1.
Flag of Bangladesh
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The national flag of Bangladesh was adopted officially on 17 January 1972. It consists of a red disc on top of a green field, the red disc represents the sun rising over Bengal, and also the blood of those who died for the independence of Bangladesh. The green field stands for the lushness of the land of Bangladesh, the flag is based on a similar flag used during the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, which had a yellow map of the country inside the red disc. In 1972 this map was removed from the flag, one reason given was the difficulty for rendering the map correctly on both sides of the flag. The civil ensign and naval ensign place it in the canton of a red or white field, the flag was made from clothes donated by Bazlur Rahman Lasker, the owner of Apollo Tailors, Dhaka New Market. A map of East Pakistan was first traced on a paper from an atlas by Hasanul Haq Inu, Yousuf Salahuddin Ahmed and Enamul Haq, at Enamuls room in Quaid-I Azam Hall. Later the map was painted in the red circle by Shib Narayan Das, according to CIA World Fact Book, the green used in the flag represent the lushness of the green landscape of the country. On January 13,1972 the flag was modified, the map from the center was removed and the red disk was moved towards the hoist. The red in the center is symbolic representation of the blood Bengalis shed in Bangladesh Liberation War, the red circle will have a radius of one-fifth of the length of the flag. Its centre will be placed on the point of the perpendicular drawn from the nine-twentieth part of the length of the flag. The green base of the flag will be of Procion Brilliant Green H-2RS50 parts per 1000, the red circular part will be of Procion Brilliant Orange H-2RS60 parts per 1000. Depending on the size of the building the flag sizes will be 10 ft ×6 ft,5 ft ×3 ft,2 1⁄2 ft ×1 1⁄2 ft. The size of the flag for cars is 12 1⁄2 in ×7 1⁄2 in, the national flag of Bangladesh is flown on all working days on important government buildings and offices, e. g. the president house, legislative assembly buildings, etc. Birthday of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, any other day notified by the Government of Bangladesh. Following days are notified by the government, National Mourning Day of Bangladesh on 15 August, list of Bangladeshi flags National symbols of Bangladesh Bangladesh at Flags of the World Farooq, AKM. In Islam, Sirajul, Jamal, Ahmed A. Banglapedia, National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh
Flag of Bangladesh
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Dhaka University campus, where the flag was raised for the first time in 1971
Flag of Bangladesh
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Bangladesh
Flag of Bangladesh
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Children holding the flag of Bangladesh.
2.
Saudi Arabia
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Saudi Arabia is bordered by Jordan and Iraq to the north, Kuwait to the northeast, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates to the east, Oman to the southeast and Yemen to the south. It is separated from Israel and Egypt by the Gulf of Aqaba and it is the only nation with both a Red Sea coast and a Persian Gulf coast and most of its terrain consists of arid desert and mountains. The area of modern-day Saudi Arabia formerly consisted of four regions, Hejaz, Najd and parts of Eastern Arabia. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932 by Ibn Saud and he united the four regions into a single state through a series of conquests beginning in 1902 with the capture of Riyadh, the ancestral home of his family, the House of Saud. Saudi Arabia has since been a monarchy, effectively a hereditary dictatorship governed along Islamic lines. The ultraconservative Wahhabi religious movement within Sunni Islam has been called the predominant feature of Saudi culture, with its global spread largely financed by the oil and gas trade. Saudi Arabia is sometimes called the Land of the Two Holy Mosques in reference to Al-Masjid al-Haram and Al-Masjid an-Nabawi, the state has a total population of 28.7 million, of which 20 million are Saudi nationals and 8 million are foreigners. The states official language is Arabic, petroleum was discovered on 3 March 1938 and followed up by several other finds in the Eastern Province. Saudi Arabia has since become the worlds largest oil producer and exporter, controlling the second largest oil reserves. The kingdom is categorized as a World Bank high-income economy with a high Human Development Index and is the only Arab country to be part of the G-20 major economies. However, the economy of Saudi Arabia is the least diversified in the Gulf Cooperation Council, the state has attracted criticism for its treatment of women and use of capital punishment. Saudi Arabia is an autocracy, has the fourth highest military expenditure in the world. Saudi Arabia is considered a regional and middle power, in addition to the GCC, it is an active member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and OPEC. Following the unification of the Hejaz and Nejd kingdoms, the new state was named al-Mamlakah al-ʻArabīyah as-Suʻūdīyah by royal decree on 23 September 1932 by its founder, Abdulaziz Al Saud. Although this is translated as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in English it literally means the Saudi Arab kingdom. Its inclusion expresses the view that the country is the possession of the royal family. Al Saud is an Arabic name formed by adding the word Al, meaning family of or House of, in the case of the Al Saud, this is the father of the dynastys 18th century founder, Muhammad bin Saud. There is evidence that human habitation in the Arabian Peninsula dates back to about 125,000 years ago
Saudi Arabia
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Abdul Aziz
Ibn Saud, the first king of Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
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Flag
Saudi Arabia
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Saudi Arabia political map
Saudi Arabia
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Saudi Arabian administrative regions and roadways map.
3.
United Arab Emirates
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In 2013, the UAEs population was 9.2 million, of which 1.4 million are Emirati citizens and 7.8 million are expatriates. The country is a federation of seven emirates, and was established on 2 December 1971, the constituent emirates are Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah and Umm al-Quwain. Each emirate is governed by a monarch, together, they jointly form the Federal Supreme Council. One of the monarchs is selected as the President of the United Arab Emirates, Islam is the official religion of the UAE and Arabic is the official language. The UAEs oil reserves are the seventh-largest in the world while its natural gas reserves are the worlds seventeenth-largest, Sheikh Zayed, ruler of Abu Dhabi and the first President of the UAE, oversaw the development of the Emirates and steered oil revenues into healthcare, education and infrastructure. The UAEs economy is the most diversified in the Gulf Cooperation Council, while its most populous city of Dubai is an important global city, nevertheless, the country remains principally reliant on its export of petroleum and natural gas. The UAE is criticised for its rights record, including the specific interpretations of Sharia used in its legal system. The UAEs rising international profile has led analysts to identify it as a regional. It appears the land of the Emirates has been occupied for thousands of years, there is no proof of contact with the outside world at that stage, although in time it developed with civilisations in Mesopotamia and Iran. This contact persisted and became wide-ranging, probably motivated by trade in copper from the Hajar Mountains, in ancient times, Al Hasa was part of Al Bahreyn and adjoined Greater Oman. Sassanid groups were present on the Batinah coast, in 637, Julfar was an important port that was used as a staging post for the Islamic invasion of the Sassanian Empire. The area of the Al Ain/Buraimi Oasis was known as Tuam and was an important trading post for camel routes between the coast and the Arabian interior. The earliest Christian site in the UAE was first discovered in the 1990s, a monastic complex on what is now known as Sir Bani Yas Island. Thought to be Nestorian and built in 600 AD, the church appears to have been abandoned peacefully in 750 AD and it forms a rare physical link to a legacy of Christianity which is thought to have spread across the peninsula from 50 to 350 AD following trade routes. Certainly, by the 5th century, Oman had a bishop named John – the last bishop of Oman being Etienne, in 676 AD. This led to a group of travelling to Medina, converting to Islam and subsequently driving a successful uprising against the unpopular Sassanids. Following the death of Prophet Muhammad, the new Islamic communities south of the Persian Gulf threatened to disintegrate, with insurrections against the Muslim leaders. The Caliph Abu Bakr sent an army from the capital Medina which completed its reconquest of the territory with the battle of Dibba in which 10,000 lives are thought to have been lost
United Arab Emirates
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Dubai in 1950; the area in this photo shows
Bur Dubai in the foreground (centered on Al-Fahidi Fort);
Deira in middle-right on the other side of the creek; and
Al Shindagha (left) and
Al Ras (right) in the background across the creek again from Deira
United Arab Emirates
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Flag
United Arab Emirates
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Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan was the first President of UAE.
