User:Universal Life/Rarh region

Rarh region (Bengali: রাঢ়, Rāṛh) is a toponym for an area in the Indian subcontinent that lies between the Chota Nagpur Plateau on the West and the Ganges Delta on the East. Although the boundaries of the region have been defined differently according to various sources throughout history, today it is mainly coextensive with the state of West Bengal also comprising some portions of the state of Jharkand, India and possibly some parts of Bangladesh.

The Rarh region historically has been known by many different names and has hosted numerous settlements throughout history. It is suggested that the Rarh region hosted an ancient civilisation also called Rarh and a powerful state, however much of its ancient history remains unknown.

Different Names and Etymology

Different names of the region as endonyms are usually variations of the term Rāṛh. It is worth noting that the grapheme ঢ় /ṛh/ is basically the same as ঢ /ḑh/, the only difference being one dot under the ঢ and they belong to the same morphophoneme. The interchangeable variations Radha, Rarha, Ladha, Lara are observed in the the oldest Jain book of codes Acaranga Sutra of the 6th century BC. Some other sources use the endonyms Lala, Rara and Lada. According to the linguist Sarkar the Chinese called Rarh as Lati, the Greek as Ganga Ridae and the Aryans as Rāṭṭha. Moreover many Greek, Roman and Egyptian sources use the variations of Gangaridai, Gangaridae, Gangaritai and Gangaridum with the sense of a state, nation or civilisation which existed more or less in the same extent of Rarh. Megasthenes, Ptolemy, Strabo, Pliny, Arrian, Diodorus Siculus, Quintus Curtius Rufus and Plutarch all wrote about Gangaridae.

The etymology of the word Rarh is not clear however there are many authors suggesting that it originates from a local language of Austro-Asiatic family. It could have originated from any of the following words of the Santali language; lar means "thread", rarh means "tune" and larh means "snake". However according to Sarkar, the word originates from Proto-Austro-Asiatic *Rāŗhā or *Rāŗho which means "land of red soil" or "land of laterite".

The etymology of the word Gangaridae is also not clear. According to the historian Dr. Atul Sur, Pliny and Ptolemy it means Ganga-Ridai (Rarh of the Ganges - Ganges' Rarh). However according to other scholars it might derive as Ganga-Hrd (land with Ganges in its heart), Ganga-Rashtra (State of the Ganges) or Gonda-Ridai (Land of the Gonds). Diodorus Siculus describes Gangaridae as "a nation possessing the greatest number of elephants and the largest in size."

Geography

Districts of West Bengal

Western parts of Rarh merging with the Chota Nagpur Plateau was historically called Vajjabhumi to demarcate from the eastern part of Rarh which was called Subbhabhumi, Sumhabhumi or Suhmo. There are many descriptions of the geographical area called Rarh or Gangaridae, some being quite imprecise they are capable of indicating a very large area and some though being precise, differ in their descriptions. Most precise descriptions of Rarh seem coextensive with West Bengal. More imprecise descriptions denoting larger areas usually derive from Western sources describing Gangaridae. Some sources describe a smaller area while referring to Rarh as a geographical area and a larger description comes with Rarh defined as a geopolitical unit.

According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, Rarh is mainly Murshidabad's surrounding region, a high, undulating continuation of the Chota Nagpur plateau to the West, and the Bagri, a fertile, low-lying alluvial tract, part of the Ganges (Ganga)-Brahmaputra delta, to the East. Banglapedia says that Rarh is consisted of a large part of West Bengal. According to West Bengal Travel & Tourism Guide, the northeastern border of Rarh is located within Birbhum.

Historically, a statement in Digvijayaprakasha locates Rarh as from the north of the Damodar River and to the west of Ganges in the south. Even though earliest written documents divides Rarh as West Rarh and East Rarh, later documents starting from the 9th and 10th century AD, divides it to Daksina Radha (Northern Rarh) and Uttara Radha (Southern Rarh). However as inferred from later documents, this newer distinction (North/South) is not based on geography but two political states. Southern Rarh included different large settlements of the modern districts of Howrah, Hooghly and Burdwan in West Bengal, or considerable portions of West Bengal lying between the rivers Ajay and Damodar. The Ajay river is usually regarded as constituting the boundary line between Northern and Southern Rarh. Based on different epigraphic records, it is suggested that Northern Rarh included the western parts of the modern district of Mursidabad, the entire district of Birbhum, including some parts of Santhal Pargana, and the northern part of the Katwa sub-division of Burdwan district. There are many archaeological sites in many parts of Rarh, where studies are going on.

