapable of uttering the

sound connoted by the letters _Laksmi_. The result is that the

spelling of a Bengali word rarely represents its pronunciation. Oriya

also borrows freely from Sanskrit, but there is no confusion between

_tatsamas_ and _tadbhavas_, as in Bengali. Assamese, on the other

hand, is remarkably free from these parasites, its vocabulary being

mainly _tadbhava_. In Eastern Bengal, where Mussulmans predominate,

there is a free use of words borrowed from Arabic and Persian. Owing

to geographical and historical circumstances, Oriya is to some extent

infected by Telugu and Marathi idioms, while the Tibeto-Burman

dialects and Ahom have left their marks upon Assamese.

_Phonetics._--The three forms of speech agree in sounding the vowel

_a_ like the _o_ in "hot." When writing phonetically, this sound is

represented in the present article by _o_. The pronunciation of this

frequently recurring vowel gives a tone to the general sound of the

languages which at once strikes a foreigner. In Bg. and A. a final

vowel preceded by a single consonant is generally not pronounced. In

Bg. this is only true for nouns, a final _a_ being freely sounded in

adjectives and verbs. In O., on the other hand, a final _a_ is always

pronounced. The sound of such a final _a_ is in all three languages

the same as that of the second _o_ in "promote"; thus, the Bg. _bara_

is pronounced _boro_. In Bg. a medial _a_ sometimes has the sound of

the first _o_ in "promote," as, for instance, in the word _ban_

(_bon_), a forest. In A. and Eastern Bg. a medial _a_ is often sounded

like the _a_ in "ball," and is then transliterated _a_. _A_ has

preserved as a rule its proper sound of _a_ in "father." The

distinction between _i_ and _i_ and between _u_ and _u_ is everywhere

lost in pronunciation, although in _tatsama_ words the Sanskrit

spelling is followed in literature. Thus, in Bg., the Skr. _vyatita_

is pronounced _betito_, with the accent on the first syllable. In A.

the distinction between these long and short vowels is obliterated

more than elsewhere, the reason being, as in Bg., the changes of

pronunciation due to the shifting back of the accent. In O., the Skr.

vowel _r_ is pronounced _ru_. Elsewhere it is _ri_. In O. the vowel

_e_ is always long, but in Bg. it may be long or short, and in A. it

is always short. The syllable _ya_ preceded by a consonant has in Bg.

the sound of a short _e_, so that _vyakti_ is pronounced _bekti_.

Moreover, in the same language the letter _e_ is often pronounced like

the _a_ in the German _Mann_, a sound here phonetically represented by

_a_; thus, _dekha_ is sometimes pronounced _dekho_, and sometimes

_dakho_ or even _dako_. The syllable _ya_, when following a consonant,

also has this _a_-sound, so that the English word "bank" is written

_byank_ in Bengali characters. _O_ in O. is always long. In Bg., when

it has not got the accent it is shortened to the sound of the first

_o_ in "promote," a sound which, as we have seen, is also sometimes

taken by a medial _a_. In A. _o_ approaches the sound of _u_, and it

actually becomes _u_ when followed by _i_ in the next syllable. The

diphthongs _ai_ (in _tatsamas_, i.e. the Skr. _ai_) and _ai_ (in

_tadbhavas_) are sounded like _oi_ in "oil" in Bg. and O., while in A.

they have the sound of _oi_ in "going." Similarly, in Bg. and O. the

diphthongs _au_ and _au_ are sounded like the _au_ in the German

_Haus_, but in A. like _au_ in the French _jaune_, or the second _o_

in "promote." In colloquial Bg. the two syllables _ai_ often have the

sound of _e_, as in _khaite_ (_khete_), to eat.

In Eastern Bengal _k_ has often the sound of _ch_ in "loch." In A. the

consonants _c_ and _ch_ are both pronounced like _s_, and _j_ and _jh_

become _zh_ (i.e. the _s_ in "pleasure") or (when final) _z_. The same

tendency is observable in Bg., though it is usually considered vulgar.