United Arab Emirates
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View of
Sharjah city
4.
Malaysia
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Malaysia is a federal constitutional monarchy located in Southeast Asia. Peninsular Malaysia shares a land and maritime border with Thailand and maritime borders with Singapore, Vietnam, East Malaysia shares land and maritime borders with Brunei and Indonesia and a maritime border with the Philippines and Vietnam. The capital city is Kuala Lumpur, while Putrajaya is the seat of the federal government, with a population of over 30 million, Malaysia is the 44th most populous country. The southernmost point of continental Eurasia, Tanjung Piai, is in Malaysia, located in the tropics, Malaysia is one of 17 megadiverse countries on earth, with large numbers of endemic species. Malaysia has its origins in the Malay kingdoms present in the area which, from the 18th century, the first British territories were known as the Straits Settlements, whose establishment was followed by the Malay kingdoms becoming British protectorates. The territories on Peninsular Malaysia were first unified as the Malayan Union in 1946, Malaya was restructured as the Federation of Malaya in 1948, and achieved independence on 31 August 1957. Malaya united with North Borneo, Sarawak, and Singapore on 16 September 1963 to become Malaysia, less than two years later in 1965, Singapore was expelled from the federation. The country is multi-ethnic and multi-cultural, which plays a role in politics. About half the population is ethnically Malay, with minorities of Malaysian Chinese, Malaysian Indians. The constitution declares Islam the state religion while allowing freedom of religion for non-Muslims, the government system is closely modelled on the Westminster parliamentary system and the legal system is based on common law. The head of state is the king, known as the Yang di-Pertuan Agong and he is an elected monarch chosen from the hereditary rulers of the nine Malay states every five years. The head of government is the prime minister, since its independence, Malaysia has had one of the best economic records in Asia, with its GDP growing at an average of 6. 5% per annum for almost 50 years. The economy has traditionally been fuelled by its resources, but is expanding in the sectors of science, tourism, commerce. Today, Malaysia has a newly industrialised market economy, ranked third largest in Southeast Asia, the name Malaysia is a combination of the word Malay and the Latin-Greek suffix -sia/-σία. The word melayu in Malay may derive from the Tamil words malai and ur meaning mountain and city, land, malayadvipa was the word used by ancient Indian traders when referring to the Malay Peninsula. Whether or not it originated from these roots, the word melayu or mlayu may have used in early Malay/Javanese to mean to steadily accelerate or run. This term was applied to describe the current of the river Melayu in Sumatra. The name was adopted by the Melayu Kingdom that existed in the seventh century on Sumatra
Malaysia
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"Malaysia" used as a label for the
Malay Archipelago on a 1914 map from a United States atlas
Malaysia
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Flag
Malaysia
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The Dutch fleet battling with the Portuguese armada as part of the
Dutch–Portuguese War in 1606 to gain control of
Malacca.
Malaysia
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Statue of
Francis Light in the
Fort Cornwallis of Penang, marking the first step of
British expansion in the 18th century over the Malay Archipelago.
5.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
United Kingdom
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Stonehenge, in
Wiltshire, was erected around 2500 BC.
United Kingdom
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Flag
United Kingdom
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The
Bayeux Tapestry depicts the
Battle of Hastings, 1066, and the events leading to it.
United Kingdom
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The
Treaty of Union led to a single united kingdom encompassing all Great Britain.
6.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
United States
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Native Americans meeting with Europeans, 1764
United States
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Flag
United States
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The signing of the
Mayflower Compact, 1620.
United States
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The
Declaration of Independence: the
Committee of Five presenting their draft to the
Second Continental Congress in 1776
7.
Kuwait
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Kuwait /kuːˈweɪt/, officially the State of Kuwait, is a country in Western Asia. Situated in the edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, it shares borders with Iraq. As of 2016, Kuwait has a population of 4.2 million people,1.3 million are Kuwaitis and 2.9 million are expatriates, expatriates account for 70% of the population. Oil reserves were discovered in 1938, from 1946 to 1982, the country underwent large-scale modernization. In the 1980s, Kuwait experienced a period of geopolitical instability, in 1990, Kuwait was invaded by Iraq. The Iraqi occupation came to an end in 1991 after military intervention by coalition forces, at the end of the war, there were extensive efforts to revive the economy and rebuild national infrastructure. Kuwait is a constitutional emirate with a political system. It has an income economy backed by the worlds sixth largest oil reserves. The Kuwaiti dinar is the highest valued currency in the world, according to the World Bank, the country has the fourth highest per capita income in the world. The Constitution was promulgated in 1962, making Kuwait the most democratic country in the region, in the Arab world, Kuwait is frequently dubbed the Hollywood of the Gulf due to the popularity of its soap operas and theatre. During the Ubaid period, Kuwait was the site of interaction between the peoples of Mesopotamia and Neolithic Eastern Arabia, mainly centered in As-Subiya in northern Kuwait. The earliest evidence of habitation in Kuwait dates back 8000 B. C. where Mesolithic tools were found in Burgan. As-Subiya in northern Kuwait is the earliest evidence of urbanization in the whole Persian Gulf basin area, mesopotamians first settled in the Kuwaiti island of Failaka in 2000 B. C. Traders from the Sumerian city of Ur inhabited Failaka and ran a mercantile business, the island had many Mesopotamian-style buildings typical of those found in Iraq dating from around 2000 B. C. The Neolithic inhabitants of Kuwait were among the worlds earliest maritime traders, one of the worlds earliest reed-boats was discovered in northern Kuwait dating back to the Ubaid period. In 3rd century BC, the ancient Greeks colonized the bay of Kuwait under Alexander the Great, according to Strabo and Arrian, Alexander the Great named Failaka Ikaros because it resembled the Aegean island of that name in size and shape. Remains of Greek colonization include a large Hellenistic fort and Greek temples, in 224 AD, Kuwait became part of the Sassanid Empire. At the time of the Sassanid Empire, Kuwait was known as Meshan, Akkaz was a Partho-Sassanian site, the Sassanid religions tower of silence was discovered in northern Akkaz
Kuwait
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Oil fires in Kuwait in 1991, which were a result of the
scorched earth policy of
Iraqi military forces retreating from Kuwait.
Kuwait
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Flag
Kuwait
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Kuwait National Assembly Building
Kuwait
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Satellite image of Kuwait
8.
Qatar
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Qatar, officially the State of Qatar, is a sovereign country located in Western Asia, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula. Its sole land border is with Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its surrounded by the Arabian Gulf. A strait in the Arabian Gulf separates Qatar from the island country of Bahrain, as well as sharing maritime borders with the United Arab Emirates. Following Ottoman rule, Qatar became a British protectorate in the early 20th century until gaining independence in 1971, Qatar has been ruled by the House of Thani since the early 19th century. Sheikh Jassim bin Mohammed Al Thani was the founder of the State of Qatar, Qatar is a hereditary monarchy and its head of state is Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. Whether it should be regarded as a constitutional or a monarchy is a matter of opinion. In 2003, the constitution was approved in a referendum. In early 2017, Qatars total population was 2.6 million,313,000 Qatari citizens and 2.3 million expatriates, Qatar is a high income economy, backed by the worlds third largest natural gas reserves and oil reserves. The country has the highest per capita income in the world, Qatar is classified by the UN as a country of very high human development and is the most advanced Arab state for human development. Qatar is a significant power in the Arab world, supporting several rebel groups during the Arab Spring both financially and through its globally expanding media group, Al Jazeera Media Network. For its size, Qatar wields disproportionate influence in the world, Qatar will host the 2022 FIFA World Cup, becoming the first Arab country to do so. A century later, Ptolemy produced the first known map to depict the peninsula, the map also referenced a town named Cadara to the east of the peninsula. The term Catara was exclusively used until the 18th century, after which Katara emerged as the most commonly recognised spelling, eventually, the modern derivative Qatar was adopted as the countrys name. In Standard Arabic, the name is pronounced, while in the local dialect it is, Human habitation of Qatar dates back to 50,000 years ago. Settlements and tools dating back to the Stone Age have been unearthed in the peninsula, Mesopotamian artefacts originating from the Ubaid period have been discovered in abandoned coastal settlements. Al Daasa, a settlement located on the western coast of Qatar, is the most important Ubaid site in the country and is believed to have accommodated a small seasonal encampment. Kassite Babylonian material dating back to the second millennium BC found in Al Khor Islands attests to trade relations between the inhabitants of Qatar and the Kassites in modern-day Bahrain, among the findings were 3,000,000 crushed snail shells and Kassite potsherds. It has been suggested that Qatar is the earliest known site of shellfish dye production, in 224 AD, the Sasanian Empire gained control over the territories surrounding the Persian Gulf
Qatar
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Dot carvings at
Jebel Jassassiyeh, dating to c. 4000 BC.
