Nch L-2 & 3 (courtesy By Kaisar )-suraiya Islam

L-2 & 3 National Culture And Heritage

The Ethnographical and Anthropological development in Ancient India. The Aryans, non-Aryans etc. Physical Geography: The physical features and geography of Bangladesh, in fact of Bengal is one of the most important factors among others which have influenced the culture, history and the destiny of the people in this country. It is indeed a misconception among many people that Bangladesh is a small country. It is certainly small compared to the big countries like India and China. However, countries like Srilanka or western countries like Holland, Belgium and Denmark as well as Switzerland are all about the same size as Bangladesh. If we consider 144,000 square kilometers of Bangladesh area are almost equal in area to these countries mentioned above. It should be pointed out that the most important factor about our country is 1,400 kilometers of the coastline which opens to the Bay of Bengal and which in tern opens to the Indian Ocean, thus giving access to the shipping lanes of the world. Bangladesh enjoys another important asset of having Tropical climate. More than half of the year Bangladesh has rainy seasons with high temperatures most of the year round. Although this sort of weather causes discomfort at times, it helps us to grow crops throughout the year with enormous amount of rain and river water. Bangladesh is in advantage compared many other countries of the world which remain dry most of the year and have crops half the year and the rest of the year either there as every cold winter or covered with show. Geographical features of Bangladesh: Bangladesh is situated in the northern Hemisphere and the Tropic of cancer bisects Bangladesh, in fact it goes through the centre of Kolkata in West Bengal. To the North there is the Himalayas Mountains which keeps away the cold dry wintery winds from central Asia like Tibet and Mongolia. That gives us a mild winter. The Himalayan Range is like a great wall and stops the cold moist winds from the Indian Ocean, which in turn produces more rain in our country. So we get Monsoon winds which bring annually rain fall from April till September about 60 inches of rain in and around Rajshahi to 200 inches of rain in Sylhet. Another important factor is that Bangladesh lies on becoming a Desert by being on the Desert Belt of Northern Hemisphere. Bangladesh is also within the range of the great Desert Belt of than the Arabian and Nubian Desert, the Sahara in Africa and the Mexican desert. It certainly faces risk factor than any other countries. What is a Gondowana land? It certainly faces risk factor in the south of Bangladesh. There is a large delta with several flood plains, two areas of uplands, i.e., Barind and Courtesy by: Kaisar Syed

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L-2 & 3 National Culture And Heritage

Madhupur Tracts while there are will ranges and valleys in eastern part, these are the surface picture of Bangladesh. SO what do we know about what is underneath these smooth surface picture? There was a great geographical change which took place about 200 million fears ago. Since then it is understood that underneath the surface of Bangladesh and a part of southern India the solid rocks of the Indian continent known as the Gondowana land situated deep in the sea bed some how broken apart, and one part started drifting to the north and collided against the Asian continent. This collision led to the formation of the Himalaya and Arakan-China mountain ranges. It didn’t stay there. It is believed that it is still moving and pushing the Himalayan range very slowly and the ancient rocks underneath Bangladesh are still moving as well, but very slowly indeed towards the North-east. Any sudden movement however causes earthquakes. Reverine physical features: The main surface features of Bangladesh are the flood planes, where Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna, the three mighty rivers formed those delta lands. The main channels of Brahmaputra once flowed past Mymansingh and Sonargaon town. After a massive earthquake in 1772 the course of river changed until the year 1830. The Topography of Bangladesh presents a somewhat different picture. As mentioned above, there were two upland areas between the Ganges and Brahmaputra-Jamuna known as Barind Tract (Barind Bhumi) and the upland between the Jamuna and Meghna is known as Madhupur Tract (Madhupur garh). These two large areas have formed two different types of flood plains. Because they flood those areas less frequently and so the soil is not that fertile. The Barind Tract is much more populated and become an urban centre, while the Madhupur Tract remained mainly forested until very recent times. The Riverine Areas: The three main large rivers flow in such a way that they are almost combined with another while flowing south towards Bay of Bengal. It is interesting to see that these rivers branch out to many distributary rivers. While these distributary rivers form a network of trellis pattern in the shape of a triangle and these triangle lands are known as Delta. The Delta of the three mighty rivers of Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna is the largest delta in the world. It is important to note that in this area, where the rivers flow are mostly affected by the Ocean Tides and Saline water of the Bay of Bengal usually penetrates within hundred miles inland . Hence the delta’s soils are new and invariably sink slightly every year. Therefore it is important that fresh deposits of river sediments are allowed to build up.