In parts of Eastern Bengal _c_ is pronounced like _ts_. O. as a rule

has the proper sound of these letters, but towards the south _c_ and

_ch_ become _ts_ and _tsh_ when not followed by a palatal letter. The

letters _d_ and _dh_, when medial, are pronounced as a strongly burred

_r_, and are then transliterated _r_ and _rh_ respectively. In A. and

Eastern Bg. there is a strong tendency to pronounce both dentals and

cerebrals as semi-cerebrals, as is done by the neighbouring

Tibeto-Burmans. In A. _r_ and _rh_ become _r_ and _rh_ respectively.

In Bg. and A. _n_ has universally become _n_, but is properly

pronounced in O. _Y_ is usually pronounced as _j_, unless it is a

merely euphonic bridge to avoid a hiatus between two vowels, as in

_kariya_ for _kari-a_. In A. the resultant _j_ has the usual

_z_-sound. When _y_ is the final element of a conjunct consonant, in

Bg. (except in the south-east) it is very faintly pronounced. In

compensation the preceding member of the conjunct is doubled and the

preceding vowel is shortened if possible, thus _vakya_ becomes

_bakk^yo_. In A., while the _y_ is usually preserved, an _i_ is

inserted before the conjunct, so that we have _baikyo_. _M_ and _v_

when similarly situated are altogether elided in Bg., and this is also

the case with _v_ in A., in which language _m_ under these

circumstances becomes _w_; thus, _smarana_ becomes Bg. _ssoron_, A.

_sworon_, and _dvara_ becomes Bg. and A. _ddara_. _R_ is generally

pronounced correctly, except that when a member of a compound it is

often not pronounced in colloquial Bg.; thus _karma_ (_kommo_). In

North-eastern Bengali and in A. a medial _r_ is commonly dropped;

thus, Bg. _karilam_ (_kailam_), A. _kari_ (_kai_).[1] The vulgar

commonly confound _n_ and _l_. O. has retained the old cerebral _l_ of

Pr., which has disappeared in Bg. and A. The semi-vowel _v_ (_w_)

becomes _b_ in Bg. and O., but retains its proper sound when medial in

A. When Bg. wishes to represent a _w_, it has to write _oya_; thus,

for _chawa_ it writes _chaoya_. Similarly _baro_, twelve, +_yari_,

friendship, when compounded together to mean "a collection of twelve

friends," is pronounced _barwari_. Bg. pronounces all uncompounded

sibilants as if they were _s_, like the English _sh_ in "shin." This

was already the case in Mg. Pr. (see PRAKRIT). O., on the contrary,

pronounces all three like the dental _s_ in "sin," while A. sounds

them like a rough _h_, almost like the _ch_ in "loch." In Eastern Bg.

_s_ becomes frankly _h_, and is then often dropped. The compound _ks_

is everywhere treated as if it were _khy_, In colloquial Bg. there is

a tendency to disaspiration; thus _dekha_ is pronounced _dako_ and the

Pr. _hattha-_, a hand, becomes _hat_, not _hath_. In Eastern Bg. there

is a cockney tendency to drop _h_, so that we have _'at_, a hand, and

_kailam_ for _kahilam_, I said.

The above remarks show that O. has, on the whole, preserved the

original sounds of the various letters better than Bg. or A.

