The Rivers of Rarh

Civilization and culture move ahead not across hills and through jungles, but along the basins of rivers.

Ráŕh abounds in rivers.

Rárh was rich in forest resources, and most of its rivers – big, medium-sized and small – in those days were full of water all throughout the year.

Each of those countless rivers, or joŕas, was the life-blood of its respective basin.

In the Austric language, joŕa means a small river and joŕá means a big river.

On both banks of each river, in ancient times, people would build their villages, their habitations, their places of pilgimage and towns of pilgrimage.

The rivers of Ráŕh – not all of them necessarily big or even medium-sized – like a network of nerves, provided various populations of people with opportunities to progress along their basins with their respective civilization and culture.

Thus the Siḿ Muńd́á, the Kushmet́e Muńd́á, the Ho-Muńd́á, the Kheŕiyá-Kháḿgár Muńd́á [different tribes] each progressed on its own path of life along the basin of its particular river.

The very ancient fossils of humans and animals that we have found in western Ráŕh are all from river basins. Languages also abide by this same basin rule.

We find the same language along a 50-mile stretch of the same basin, but the language becomes different within only ten miles if the basin is changed.

The people of those bygone days had not learned how to dig wells and ditches. So what sustained them was river water and the water lying under the sand by a river. So civilization is the civilization not only of races, but also of rivers.

Thus there came into being in different parts of Ráŕh the different ways of life, songs, dances, and all other ingredients of enlivened existence, of different river-carried civilizations and cultures.

Starting from the Bansh River in the north and gradually moving south, khańd́a sabhyatá [part-civilizations], or sthániiya sabhyatá [local civilizations], arose along the banks of the Brahmani, the Dáṋŕká, the Mayurakshi, the Bakreshwar, the Kopai, the Ajay, the Barakar, the Damodar, the Gandheshwari, the Dwarakeshwar, the Rupnarayan, the Kumari, the Kangsavati, the Keleghai, the Haldi and the Suvarnarekha.

Later, these khańd́a janagośt́hiis [part-groups], these part-civilizations and khańd́a saḿskrti [part-cultures] came to eastern Ráŕh, [which had been formed after western Ráŕh due to changes brought about by the silt of the rivers], and they mingled with one another to build a single and indivisible civilization of Ráŕh.

If we undertake thorough searches along the basins of the big and small rivers, and if we strive to unravel the archaeological mysteries, we shall find many a thing. The rivers which are relatively long, such as the Damodar, the Rupnarayan, the Kansai [Kangsavati] and the Suvarnarekha, can supply ample ingredients of the true history of Ráŕh.

1981, Kolkata

Ráŕh – 26.

Not only were the ancient civilizations and cultures that the river basins of Ráŕh carried with them in their eastward course assimilated in Vauṋga-D́abák; simultaneously with the Ráŕhiiya civilization, Aryan civilization along the Gangetic basin from north-west came and mingled, and the Mongolian civilization along the Brahmaputra basin from north-east came and mingled.

Hence the Bengalee civilization represents the confluence of the three civilizations. The mixture of the three is Báḿlá civilization – Báuṋálii culture. Bengal is not an appendage of Áryyávartta [northern India], nor is it an annex to greater China; nor is it only the flag-bearer of the Austric-Dravid [legacy]. So in trying to give an identity of Bengal, I am left with no alternative but to say that Bengal owes that identity to its river-based existence only. This soil is resplendent with its own originality, lively with its own existence. It is self-sufficient, with its own identity – Bengal is nothing but Bengal.

Manifestation [of culture] is coupled with purification of feelings – civility and decorousness of expression. This is how each and every river- or rivulet-centred part-civilization of Ráŕh moved ahead. In this respect, even an insignificant ditch (recognized neither as a river nor as a canal) should not be ignored. They not only moved towards [worldly] fulfilment along the river basins, they surged ahead from crude towards subtle along those same basins. Subtilization came in them through clash and cohesion. However much one may try, this clash can in no way be avoided. It does not dry up the flow of vitality, rather it triggers newer and newer waves. It was in just this way that different folk-songs, different dance forms and different rhythmic and lyrical expressions came into being.

One river basin saw the emergence of ráiveshe [a form of dance] (in the Mayurakshi basin), somewhere else there was the leto dance (in the Ajay river basin, prevalent especially among the Muslims), somewhere else the nácni dance, somewhere else jhumur, somewhere else the cho dance, somewhere else the lathi dance, and somewhere else t́usu-bhádu songs.

I have said that the flow continues, but new waves are created. The ráiveshe dance in Mayureshwar Police Station is not the same as in the area of the Raniishvara and Rajnagar police stations. The leto dance in the Aushgram region is not the same as in Jamtura Subdivision. Similarly, the nácni dance and jhumur in the plains regions of Ráŕh are not of the same kinds as their counterparts in the mountainous regions. Variations have arisen in three realms: style of expression, rhythm and tune. However, the flow has been towards one single goal of perfection.

The cho dance(1) (cho means unusual gestures, or decorative dress, or adornments) was born in the Bagmundi palace of the ancient Barahabhum kingdom, but from there it has progressed in three streams. The three gharáńás [styles] of the cho dance are: 1) The Manbhum style. It is prevalent in Manbhum and Bankura Districts. One of the many characteristics of this dance is that the dancers are to sport masks (mohará in Ráŕhii Bengali, rather than mukhośa). 2) The Seraikela style. It is prevalent in Singhbhum District and the western part of Midnapur District. In this style, masks are used as needed. 3) The Bhanjabhum style. It was (and is) prevalent in Mayurbhanja and in the Nayabasan regions of Midnapur. This style does not use masks.

The ancient rhythmic and heroic dance of Ráŕh was the lathi dance. Under the influence of Jainism in the Jain age, some people transformed the lathi dance into the stick [a thin and very small stick] dance; they thought that dancing with lathis was against the Jain ideology. The lathi dance nevertheless survived, but later, when the people of Ráŕh were initiated into Vaeśńava Dharma, it met its death and was [finally] transformed into the stick dance. Whether these changes were good or bad, they were effected either by the pressure of change of place, or by the pressure of change of time, or by the pressure of change of person.(2) I would include ideological pressure within the pressure of change of persons, since ideology is carried forward through the medium of persons. This was what happened in Ráŕh, because this ideological pressure corroded the spirit of valour of Ráŕh. Today its influence is still reflected all throughout Ráŕh.

1981, Kolkata Footnotes

(1) An ancient martial dance still popular in Ráŕh. –Trans.

(2) Elsewhere the author has defined the three relative factors (the three factors that change and induce changes in other things) as time, place and person. –Trans.