Courtesy by: Kaisar Syed

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L-2 & 3 National Culture And Heritage

It can be said that all along the sea face of this delta was known as Sundarban forest, but in Patuakhali district this forest was cleared up about a hundred years ago by the British govt. and now it only remains the famous Sundarban forest in the Western sea face of the delta. The Eastern part of Chittagong Range: L-3 In the south-east the areas between the Muhuri River in the North and Naaf River in the South are known in geographical term as Chittagong region. This important area faces the Bay of Bengal in the west and has a series of hill ranges running from south to north. The hill ranges rose to mountain heights of 3000 feet or more in some places. In the cultural history of Bangladesh this area is very important because it links ancient Bengal to ancient Myanmar through the Arakan kingdoms. This link has been both overland and by sea and it brought together Bengalis, Arabs, Rakhine and various other ethnic peoples in Bangladesh in the pursuit of artisans and industries, Commerce as well as trade with the rest of the world. Chittagong City: Over the past many years Chittagong has been a very important urban centre, a major industrial area, the most important seaport of this country and above all a very important historical place over the centuries. From the ruins of Rankot i.e., (Ramu) mentioned in 2nd century A.D. by the famous geographer Ptolemy, the Buddhist art works from a place called Silua situated near Feni. It points out that the famous Pandit Vihara could have been near the vicinity of Chittagong city itself. So one can say that Chittagong region played an important role in the ancient history of Bengal. Its importance grew by the Textile manufacture of Bangladesh. Which became enormously important in International Trade? This was not a new phenomenon but its reputation was high since the 8th century A.D. whereas its hay day was from 13th -18th century A.D. Thus, Chittagong played a vital role in the International trade in the world market. Anthropological Aspects: Bangladesh map will show us; in the north is the very high Himalayan Mountains strategically located, the very high Mountains of Tibet, the Gobi Desert and the most inhospitable stretches of land of Mongolia and Siberia. To the south is Bay of Bengal which opens out into the Indian Ocean. The legend is that human beings originated from Africa, and then they kept on moving to the Middle East and then dispersed across the world. In this process people went to south-east Asia and Australia perhaps more than 50,000 years ago. It is also assumed in this movement that they may have been in Bangladesh. Among the Courtesy by: Kaisar Syed

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L-2 & 3 National Culture And Heritage

people who stayed in Southeast Asia and Australia, they perhaps spoke Austric languages. Present day one would call these languages as khmr (spoken in Cambodia), Mone (spoken in Myanmar), Bangla (spoken as Bengal), agricultural crops like (kochu arum). Some people even spoke Austronnessian language. Some bronze tools and rice seeds in North east Thailand suggested that they may have been in Bangladesh to introduce rice cultivation in Bangladesh. This country is situated in such a crossroad of this sub-continent that it has become a melting-pot of ancient peoples. Immigrants from various possible ways came and settled in this country. By land routes across the high mountains down the river Valleys, by boats, across the China Mountains, down the rivers and from coast to coast, travelers from China and elsewhere like Fa-hein, HuanTsang. Many people came also from the southern parts of Indian subcontinent. They were the Dravidians looked physically different with Black Hair, dark skin and spoke different languages of Dravidian family of languages. These Dravidians looked and spoke closer to Caucasoid people who were also similar looking people from the Middle East. However, the last arrival of the people to Indian subcontinent was the Aryans. They spoke the languages and also people from the Eastern Europe. These Aryans came or migrated to south Asia around 1200 B.C. and flourished in an area called Haryana (land of the Aryans) in the northern India. Thus as the Aryans settled in Haryana and adjacent areas they flourished over the centuries and mixed with the Dravidians as well as possibly other races too in marriage and social interaction and settled permanently in the drier regions of the Ganges Valley. Therefore the mixed blooded Dravidians and Aryans slowly drifted towards Bengal Basin to do mostly rice cultivation during 600 B.C. and laid down the foundation of urbanization in our country. However, they also mixed with the Austric and Mongoloid peoples who were already in Bangladesh and so they produced MongoloidAustric mixed features in this area. Bangladesh provided great hospitality to these immigrants who settled down here. They got used to the wet rainy seasons also to the cultivation of wet-rice as well as Hill-rice. They became fond of eating fish fresh from rivers, ponds etc. Even commercial opportunities attracted many traders and merchants immigrants from Arab countries and along the coasts. The war like people such as the Turks and pathans in urban centers between Gaur and Sonargaon. These people also contributed their stock of immigrant blood and physique. So the Bengali ancestry included the Austric-Speakers, the Mongoloid, Dravidians and the Aryans, the Turk and the Pathans as well. But the most important factor is that there are many such small groups of ethnic people who still retained their polity of distinctiveness and they never merged into any groups to loose their identity and ethnicity. Most of these groups are Courtesy by: Kaisar Syed

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L-2 & 3 National Culture And Heritage

the Tribal people in the mountains of Bangladesh. They are mostly Mongoloid in origin; they speak Tibato-Burmese language. For instance the Koch, they may be regarded as the major sources of Bengali mixture Apart from this, there are polia, Mande (Garo), Hajong, Tipra, Chakma, Lushai, Mru, Tanchanga, Marma, Rakhine and varians other similar smaller groups. However, Tibeto-Burmese group belong to the Austric Mone-Khmr group such as Khasia, the Dravidian group like Soutal and Oraon. Some of them are here more than thousand of years ago. The most important factors are that all these groups of people have been contributing until now the composition of the very heterogeneous communities known as Bengalis. The Anthropological effects in Bangladesh have been fantastic, in producing and sustaining one of the great diversity among the mixed majority groups of people both in physical features and in cultural identity. But despite this diversity there emerged culturally a very rich Bengali (Bangla) language of today. But the most significant sociological aspects that despite the prevalence of dynamic culture of the majority group of people (The Bengalis), that relatively speaking the above mentioned ‘Tribal’ groups have been able to continue their distinct individual groups of cultural entities and religious identities not only in the peripheral areas, but also in the deep remote places inside mountainous areas.

Courtesy by: Kaisar Syed

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