_Declension._--The distinction of gender has disappeared from all

three languages. Sex is distinguished either by the use of qualifying

terms, such as "male" or "female," or by the employment of different

words, as in the case of our "bull" and "cow." The plural number is

almost always denoted by the addition of some word meaning "many" or

"collection" to the singular, although we sometimes find a true plural

used in the case of nouns denoting human beings. Case was originally

indicated by postpositions (see INDO-ARYAN LANGUAGES), but in many

instances these have been joined to the noun, so that they form one

word with it. The following is the full declension of the singular of

the word _ghora_, a horse, in the three languages:--

+-----------+---------+-------------------+-----------+

+-----------+---------+-------------------+-----------+

+-----------+---------+-------------------+-----------+

In Bg. and A. a noun often takes _e_ (_e_) in the nominative singular,

when it is the subject of a transitive verb; thus Bg. _bedee_ (from

_bed_) _bale_, the Veda says. In Bg. the nominative plural may, in the

case of human beings, be formed by adding _a_ to the genitive

singular; thus, _santan_, a son; gen. sing., _santaner_; nom. plur.,

_santanera_. The same is the case with the pronouns; thus _amar_, of

me; _amara_, we; _tahar_, his; _tahara_, they. In Bihari (q.v.) the

pronouns follow the same rule, and, as is explained under that head,

the nominative plural is really an oblique form of the genitive. With

this exception, the plural in all our three languages is either the

same as the singular, or (when the idea of plurality has to be

emphasized) is formed by the addition of nouns of multitude, such as

_gan_ in Bg., _mana_ in O., or _bilak_ in A.

We shall see that pronominal suffixes are freely used in all three

languages in the conjugation of verbs. In the Outer languages of the

north-west of India (for the list of these, see INDO-ARYAN LANGUAGES)

pronominal suffixes are also commonly added to nouns to signify

possession. In most of the languages of the Eastern Group such

pronominal suffixes added to nouns have fallen into disuse, but in A.

they are still commonly employed with nouns of relationship; thus,

_bap_, a father; _bopai_, my father; _baper_, your father; _bapek_,

his father. Their retention in A. is no doubt due to the example of

the neighbouring Tibeto-Burman languages, in which such pronominal

_prefixes_ are a common feature.

In all three languages the adjective does not change for gender, for

number or for case.

The personal pronouns have at the present day lost their old

nominatives, and have new nominatives formed from the oblique base. In

the first and second persons the singulars have fallen into disuse in

polite conversation, and the plurals are used honorifically for the

singular, as in the case of the English "you" for "thou." For the

plural, new plurals are formed from the new singular (old plural)

bases. In A., however, the old singular of the first person is

retained, and the old plural plays its proper function. The Bg.

pronouns are, _mui_ (old), I; _ami_ (modern), I; _tui_ (old), thou;

_tumi_ (modern), thou; _se_, _tini_, he; _e_, _ini_, this; _o_, _uni_,

that; _je_, _jini_, who; _ke_, who?; _ki_, what?; _kon_, what

(adjective)?; _keha_, anyone; _kichu_, anything; _kona_, any. Most of

the forms in the other languages closely follow these. The words in O.

for "I" and "thou" are _ambhe_ and _tumbhe_ respectively. All these

pronouns have plurals and oblique forms to which the case suffixes are

added. These must be learnt from the grammars.

_Conjugation._--It is in the conjugation of the verb that colloquial

Bg. differs most from the literary dialect. There is no distinction in

any of the three languages between singular and plural. Most of the

old singular forms have survived in a non-honorific sense, but they

are rarely employed in polite language except in the third person. The

old plural forms are generally employed for the singular also. The

usual base for the verb substantive, when employed as an auxiliary, is

_ach_, be, derived from the Skr. _rcchati_. O., however, forms its

past from the base _tha_ (Skr. _sthita-_), and in South-western Bengal

the base _tha_, derived from the same original, is used for both

present and past time. Only two of the old Skr.-Pr. tenses have

survived in the finite verb, the simple present and the imperative.

Thus, Bg. _kari_, I do; _kar_, do thou. The past is formed by adding

pronominal suffixes to the old past participle in _il_ (Skr. _-illa-_,

a pleonastic suffix, see PRAKRIT), and the future by adding them to

the old future participle in _b_ (Skr. _-tavya-_, Pr. _-avva-_). Thus,

Bg. _karil-am_, done + by-me, I did; _karib-a_, it-is-to-be-done +

by-me, I shall do. In Bg. there are two modern participles, a present

(_kar-ite_) and a past (_kar-iya_), and from these there are formed

periphrastic tenses by suffixing auxiliary verbs. Thus, _karite-chi_

(colloquial, _korci_ or _kocci_), I am doing; _karite-chilam_ (coll.

_korcilum_ or _koccilum_), I was doing; _kariya-chi_ (coll., _korsi_),

I have done; _kariya-chilam_ (coll., _korsilum_), I had done. A past

conditional is formed by adding pronominal suffixes to the present

participle; thus, _karitam_ (coll., _kortum_ or _kottum_), (if) I had

done. Similar tenses are formed in O. and A., but the periphrastic

tenses are formed with verbal nouns and not with participles. Thus, O.