Qatar
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Flag
Qatar
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A map of East Arabia in 1794.
Qatar
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A partially restored section of the ruined town of
Zubarah.
9.
Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
Italy
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The
Colosseum in Rome, built c. 70 – 80 AD, is considered one of the greatest works of
architecture and
engineering of ancient history.
Italy
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Flag
Italy
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The
Iron Crown of Lombardy, for centuries symbol of the
Kings of Italy.
Italy
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Castel del Monte, built by German Emperor
Frederick II,
UNESCO World Heritage site
10.
Oman
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Oman, officially the Sultanate of Oman, is an Arab country on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula. The coast is formed by the Arabian Sea on the southeast, the Madha and Musandam exclaves are surrounded by the UAE on their land borders, with the Strait of Hormuz and Gulf of Oman forming Musandams coastal boundaries. From the late 17th century, the Omani Sultanate was an empire, vying with Portugal and Britain for influence in the Persian Gulf. At its peak in the 19th century, Omani influence or control extended across the Strait of Hormuz to modern-day Iran and Pakistan, as its power declined in the 20th century, the sultanate came under the influence of the United Kingdom. Historically, Muscat was the trading port of the Persian Gulf region. Muscat was also among the most important trading ports of the Indian Ocean, the Sultan Qaboos bin Said al Said has been the hereditary leader of the country since 1970. Sultan Qaboos is the current ruler in the Middle East. Oman has modest oil reserves, ranking 25th globally, nevertheless, in 2010 the UNDP ranked Oman as the most improved nation in the world in terms of development during the preceding 40 years. A significant portion of its economy is tourism and trade of fish, dates and this sets it apart from its neighbors solely oil-dependent economies. Oman is categorized as an economy and ranks as the 74th most peaceful country in the world according to the Global Peace Index. Two optically stimulated luminescence age estimates place the Arabian Nubian Complex at 106,000 years old and this supports the proposition that early human populations moved from Africa into Arabia during the Late Pleistocene. Dereaze, located in the city of Ibri, is the oldest known settlement in the area. Archaeological remains have been discovered here from the Stone Age and the Bronze Age, findings have included stone implements, animal bones, shells and fire hearths, with the latter dating back to 7615 BC as the oldest signs of human settlement in the area. Other discoveries include hand-molded pottery bearing distinguishing pre-Bronze Age marks, heavy flint implements, pointed tools, sumerian tablets refer to a country called Magan or Makan, a name believed to refer to Omans ancient copper mines. Mazoon, another used for the region, is derived from the word muzn. The present-day name of the country, Oman, is believed to originate from the Arab tribes who migrated to its territory from the Uman region of Yemen. Many such tribes settled in Oman, making a living by fishing, herding or stock breeding, from the 6th century BC to the arrival of Islam in the 7th century AD, Oman was controlled and/or influenced by three Persian dynasties, the Achaemenids, Parthians and Sassanids. A few scholars believe that in the 6th century BC, the Achaemenids exerted a strong degree of control over the Omani peninsula, Central Oman has its own indigenous so-called Late Iron Age cultural assemblage, the Samad al-Shan
Oman
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A grave at
Al Ayn, Oman, a World Heritage site.
Oman
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Flag
Oman
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The
Sultan's Palace in
Zanzibar, which was once Oman's capital and residence of its Sultans.
Oman
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The coast of
Sur, Oman.
11.
Singapore
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Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, sometimes referred to as the Lion City or the Little Red Dot, is a sovereign city-state in Southeast Asia. It lies one degree north of the equator, at the tip of peninsular Malaysia. Singapores territory consists of one island along with 62 other islets. Since independence, extensive land reclamation has increased its size by 23%. During the Second World War, Singapore was occupied by Japan, after early years of turbulence, and despite lacking natural resources and a hinterland, the nation developed rapidly as an Asian Tiger economy, based on external trade and its workforce. Singapore is a global commerce, finance and transport hub, the country has also been identified as a tax haven. Singapore ranks 5th internationally and first in Asia on the UN Human Development Index and it is ranked highly in education, healthcare, life expectancy, quality of life, personal safety, and housing, but does not fare well on the Democracy index. Although income inequality is high, 90% of homes are owner-occupied, 38% of Singapores 5.6 million residents are permanent residents and other foreign nationals. There are four languages on the island, Malay, Mandarin, Tamil. English is its language, most Singaporeans are bilingual. Singapore is a multiparty parliamentary republic, with a Westminster system of unicameral parliamentary government. The Peoples Action Party has won every election since self-government in 1959, however, it is unlikely that lions ever lived on the island, Sang Nila Utama, the Srivijayan prince said to have founded and named the island Singapura, perhaps saw a Malayan tiger. There are however other suggestions for the origin of the name, the central island has also been called Pulau Ujong as far back as the third century CE, literally island at the end in Malay. In 1299, according to the Malay Annals, the Kingdom of Singapura was founded on the island by Sang Nila Utama and these Indianized Kingdoms, a term coined by George Cœdès were characterized by surprising resilience, political integrity and administrative stability. In 1613, Portuguese raiders burned down the settlement, which by then was part of the Johor Sultanate. The wider maritime region and much trade was under Dutch control for the following period, in 1824 the entire island, as well as the Temenggong, became a British possession after a further treaty with the Sultan. In 1826, Singapore became part of the Straits Settlements, under the jurisdiction of British India, prior to Raffles arrival, there were only about a thousand people living on the island, mostly indigenous Malays along with a handful of Chinese. By 1860 the population had swelled to over 80,000, many of these early immigrants came to work on the pepper and gambier plantations
Singapore
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Raffles Square around 1900.
Singapore
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Flag
Singapore
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Victorious Japanese troops marching through Singapore City after the British capitulation at the
Battle of Singapore in 1942.
Singapore
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A cheering crowd welcome the return of British forces, 1945
12.
