বাঙালির ‘বাউল’: প্রেক্ষিত উনিশ শতক
Volume-XI, Issue-I, October 2022
Volume-XI, Issue-I, October 2022 | ||
Published Online: 31.10.2022 | Page No: 76-83 | |||
বাঙালির ‘বাউল’: প্রেক্ষিত উনিশ শতক স্নিগ্ধা চক্রবর্তী, গবেষক, বাংলা বিভাগ, উত্তরবঙ্গ বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়, কলকাতা, ভারত | |
The ‘Baul’ of the Bengalis: Nineteenth-Century Context Snigdha Chakraborty, Research Scholar, Department of Bengali, University of North Bengal, Kolkata, India | |
The man as an individual has gradually started to unite by following the trend of social evolution. By accepting the naturalistic approach of ‘Survival of the fittest’ and ignoring the caste-creed related issues and communalism, the folk religion of Baul and Baul communities gradually emerged in Bengal. The most interesting chapter is that in the history of the ruling-exploitation of the upper classes of the society, the emergence of folk religion Baul as a strong rejection to the strict rules of Brahmanism based on Vedas and the orthodox approach of Islam has developed throughout the 19th Century. Standing at the centre-point of a society in the 19th Century which was full of self-crisis, the iconic worshipper of Baul religion Lalan Shai gradually tried to develop a single and integrated religious consciousness where the adoration of man as a human being stood at the focal point of religion. In addition to the greatest glory of Brahmanism and Islam as an institutional religion, a quiet stream of popular folk religion ‘Baul’ continued to flow in the life of Bengal in this period. An almost lost chapter of the 19th Century can be traced if the journey of ‘Baul’ can be explored and analysed as a chronological social context. | |
Keywords: Evolution; communalism; folk; Baul; religion; society; literature |