_karu-achi_, A. _kari-cho_, I am a-doing, I am doing. O. and A. have

each a very complete series of gerunds or verbal nouns which are fully

declined. In Bg. only one gerund, that of the genitive, is in common

use.

In order to illustrate the conjugation of the verb, we here give that

of the root _kar_, do, in its present, past and future tenses.

+----------------------------+---------+----------+----------------+----------+

+----------------------------+---------+----------+----------------+----------+

+----------------------------+---------+----------+----------------+----------+

All the three languages have negative forms of the verb substantive,

and A. has a complete negative conjugation for all verbs, made by

prefixing the negative syllable _na_ under certain euphonic rules.

Literature.

_Bengali Literature._--The oldest recognized writer in Bengali is the

Vaishnava poet Candi Das, who flourished about the end of the 14th or

the beginning of the 15th century. His language does not differ much

from the Bengali of to-day. He founded a school of poets who wrote hymns

in honour of Krishna, many of whom, in later times, became connected

with the religious revival instituted by Caitanya in the early part of

the 16th century. In the 15th century Kasi Ram translated the

_Mahabharata_, and Krttibas Ojha the _Ramayana_ into the vernacular. The

principal figure of the 17th century was Mukunda Ram who has left us two

really admirable poems entitled _Candi_ and _Srimanta Saudagar_. Parts

of the former have been translated by Professor Cowell into English

verse, and both well deserve putting into an English dress. With Bharat

Candra, whose much admired but artificial Bidya Sundar appeared in the

18th century, the list of old Bengali authors may be considered as

closed. They wrote in genuine nervous Bengali, and the conspicuous

success of many of them shows how baseless is the contention of some

native writers of the present day that modern literary Bengali needs the

help of its huge imported Sanskrit vocabulary to express anything but

the simplest ideas. This modern literary Bengali arose early in the 19th

century, as a child of the revival of Sanskrit learning in Calcutta,

under the influence of the college founded by the English in Fort

William. Each decade it has become more and more the slave of Sanskrit.

It has had some excellent writers, notably the late Bankim Candra, whose

novels have received the honour of being translated into several

languages, including English. Even he, however, sometimes laboured under

the fetters imposed upon him by a strange vocabulary, and all competent

European scholars are agreed that no work of first-class originality has

much chance of arising in Bengal till some great genius purges the

language of its pseudo-classical element.

_Oriya Literature_ does not go back beyond the 16th century, though

examples of the language are found in inscriptions of the 13th century.

Nearly all the works are connected with the history of Krishna, and the

translation of the _Bhagavata Purana_ into Oriya in the first half of

the 16th century still exercises great influence on the masses. Dina

Krsna Das (17th century) was the author of another popular work entitled

_Rasa Kallola_, or "The Waves of Sentiment," which deals with the early

life of Krishna. Every verse in it begins with the letter k. It is not

always decent, but is immensely popular. Upendra Bhanja, Raja of Gumsur,

a petty hill state, is the most famous of Oriya poets, and was the most

prolific. His work is insipid to a European taste, and when not

unintelligible is often obscene. Oriya poetry, from first to last, has

been an artificial production, the work of _pandits_, who clung to the

rules of Sanskrit rhetoric, and loaded their verses with so many ideas

and words borrowed from that language that it is rarely understood,

except by the learned. The whole literature is, in fact, overshadowed by

the great temple of Jagannath (a name of Krishna) at Puri in Orissa.

_Assamese Literature._--The Assamese are justly proud of their national

literature. It has an independent growth, and its strength lies in

history, a branch of letters in which other Indian languages are almost

entirely wanting. They have chronicles going back for the past 600

years, and a knowledge of their contents is a necessary part of the

education of the upper classes of the country. In poetry, the Vaishnava

reformer, Sankar Deb, who flourished some 450 years ago, was a

voluminous writer. His best known work is a translation of the

_Bhagavata Purana_. About the same time Ananta Kandali translated the

_Mahabharata_ and the _Ramayana_ into his native tongue. Medicine was a

science much studied, and there are translations of all the principal

Sanskrit works on the subject. Forty or fifty dramatic works in the

vernacular are known and are still acted. Some of them date back to the

time of Sankar Deb.