Bahrain
–
Bahrain, officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, is a small Arab monarchy in the Persian Gulf. Bahrains population is 1,234,567, including 666,172 non-nationals and it is 780 km2 in size, making it the third smallest nation in Asia after the Maldives and Singapore. Bahrain is the site of the ancient Dilmun civilisation and it has been famed since antiquity for its pearl fisheries, which were considered the best in the world into the 19th century. Bahrain was one of the earliest areas to convert to Islam, following a period of Arab rule, Bahrain was occupied by the Portuguese in 1521, who in turn were expelled in 1602 by Shah Abbas I of the Safavid dynasty under the Persian Empire. In 1783, the Bani Utbah clan captured Bahrain from Nasr Al-Madhkur and it has since been ruled by the Al Khalifa royal family, in the late 1800s, following successive treaties with the British, Bahrain became a protectorate of the United Kingdom. Formerly a state, Bahrain was declared a Kingdom in 2002, in 2011, the country experienced protests inspired by the regional Arab Spring. Bahrain had the first post-oil economy in the Persian Gulf, since the late 20th century, Bahrain has invested in the banking and tourism sectors. Many large financial institutions have a presence in Manama, the countrys capital, Bahrain has a high Human Development Index and was recognised by the World Bank as a high income economy. In Arabic, Bahrayn is the form of bahr, so al-Bahrayn means the two seas, although which two seas were originally intended remains in dispute. The term appears five times in the Quran, but does not refer to the modern island—originally known to the Arabs as Awal— but rather to all of Eastern Arabia. Today, Bahrains two seas are generally taken to be the bay east and west of the island. In addition to wells, there are areas of the sea north of Bahrain where fresh water bubbles up in the middle of the water as noted by visitors since antiquity. An alternate theory with regard to Bahrains toponymy is offered by the al-Ahsa region, another supposition by al-Jawahari suggests that the more formal name Bahri would have been misunderstood and so was opted against. Until the late Middle Ages, Bahrain referred to the region of Eastern Arabia that included Southern Iraq, Kuwait, Al-Hasa, Qatif, the region stretched from Basra in Iraq to the Strait of Hormuz in Oman. This was Iqlīm al-Bahrayns Bahrayn Province, the exact date at which the term Bahrain began to refer solely to the Awal archipelago is unknown. The entire coastal strip of Eastern Arabia was known as Bahrain for a millennium, the island and kingdom were also commonly spelled Bahrein into the 1950s. Bahrain was home to the Dilmun civilization, an important Bronze Age trade centre linking Mesopotamia, Bahrain was later ruled by the Assyrians and Babylonians. From the 6th to 3rd century BC, Bahrain was part of the Persian Empire ruled by the Achaemenian dynasty, by about 250 BC, Parthia brought the Persian Gulf under its control and extended its influence as far as Oman
Bahrain
–
Arad Fort in
Arad; constructed before the Portuguese assumed control.
Bahrain
–
Flag
Bahrain
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Bahrain harbor, c. 1870.
Bahrain
–
A photograph of the First Oil Well in Bahrain, with oil first being extracted in 1931
13.
Maldives
–
The Maldives, officially the Republic of Maldives, is a South Asian island country, located in the Indian Ocean, situated in the Arabian Sea. It lies southwest of India and Sri Lanka, the chain of twenty-six atolls stretches from Ihavandhippolhu Atoll in the north to the Addu City in the south. Malé is the capital and most populated city, traditionally called the Kings Island for its central location. With an average elevation of 1.5 metres above sea level, it is the worlds lowest country, with even its highest natural point being the lowest in the world. Due to the subsequent risks posed by rising sea-levels, the government pledged in 2009 to make the Maldives a carbon-neutral country by 2019, the Maldives have been historically and culturally linked to the Indian subcontinent since the fourth century BCE. The Maldivian archipelago was Islamised in the 12th century and consolidated as a sultanate, developing commercial and cultural ties with Asia. From the mid 16th-century, the region came under the influence of European colonial powers. Independence from the United Kingdom was achieved in 1965 and a republic was established in 1968 with an elected Peoples Majlis. The ensuing decades have been characterised by political instability, efforts at democratic reform, the Maldives is a founding member of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation. It is also a member of the United Nations, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the World Bank classifies the Maldives as having an upper middle income economy. Fishing has historically been the dominant economic activity, and remains the largest sector by far, along with Sri Lanka, it is one of only two South Asian countries rated high on the Human Development Index, with its per capita income the highest among SAARC nations. The name Maldives may derive from the Malayalam words maala and dweepu or the Tamil maalai and theevu, the Maldivian people are called Dhivehin. The word theevu means island, and Dhives means islanders, the ancient Sri Lankan chronicle Mahawamsa refers to an island called Mahiladiva in Pali, which is probably a mistranslation of the same Sanskrit word meaning garland. Jan S Hogendorn, Grossman Professor of Economics, theorises that the name Maldives derives from the Sanskrit mālādvīpa, in Tamil, Garland of Islands can be translated as Malai Theevu. In Malayalam, Garland of Islands can be translated as Maladweepu, in Kannada, Garland of Islands can be translated as Maaledweepa. This is the name inscribed on the scroll in the Maldive state emblem. The classical Persian/Arabic name for Maldives is Dibajat, the Dutch referred to the islands as the Maldivische Eilanden, while the British anglicised the local name for the islands first to the Maldive Islands and later to Maldives. One such community are the Giraavaru people and they are mentioned in ancient legends and local folklore about the establishment of the capital and kingly rule in Malé
Maldives
–
The Buddhist Stupa (the best preserved, the largest and the last of the Buddhist temples that were destroyed) at Kuruhinna in
Gan Island (Haddhunmathi Atoll).
Maldives
–
Flag
Maldives
–
Isdhoo Lōmāfānu is the oldest
copper-plate book to have been discovered in the Maldives to date. The book was written in AD 1194 (590 AH) in the Evēla form of the
Divehi akuru, during the reign of
Siri Fennaadheettha Mahaa Radun (Dhinei Kalaminja).
Maldives
–
A Plaque in Juma Mosque, Malé, Maldives, on which
Yusuf Tabrizi 's name is written. Yusuf Tabrizi was an Iranian who is said to have converted Maldives in 12th century AD to
Islam.
14.
Australia
–
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia
Australia
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Aboriginal rock art in the
Kimberley region of Western Australia
Australia
Australia
–
Portrait of Captain
James Cook, the first European to map the eastern coastline of Australia in 1770
Australia
–
Tasmania's
Port Arthur penal settlement is one of eleven UNESCO World Heritage-listed
Australian Convict Sites.
15.
Japan
–
Japan is a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea, the kanji that make up Japans name mean sun origin. 日 can be read as ni and means sun while 本 can be read as hon, or pon, Japan is often referred to by the famous epithet Land of the Rising Sun in reference to its Japanese name. Japan is an archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, the country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions. Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one, the population of 127 million is the worlds tenth largest. Japanese people make up 98. 5% of Japans total population, approximately 9.1 million people live in the city of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. Archaeological research indicates that Japan was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period, the first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other regions, mainly China, followed by periods of isolation, from the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shoguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a period of isolation in the early 17th century. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan is a member of the UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8, the country has the worlds third-largest economy by nominal GDP and the worlds fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the worlds fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer, although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the worlds eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan is a country with a very high standard of living. Its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world, in ancient China, Japan was called Wo 倭. It was mentioned in the third century Chinese historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms in the section for the Wei kingdom, Wa became disliked because it has the connotation of the character 矮, meaning dwarf. The 倭 kanji has been replaced with the homophone Wa, meaning harmony, the Japanese word for Japan is 日本, which is pronounced Nippon or Nihon and literally means the origin of the sun. The earliest record of the name Nihon appears in the Chinese historical records of the Tang dynasty, at the start of the seventh century, a delegation from Japan introduced their country as Nihon
Japan
–
The
Golden Hall and
five-storey pagoda of
Hōryū-ji, among the oldest wooden buildings in the world,
National Treasures, and a
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Japan
Japan
–
Samurai warriors face Mongols, during the
Mongol invasions of Japan. The
Kamikaze, two storms, are said to have saved Japan from Mongol fleets.
Japan
–
Samurai could
kill a commoner for the slightest insult and were widely feared by the Japanese population.
Edo period, 1798
16.