Historian P. R. Sarkar, who has been doing research around most of those archaeological sites, gives a much detailed account on Rarh's geography, using the old geographical definitions of West/East Rarh. According to this definition:

Gangaridae in Ptolemy's Map.

• East Rarh consists of roughly of the following districts:
  1. Western Murshidabad
  2. Northern Birbhum
  3. Eastern Burdwan
  4. Hooghly
  5. Howrah
  6. East Midnapore
  7. Indas of Bankura district

• West Rarh consists of the following districts:
  1. Old Santhal Pargana district (today 6 districts: Godda, Deoghar, Dumka, Jamtara, Sahibganj and Pakur)
  2. Most parts of Birbhum
  3. Western Burdwan
  4. Bankura district except for Indas
  5. Purulia
  6. Dhanbad
  7. Most parts of Giridih
  8. Four block of Ranchi, namely Silli, Sonahatu, Bundu and Tamar
  9. Singhbhum
  10. Jhargram subdivision of West Midnapore

The region is about 50 to 100 m above the sea level. Look to chapters 10, 17 (Fauna), 18, 25, 29 for geography of Rarh.

Rarh, a high, undulating continuation of the Chota Nagpur plateau to the west, and the Bagri, a fertile, low-lying alluvial tract, part of the Ganges (Ganga)-Brahmaputra delta, to the east. Rice, jute, legumes, oilseeds, wheat, barley, and mangoes are the chief crops in the east; extensive mulberry cultivation is carried out in the west.

History

The oldest Jain book of codes Acaranga Sutra and Buddhist Jataka mentions about these regions. According to Acharanga Sutra Mahavira travelled in 'Ladha' in Vajjabhumi and Subbhabhumi at a time (5th Century BC) when the country was lawless and the people were harsh at Mahavir. Alexander the great was supposed to have been discouraged to come to eastern India due to the power of the "Gangaridai" or "Ganga Rarh"s who were probably the people of Rarh.

The Bhubaneswar inscription of Bhavadeva Bhatta records that "Radha was a waterless, dry and woody region".

Rakhaldas Bandyopadhyay, the famous Bengali historian says: "During Chandragupta Maurya's rule Gangaridai was independent like the Andhra kingdom and Gangaridai was joined with Kalinga(ancient Orissa)." It is interesting that the description of the armed forces of Gangaridae and Calingae during the reign of Chandragupta Maurya as given by Megasthenes are identical (both possessed army of 60,000 foot-soldiers, 1,000 horsemen and 700 elephants).

Dipavangsha and Mahavangsha state that Sri Lanka was colonised by Vijaya Simha who hailed from Simhapura in 'Lala' (Rarh).

Ancient History

Rarh is the oldest part of ancient Gondwanaland which was formed 300 million years ago. Some of the hills of Rarh today are from those ancient times. Human beings originated at a few points on this planet and the origin of humankind in Rarh is very ancient. The forest dwellers of Rarh clad in leaves, bark and animal skins lived by hunting. After they learnt to tend animals and agriculture. Along the rivers various groups of people progressed and mingled later in the delta areas and advanced human civilization.

Outstanding Personalities of Rarh

Rarh presented human society the first philosopher Maharishi Kapil who was born near Jahlda. Maharishi Patanjali who systematized yoga was born in Patun village in Burdwan. Kashiram Das from Siddhi village in Burdwan made the Mahabharata in lucid language accessible to the people and Krittivas Ojha did the same with the Ramayana. Others were born in Rarh or were by lineage from Rarh such as: Lochandas Thakur, Vrindavandas Thakur, Govindadas Thakur, Dvaja Chandidas, Dina Chandidas, Boru Chandidas, Ghanaram Chakravorty, Kavikankan Mukundaram Chakravorty, Bharatchandra Ray, Premendra Mitra, Sharatchandra, Tarashankar Bandopadhyay, the poet Jaydev, Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, Michael Madhusudan Dutta, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Satyen Dutta, Rajshekhar Basu (Parashuram), Shubhankar Das, Kashana, Jayanta Panigrahi, Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar, Satyendranath Bose, Rashbehari Bose, Prafulla Chandra Roy, Subhash Chandra Bose, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Swami Vivekananda, Shri Aurobindo, Raja Rammohan Roy, Kaliprasanna Singha, Ramprasad Sen, Keshab Chandra Sen, Akshay Kumar Datta, Devendranath Tagore, Dwarakanath Tagore, Thakur Shri Nityananda, Abanindranath Tagore, Gaganendranath Tagore, Thakur Krshnadas Kaviraj, Yamini Ray, Ramkinkar Baij, Kalidasa and others.

Sources

Basu, S.R. ; Moulik, D. 2002. Madhyamik Bhugol. Prantik. Kolkata.