AUTHORITIES.--There is no work dealing with the three languages as a

group. Both the _Comparative Grammars_ of Beames and Hoernle (see

INDO-ARYAN LANGUAGES) are silent about Assamese. The fullest details

concerning them all will be found in vol. v. of the _Linguistic Survey

of India_, parts i. and ii. (Calcutta, 1903). In this each dialect and

subdialect is treated with great minuteness and with copious examples.

The first Bengali grammar and dictionary in a European language was

the _Vocabulario em Idioma Bengalla e Portuguez_ of Manoel da

Assumpcam (Lisbon, 1743). N.B. Halhed wrote the first Bengali grammar

in the English language (Hooghly, 1778), but the real father of

Bengali philology was the great missionary, William Carey (_Grammar_,

Serampore, 1801; _Dictionary, ib_., 1825). W. Yates's _Grammar_, as

edited and improved by T. Wenger (Calcutta, 1847) and others, is still

on sale. It is entirely confined to the literary Bengali of the

pandits. Its great rival has been Syama Caran Sarkar's _Grammar_

(Calcutta, 1850), of which there have been numerous reprints. In 1894

J. Beames published his _Grammar_ (Oxford), now the standard work on

the subject. It is largely based on Syama Caran's work, but with much

new material, especially that dealing with the colloquial side of the

language. G.F. Nicholl's _Grammar_ (London, 1885) is an independent

study of the language, in which the vernacular works of the best

native grammarians have been freely utilized. There is no good Bengali

dictionary. G.C. Haughton's _Dictionary_ (London, 1833) is perhaps

still the best, but J. Mendies' (Calcutta, about 1870) is also well

known, and is the parent of countless others which have issued from

the Calcutta presses. _A Small Dictionary of Colloquial Bengali

Words_, by J. M. C. and G. A. C. (Calcutta, 1904), may also be studied

with advantage. Cf. also Syama-caran Ganguli, _Bengali Spoken and

Written_ (Calcutta, 1906). For Bengali literature, see R.C. Dutt, _The

Literature of Bengal_ (Calcutta and London, 1895), and Hara Prasad

Sastri, _The Vernacular Literature of Bengal before the Introduction

of English Education_ (Calcutta, n.d.). The most complete work is

_Bangabhasa o Sahitya_ by Dines Candra Sen (2nd ed., Calcutta, 1901)

in the Bengali language.

For Oriya there are E. Hallam's (Calcutta, 1874), T. Maltby's

(Calcutta, 1874) and J. Browne's (London, 1882) _Grammars_. The last

two are in the Roman character. They are all mere sketches of the

language. Sutton's (Cuttack, 1841) is still the only _Dictionary_

which the present writer has found of any practical use. For Oriya

literature, see App. IX. of Hunter's _Orissa_ (London, 1872), and

Monmohan Chakravarti's "Notes on the Language and Literature of

Orissa" in the _Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_, vol. lxvi.

(1897), part i. pp. 317 ff., and vol. lxvii. (1898), part i. pp. 332

ff.

The first Assamese _Grammar_ was Nathan Brown's (Sibsagar, 1848, 3rd

ed. 1893), and it is still the one usually studied. G.F. Nicholl gives

an Assamese grammar as a supplement to his Bengali _Grammar_ already

quoted. Like that work, it is quite independent, and is not a revised

edition of Brown. M. Bronson's _Dictionary_ (Sibsagar, 1867) was for

long the only vocabulary available, and a very useful and practical

work it was. It is now superseded by Hem Candra Barua's _Hema-kosa_

(Shillong, 1900). For Assamese literature, see Ananda Ram Dhekial

Phukan's _A Few Remarks on the Assamese Language_ (Sibsagar, 1855),

partly reprinted in the _Indian Antiquary_, vol. xxv. (1896), pp. 57

ff. (G. A. Gr.)

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