South Korea
–
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea, is a sovereign state in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula. The earliest Korean pottery dates to 8000 BC, with three kingdoms flourishing in the 1st century BC and its rich and vibrant culture left 19 UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritages of Humanity, the third largest in the world, along with 12 World Heritage Sites. Annexed into Imperial Japan in 1910, Korea was divided after its surrender in 1945, peace has since mostly continued with the two agreeing to work peacefully for reunification and the South solidifying peace as a regional power with the worlds 10th largest defence budget. South Koreas tiger economy soared at an average of 10% for over 30 years in a period of rapid transformation called the Miracle on the Han River. A long legacy of openness and focus on innovation made it successful, today, it is the worlds fifth largest exporter with the G20s largest budget surplus and highest credit rating of any country in East Asia. It has free trade agreements with 75% of the economy and is the only G20 nation trading freely with China, the US. Since 1988, its constitution guarantees a liberal democracy with high government transparency, high personal freedoms led to the rise of a globally influential pop culture such as K-pop and K-drama, a phenomenon called the Korean Wave, known for its distinctive fashionable and trendy style. Home of the UN Green Climate Fund and GGGI, South Korea is a leader in low carbon growth, committed to helping developing countries as a major DAC. It is the third least ignorant country in the Index of Ignorance, ranking eighth highest for peaceful tolerance. It is the worlds largest spender on R&D per GDP, leading the OECD in graduates in science, the name Korea derives from the name Goryeo. The name Goryeo itself was first used by the ancient kingdom of Goguryeo in the 5th century as a form of its name. The 10th-century kingdom of Goryeo succeeded Goguryeo, and thus inherited its name, the modern spelling of Korea first appeared in the late 17th century in the travel writings of the Dutch East India Companys Hendrick Hamel. After Goryeo was replaced by Joseon in 1392, Joseon became the name for the entire territory. The new official name has its origin in the ancient country of Gojoseon, in 1897, the Joseon dynasty changed the official name of the country from Joseon to Daehan Jeguk. The name Daehan, which means great Han literally, derives from Samhan, however, the name Joseon was still widely used by Koreans to refer to their country, though it was no longer the official name. Under Japanese rule, the two names Han and Joseon coexisted, there were several groups who fought for independence, the most notable being the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea. Following the surrender of Japan, in 1945, the Republic of Korea was adopted as the name for the new country. Since the government only controlled the part of the Korean Peninsula
South Korea
–
Flag
South Korea
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Balhae and
Silla, 830 CE
South Korea
–
Jikji, the first known book printed with movable metal type in 1377. Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris
17.
Greece
–
Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, historically also known as Hellas, is a country in southeastern Europe, with a population of approximately 11 million as of 2015. Athens is the capital and largest city, followed by Thessaloniki. Greece is strategically located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, situated on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the northeast. Greece consists of nine regions, Macedonia, Central Greece, the Peloponnese, Thessaly, Epirus, the Aegean Islands, Thrace, Crete. The Aegean Sea lies to the east of the mainland, the Ionian Sea to the west, the Cretan Sea and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece has the longest coastline on the Mediterranean Basin and the 11th longest coastline in the world at 13,676 km in length, featuring a vast number of islands, eighty percent of Greece is mountainous, with Mount Olympus being the highest peak at 2,918 metres. From the eighth century BC, the Greeks were organised into various independent city-states, known as polis, which spanned the entire Mediterranean region and the Black Sea. Greece was annexed by Rome in the second century BC, becoming a part of the Roman Empire and its successor. The Greek Orthodox Church also shaped modern Greek identity and transmitted Greek traditions to the wider Orthodox World, falling under Ottoman dominion in the mid-15th century, the modern nation state of Greece emerged in 1830 following a war of independence. Greeces rich historical legacy is reflected by its 18 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, among the most in Europe, Greece is a democratic and developed country with an advanced high-income economy, a high quality of life, and a very high standard of living. A founding member of the United Nations, Greece was the member to join the European Communities and has been part of the Eurozone since 2001. Greeces unique cultural heritage, large industry, prominent shipping sector. It is the largest economy in the Balkans, where it is an important regional investor, the names for the nation of Greece and the Greek people differ from the names used in other languages, locations and cultures. The earliest evidence of the presence of human ancestors in the southern Balkans, dated to 270,000 BC, is to be found in the Petralona cave, all three stages of the stone age are represented in Greece, for example in the Franchthi Cave. Neolithic settlements in Greece, dating from the 7th millennium BC, are the oldest in Europe by several centuries and these civilizations possessed writing, the Minoans writing in an undeciphered script known as Linear A, and the Mycenaeans in Linear B, an early form of Greek. The Mycenaeans gradually absorbed the Minoans, but collapsed violently around 1200 BC and this ushered in a period known as the Greek Dark Ages, from which written records are absent. The end of the Dark Ages is traditionally dated to 776 BC, the Iliad and the Odyssey, the foundational texts of Western literature, are believed to have been composed by Homer in the 7th or 8th centuries BC. With the end of the Dark Ages, there emerged various kingdoms and city-states across the Greek peninsula, in 508 BC, Cleisthenes instituted the worlds first democratic system of government in Athens
Greece
–
Fresco displaying the Minoan ritual of "bull leaping", found in
Knossos,
Crete.
Greece
–
Flag
Greece
–
The
Lion Gate,
Mycenae
Greece
–
The
Parthenon on the
Acropolis of Athens is one of the best known symbols of
classical Greece.
18.
Spain
–
By population, Spain is the sixth largest in Europe and the fifth in the European Union. Spains capital and largest city is Madrid, other urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao. Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago, in the Middle Ages, the area was conquered by Germanic tribes and later by the Moors. Spain is a democracy organised in the form of a government under a constitutional monarchy. It is a power and a major developed country with the worlds fourteenth largest economy by nominal GDP. Jesús Luis Cunchillos argues that the root of the span is the Phoenician word spy. Therefore, i-spn-ya would mean the land where metals are forged, two 15th-century Spanish Jewish scholars, Don Isaac Abravanel and Solomon ibn Verga, gave an explanation now considered folkloric. Both men wrote in two different published works that the first Jews to reach Spain were brought by ship by Phiros who was confederate with the king of Babylon when he laid siege to Jerusalem. This man was a Grecian by birth, but who had given a kingdom in Spain. He became related by marriage to Espan, the nephew of king Heracles, Heracles later renounced his throne in preference for his native Greece, leaving his kingdom to his nephew, Espan, from whom the country of España took its name. Based upon their testimonies, this eponym would have already been in use in Spain by c.350 BCE, Iberia enters written records as a land populated largely by the Iberians, Basques and Celts. Early on its coastal areas were settled by Phoenicians who founded Western Europe´s most ancient cities Cadiz, Phoenician influence expanded as much of the Peninsula was eventually incorporated into the Carthaginian Empire, becoming a major theater of the Punic Wars against the expanding Roman Empire. After an arduous conquest, the peninsula came fully under Roman Rule, during the early Middle Ages it came under Germanic rule but later, much of it was conquered by Moorish invaders from North Africa. In a process took centuries, the small Christian kingdoms in the north gradually regained control of the peninsula. The last Moorish kingdom fell in the same year Columbus reached the Americas, a global empire began which saw Spain become the strongest kingdom in Europe, the leading world power for a century and a half, and the largest overseas empire for three centuries. Continued wars and other problems led to a diminished status. The Napoleonic invasions of Spain led to chaos, triggering independence movements that tore apart most of the empire, eventually democracy was peacefully restored in the form of a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Spain joined the European Union, experiencing a renaissance and steady economic growth
Spain
–
Lady of Elche
Spain
–
Flag
Spain
–
Altamira Cave paintings, in
Cantabria.
Spain
–
Celtic castro in
A Guarda,
Galicia.
19.
Germany
–
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe. It includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres, with about 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state of the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular destination in the world. Germanys capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while its largest conurbation is the Ruhr, other major cities include Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Leipzig. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity, a region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward, beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation, in 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic, the establishment of the national socialist dictatorship in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After a period of Allied occupation, two German states were founded, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, in 1990, the country was reunified. In the 21st century, Germany is a power and has the worlds fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP. As a global leader in industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds third-largest exporter and importer of goods. Germany is a country with a very high standard of living sustained by a skilled. It upholds a social security and universal health system, environmental protection. Germany was a member of the European Economic Community in 1957. It is part of the Schengen Area, and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999, Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, and the OECD. The national military expenditure is the 9th highest in the world, the English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz popular, derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- people, the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a mine in Schöningen where three 380, 000-year-old wooden javelins were unearthed
Germany
–
The
Nebra sky disk is dated to c. 1600 BC.
Germany
–
Flag
Germany
–
Martin Luther (1483–1546) initiated the
Protestant Reformation.
Germany
–
Foundation of the
German Empire in
Versailles, 1871.
Bismarck is at the center in a white uniform.
20.
Islam
–
Islam is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion which professes that there is only one and incomparable God and that Muhammad is the last messenger of God. It is the worlds second-largest religion and the major religion in the world, with over 1.7 billion followers or 23% of the global population. Islam teaches that God is merciful, all-powerful, and unique, and He has guided mankind through revealed scriptures, natural signs, and a line of prophets sealed by Muhammad. The primary scriptures of Islam are the Quran, viewed by Muslims as the word of God. Muslims believe that Islam is the original, complete and universal version of a faith that was revealed many times before through prophets including Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses. As for the Quran, Muslims consider it to be the unaltered, certain religious rites and customs are observed by the Muslims in their family and social life, while social responsibilities to parents, relatives, and neighbors have also been defined. Besides, the Quran and the sunnah of Muhammad prescribe a comprehensive body of moral guidelines for Muslims to be followed in their personal, social, political, Islam began in the early 7th century. Originating in Mecca, it spread in the Arabian Peninsula. The expansion of the Muslim world involved various caliphates and empires, traders, most Muslims are of one of two denominations, Sunni or Shia. Islam is the dominant religion in the Middle East, North Africa, sizable Muslim communities are also found in Horn of Africa, Europe, China, Russia, Mainland Southeast Asia, Philippines, Northern Borneo, Caucasus and the Americas. Converts and immigrant communities are found in almost every part of the world, Islam is a verbal noun originating from the triliteral root s-l-m which forms a large class of words mostly relating to concepts of wholeness, submission, safeness and peace. In a religious context it means voluntary submission to God, Islām is the verbal noun of Form IV of the root, and means submission or surrender. Muslim, the word for an adherent of Islam, is the active participle of the verb form. The word sometimes has connotations in its various occurrences in the Quran. In some verses, there is stress on the quality of Islam as a state, Whomsoever God desires to guide. Other verses connect Islām and dīn, Today, I have perfected your religion for you, I have completed My blessing upon you, still others describe Islam as an action of returning to God—more than just a verbal affirmation of faith. In the Hadith of Gabriel, islām is presented as one part of a triad that also includes imān, Islam was historically called Muhammadanism in Anglophone societies. This term has fallen out of use and is said to be offensive because it suggests that a human being rather than God is central to Muslims religion
Islam
–
The
Kaaba, in
Mecca,
Hejaz region, today's
Saudi Arabia, is the
center of Islam.
Muslims from all over the world gather there to
pray in unity.
Islam
–
The dome of the
Carol I Mosque in
Constanța,
Romania, topped by the
Islamic crescent
Islam
–
Medallion showing "
Allah " (
God) in
Hagia Sophia,
Istanbul,
Turkey.
Islam
–
An
angel presenting
Muhammad and his companions with a miniature city. In the
Topkapi Palace Library,
Istanbul.
21.
Buddhism
–
Buddhism is a religion and dharma that encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and spiritual practices largely based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. Buddhism originated in India sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE, from where it spread through much of Asia, two major extant branches of Buddhism are generally recognized by scholars, Theravada and Mahayana. Buddhism is the worlds fourth-largest religion, with over 500 million followers or 7% of the global population, Buddhist schools vary on the exact nature of the path to liberation, the importance and canonicity of various teachings and scriptures, and especially their respective practices. In Theravada the ultimate goal is the attainment of the state of Nirvana, achieved by practicing the Noble Eightfold Path, thus escaping what is seen as a cycle of suffering. Theravada has a following in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. Mahayana, which includes the traditions of Pure Land, Zen, Nichiren Buddhism, Shingon, rather than Nirvana, Mahayana instead aspires to Buddhahood via the bodhisattva path, a state wherein one remains in the cycle of rebirth to help other beings reach awakening. Vajrayana, a body of teachings attributed to Indian siddhas, may be viewed as a branch or merely a part of Mahayana. Tibetan Buddhism, which preserves the Vajrayana teachings of eighth century India, is practiced in regions surrounding the Himalayas, Tibetan Buddhism aspires to Buddhahood or rainbow body. Buddhism is an Indian religion attributed to the teachings of Buddha, the details of Buddhas life are mentioned in many early Buddhist texts but are inconsistent, his social background and life details are difficult to prove, the precise dates uncertain. Some hagiographic legends state that his father was a king named Suddhodana, his mother queen Maya, and he was born in Lumbini gardens. Some of the stories about Buddha, his life, his teachings, Buddha was moved by the innate suffering of humanity. He meditated on this alone for a period of time, in various ways including asceticism, on the nature of suffering. He famously sat in meditation under a Ficus religiosa tree now called the Bodhi Tree in the town of Bodh Gaya in Gangetic plains region of South Asia. He reached enlightenment, discovering what Buddhists call the Middle Way, as an enlightened being, he attracted followers and founded a Sangha. Now, as the Buddha, he spent the rest of his teaching the Dharma he had discovered. Dukkha is a concept of Buddhism and part of its Four Noble Truths doctrine. It can be translated as incapable of satisfying, the unsatisfactory nature, the Four Truths express the basic orientation of Buddhism, we crave and cling to impermanent states and things, which is dukkha, incapable of satisfying and painful. This keeps us caught in saṃsāra, the cycle of repeated rebirth, dukkha
Buddhism
–
Standing Buddha statue at the
Tokyo National Museum. One of the earliest known representations of the
Buddha, 1st–2nd century CE.
Buddhism
–
The Dharmachakra
Buddhism
–
Relic depicting Gautama leaving home. The Great Departure, c.1–2nd century. (
Musée Guimet)
Buddhism
–
Ascetic
Gautama with his five companions, who later comprised the first
Sangha. (Painting in
Laotian temple)
22.
Hinduism
–
Hinduism is a religion, or a way of life, found most notably in India and Nepal. Hinduism has been called the oldest religion in the world, and some practitioners and scholars refer to it as Sanātana Dharma, scholars regard Hinduism as a fusion or synthesis of various Indian cultures and traditions, with diverse roots and no founder. This Hindu synthesis started to develop between 500 BCE and 300 CE following the Vedic period, although Hinduism contains a broad range of philosophies, it is linked by shared concepts, recognisable rituals, cosmology, shared textual resources, and pilgrimage to sacred sites. Hindu texts are classified into Shruti and Smriti and these texts discuss theology, philosophy, mythology, Vedic yajna, Yoga, agamic rituals, and temple building, among other topics. Major scriptures include the Vedas and Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, prominent themes in Hindu beliefs include the four Puruṣārthas, the proper goals or aims of human life, namely Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha, karma, samsara, and the various Yogas. Hindu practices include such as puja and recitations, meditation, family-oriented rites of passage, annual festivals. Some Hindus leave their world and material possessions, then engage in lifelong Sannyasa to achieve Moksha. Hinduism prescribes the eternal duties, such as honesty, refraining from injuring living beings, patience, forbearance, self-restraint, Hinduism is the worlds third largest religion, with over one billion followers or 15% of the global population, known as Hindus. The majority of Hindus reside in India, Nepal, Mauritius, the Caribbean, the word Hindu is derived from the Indo-Aryan/Sanskrit word Sindhu, the Indo-Aryan name for the Indus River in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent. The term Hindu in these ancient records is a geographical term, the Arabic term al-Hind referred to the people who live across the River Indus. This Arabic term was taken from the pre-Islamic Persian term Hindū. By the 13th century, Hindustan emerged as an alternative name of India. It was only towards the end of the 18th century that European merchants and colonists began to refer to the followers of Indian religions collectively as Hindus. The term Hinduism, then spelled Hindooism, was introduced into the English language in the 18th-century to denote the religious, philosophical, because of the wide range of traditions and ideas covered by the term Hinduism, arriving at a comprehensive definition is difficult. The religion defies our desire to define and categorize it, Hinduism has been variously defined as a religion, a religious tradition, a set of religious beliefs, and a way of life. From a Western lexical standpoint, Hinduism like other faiths is appropriately referred to as a religion, in India the term dharma is preferred, which is broader than the western term religion. Hindu traditionalists prefer to call it Sanatana Dharma, the study of India and its cultures and religions, and the definition of Hinduism, has been shaped by the interests of colonialism and by Western notions of religion. Since the 1990s, those influences and its outcomes have been the topic of debate among scholars of Hinduism, Hinduism as it is commonly known can be subdivided into a number of major currents
Hinduism
–
Swami Vivekananda was a key figure in introducing
Vedanta and
Yoga in Europe and USA, raising interfaith awareness and making Hinduism a world religion.
Hinduism
–
Temple wall panel relief sculpture at the
Hoysaleswara temple in
Halebidu, representing the
Trimurti:
Brahma,
Shiva and
Vishnu.
Hinduism
–
The
Rigveda is the first and most important Veda and is one of the oldest
religious texts. This Rigveda
manuscript is in
Devanagari.
Hinduism
–
A wedding is the most extensive personal ritual an adult Hindu undertakes in his or her life. A typical
Hindu wedding is solemnized before Vedic
fire ritual (shown).
23.
Christianity
–
Christianity is a Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, who serves as the focal point for the religion. It is the worlds largest religion, with over 2.4 billion followers, or 33% of the global population, Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the savior of humanity whose coming as the Messiah was prophesied in the Old Testament. Christian theology is summarized in creeds such as the Apostles Creed and his incarnation, earthly ministry, crucifixion, and resurrection are often referred to as the gospel, meaning good news. The term gospel also refers to accounts of Jesuss life and teaching, four of which—Matthew, Mark, Luke. Christianity is an Abrahamic religion that began as a Second Temple Judaic sect in the mid-1st century, following the Age of Discovery, Christianity spread to the Americas, Australasia, sub-Saharan Africa, and the rest of the world through missionary work and colonization. Christianity has played a prominent role in the shaping of Western civilization, throughout its history, Christianity has weathered schisms and theological disputes that have resulted in many distinct churches and denominations. Worldwide, the three largest branches of Christianity are the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the denominations of Protestantism. There are many important differences of interpretation and opinion of the Bible, concise doctrinal statements or confessions of religious beliefs are known as creeds. They began as baptismal formulae and were expanded during the Christological controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries to become statements of faith. Many evangelical Protestants reject creeds as definitive statements of faith, even agreeing with some or all of the substance of the creeds. The Baptists have been non-creedal in that they have not sought to establish binding authoritative confessions of faith on one another. Also rejecting creeds are groups with roots in the Restoration Movement, such as the Christian Church, the Evangelical Christian Church in Canada, the Apostles Creed is the most widely accepted statement of the articles of Christian faith. It is also used by Presbyterians, Methodists, and Congregationalists and this particular creed was developed between the 2nd and 9th centuries. Its central doctrines are those of the Trinity and God the Creator, each of the doctrines found in this creed can be traced to statements current in the apostolic period. The creed was used as a summary of Christian doctrine for baptismal candidates in the churches of Rome. Most Christians accept the use of creeds, and subscribe to at least one of the mentioned above. The central tenet of Christianity is the belief in Jesus as the Son of God, Christians believe that Jesus, as the Messiah, was anointed by God as savior of humanity, and hold that Jesus coming was the fulfillment of messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. The Christian concept of the Messiah differs significantly from the contemporary Jewish concept, Jesus, having become fully human, suffered the pains and temptations of a mortal man, but did not sin
Christianity
–
An
Eastern Christian icon depicting
Emperor Constantine and the Fathers of the
First Council of Nicaea (325) as holding the Niceno–Constantinopolitan Creed of 381
Christianity
–
Various
depictions of Jesus
Christianity
–
Crucifixion, representing the death of
Jesus on the
Cross, painting by
Diego Velázquez, 17th century
24.
Bengalis
–
The Bengalis, also spelled as the Bangalees, are a major Indo-Aryan ethno-linguistic group. They are native to the region of Bengal in South Asia and they speak the Bengali language, the most easterly branch of the Indo-European language family. Bengalis are the third largest ethnic group in the world after the Han Chinese, apart from Bangladesh and West Bengal, Bengali-majority populations also reside in Indias Tripura state, the Barak Valley in Assam state and the union territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The global Bengali diaspora has well-established communities in Pakistan, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and they have four major religious subgroups, including Bengali Muslims, Bengali Hindus, Bengali Christians and Bengali Buddhists. Archaeologists have discovered remnants of a 4,000 years old Chalcolithic civilisation in the greater Bengal region, however evidence of much older Palaeolithic human habitations are found in the form of a Stone Implement and a Hand Axe in Rangamati and Feni districts of Bangladesh. The origin of the word Bangla ~ Bengal is unknown, though it is believed to be derived from a tribe called Bang that settled in the area around the year 1000 BCE. Kingdoms of Anga, Vanga and Magadha were formed in and around Bengal and were first described in the Atharvaveda around 1000 BCE as well as in Hindu epic Mahabharata, from the 6th century BCE, Magadha expanded to include most of the Bihar and Bengal regions. It was one of the four kingdoms of India at the time of Buddha and was one of the sixteen Mahajanapadas. One of the earliest foreign references to Bengal is the mention of a land ruled by the king Xandrammes named Gangaridai by the Greeks around 100 BCE, the word is speculated to have come from Gangahrd in reference to an area in Bengal. Later from the 3rd to the 6th centuries CE, the kingdom of Magadha served as the seat of the Gupta Empire, one of the first recorded independent kings of Bengal was Shashanka, reigning around the early 7th century. After a period of anarchy, Gopala came to power in 750, atisha was a renowned Bengali Buddhist teacher who was instrumental in revival of Buddhism in Tibet and also held the position of Abbot at the Vikramshila university. Tilopa was also from Bengal region, the Pala dynasty was later followed by a shorter reign of the Hindu Sena Empire. Islam was introduced to Bengal in the century by Sufi missionaries. Subsequent Muslim conquests helped spread Islam throughout the region, bakhtiar Khilji, a Turkic general of the Slave dynasty of Delhi Sultanate, defeated Lakshman Sen of the Sena dynasty and conquered large parts of Bengal. Consequently, the region was ruled by dynasties of sultans and feudal lords under the Bengal Sultanate for the few hundred years. Islam was introduced to the Sylhet region by the Muslim saint Shah Jalal in the early 14th century, Mughal general Man Singh conquered parts of Bengal including Dhaka during the time of Emperor Akbar. Few Rajput tribes from his army permanently settled around Dhaka and surrounding lands, later on, in the early 17th century, Islam Khan conquered all of Bengal. Other figures have been considered to be part of the Renaissance and he is considered one of the fathers of radio science, and is also considered the father of Bengali science fiction
Bengalis
25.
Bengali language
–
Bengali, also known by its endonym Bangla, is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in South Asia. With over 210 million speakers, Bengali is the seventh most spoken language in the world. Dominant in the last group was Persian, which was also the source of some grammatical forms, more recent studies suggest that the use of native and foreign words has been increasing, mainly because of the preference of Bengali speakers for the colloquial style. Today, Bengali is the language spoken in Bangladesh and the second most spoken language in India. Both the national anthems of Bangladesh and India were composed in Bengali, in 1952, the Bengali Language Movement successfully pushed for the languages official status in the Dominion of Pakistan. In 1999, UNESCO recognized 21 February as International Mother Language Day in recognition of the movement in East Pakistan. Language is an important element of Bengali identity and binds together a diverse region. Sanskrit was spoken in Bengal since the first millennium BCE, during the Gupta Empire, Bengal was a hub of Sanskrit literature. The Middle Indo-Aryan dialects were spoken in Bengal in the first millennium when the region was a part of the Magadha Realm and these dialects were called Magadhi Prakrit. They eventually evolved into Ardha Magadhi, Ardha Magadhi began to give way to what are called Apabhraṃśa languages at the end of the first millennium. Along with other Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, Bengali evolved circa 1000–1200 AD from Sanskrit, for example, Ardhamagadhi is believed to have evolved into Abahatta around the 6th century, which competed with the ancestor of Bengali for some time. Proto-Bengali was the language of the Pala Empire and the Sena dynasty, during the medieval period, Middle Bengali was characterized by the elision of word-final অ ô, the spread of compound verbs and Arabic and Persian influences. Bengali was a court language of the Sultanate of Bengal. Muslim rulers promoted the development of Bengali as part of efforts to Islamize. Bengali became the most spoken language in the Sultanate. This period saw borrowing of Perso-Arabic terms into Bengali vocabulary, major texts of Middle Bengali include Chandidas Shreekrishna Kirtana. The modern literary form of Bengali was developed during the 19th and early 20th centuries based on the dialect spoken in the Nadia region, a west-central Bengali dialect. Bengali presents a case of diglossia, with the literary
Bengali language
–
Shohid Minar, or the Martyr's monument, in
Dhaka, commemorates the struggle for the Bengali language.
Bengali language
–
The word "Bangla" in the
Bengali alphabet
Bengali language
–
Pages from the
Charyapada.
Bengali language
–
An example of handwritten Bengali. Part of a poem written in Bengali (and with its English translation below each Bengali paragraph) by Nobel Laureate
Rabindranath Tagore in 1926 in Hungary.
26.
Bengali script
–
The Bengali alphabet or Bangla alphabet or Bangali/Bengali script is the writing system for the Bengali language and is the 5th most widely used writing system in the world due to its population. Historically, the script has also used to write Sanskrit in the region of Bengal. From a classificatory point of view, the Bengali script is an abugida, i. e. its vowel graphemes are mainly realised not as independent letters and it is written from left to right and lacks distinct letter cases. It is recognisable, as are other Brahmic scripts, by a horizontal line running along the tops of the letters that links them together which is known as মাত্রা matra. The Bengali script is less blocky and presents a more sinuous shape. The Bengali script evolved from the Kamarupi script, which belongs to the Brahmic family of scripts, Assamese script has an additional character, wô, represented as ৱ, which is absent in the Bengali script. The version of the used for Manipuri is also a different variation, it uses the rô. It also uses the Assamese script character sounding wô, represented as ৱ, the Bengali script was originally not associated with any particular language but was often used in the eastern regions of the Middle kingdoms of India and then in the Pala Empire. It later continued to be used in the Bengal region. It was later standardised into the modern Bengali script by Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar under the reign of the East India Company, today, the script holds official script status in Bangladesh and India, and it is associated with the daily life of Bengalis. The Bengali script can be divided into vowel diacritics, consonant and vowel letters, modifiers, digits, the Bengali script has a total of 11 vowel graphemes, each of which is called a স্বরবর্ণ sbôrôbôrnô vowel letter. The sbôrôbôrnôs represent six of the seven vowel sounds of Bengali. All of them are used in both Bengali and Assamese, the two main languages using the script, অ ô /ɔ/ sounds as the default Inherent vowel for the entire Bengali script. As a result, the sound is orthographically realised by multiple means in modern Bengali orthography, usually using some combination of এ, অ, আ, two vowel symbols for the vowel sound and two symbols for the vowel sound. The redundancy stems from the time when this script was used to write Sanskrit, a language that had a short ই and a long ঈ, and a short উ and a long ঊ. The letters are preserved in the Bengali script with their traditional names despite the fact that they are no longer pronounced differently in ordinary speech and these graphemes serve an etymological function, however, in preserving the original Sanskrit spelling in tôtsômô Bengali words. The grapheme called ঋ ri does not really represent a vowel phoneme in Bengali, nevertheless, it is included in the vowel section of the inventory of the Bengali script. This inconsistency is also a remnant from Sanskrit, where the grapheme represents a retroflex approximant, when a vowel sound occurs at the beginning of a syllable or when it follows another vowel, it is written using a distinct letter
Bengali script
–
An example of handwritten Bengali script. Part of a poem written by Nobel Laureate
Rabindranath Tagore in 1926 in Hungary.
Bengali script
–
Bengali abugida Bangla abugida
27.
Bengali literature
–
Bengali literature denotes the body of writings in the Bengali language. The earliest extant work in Bengali literature is the Charyapada, a collection of Buddhist mystic songs dating back to the 10th and 11th centuries, thereafter, the timeline of Bengali literature is divided into two periods − medieval and modern. Novels were introduced to Bengali literature in the mid-19th century, Rabindranath Tagore, poet, playwright, novelist, painter, essayist, musician, and social reformer, is the best known figure of Bengali literature to the world. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, after the post-partition era, Bengali literature comprises literature of erstwhile East Pakistan and modern-day Bangladesh and of West Bengal. The first works in Bengali, written in new Bengali, appeared between 10th and 12th centuries C. E and it is generally known as the Charyapada. These are mystic songs composed by various Buddhist seer-poets, Luipada, Kanhapada, Kukkuripada, Chatilpada, Bhusukupada, Kamlipada, Dhendhanpada, Shantipada, Shabarapada etc, the famous Bengali linguist Haraprasad Shastri discovered the palm leaf Charyapada manuscript in the Nepal Royal Court Library in 1907. Pre-Chaitanya or Early Vaishnava literature denotes the literature of the preceding the time of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Sri Krishna Kirtana was written by Boru Chandidas in the half of 14th century CE. It is considered as the second oldest work of Bengali literature after Charyapada, the 15th century is marked by the emergence of Vaishnava lyrical poetry or the padavali in Bengal. The poetry of Vidyapati, the great Maithili poet, though not written in Bengali and he flourished in the modern-day Darbhanga district of Bihar, India in the 14th century. His Vaishnava lyrics became very popular among the masses of Bengal, the first major Bengali poet to write Vaishnava lyrics was Chandidas, who belong to the modern-day Birbhum district, Paschimbanga in the 15th century. Chandidas is also known for his humanist proclamation—Sabar upare manush satya, tahar upare nai —The supreme truth is man, the Bengali translations of two great Sanskrit texts the Bhagavata Purana and the Ramayana played a crucial role in the development of Middle Bengali literature. Maladhar Basu’s Sri Krishna Vijaya, which is chiefly a translation of the 10th and 11th cantos of the Bhagavata Purana, is the earliest Bengali narrative poem that can be assigned to a definite date, Maladhar Basu flourished in the modern-day Bardhaman district of Paschimbanga in the 15th century. Composed between 1473 and 1480 C. E, Sri Krishna Vijaya is also the oldest Bengali narrative poem of the Krishna legend. The Ramayana, under the title of Sri Rama Panchali, more known as the Krittibasi Ramayana, was translated by Krittibas Ojha who belonged to the modern-day Nadia district. He also, like Maladhar Basu, flourished in the 15th century, post-Chaitanya or Late Vaishnava literature denotes the literature of the time succeeding the time of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. These include, biographies of Chaitanya by Gaudiya Vaishnava scholar-poets and later Vaishnava Padavali with a subgenre based on the life of Chaitanya. Major figures of the Late Vaishnava literature are Krishnadasa Kaviraja, Vrindavana Dasa Thakura, Jayananda, Govindadasa, Jnandada, there are also minor Mangalkāvyas known as Shivāyana, Kālikā Mangal, Rāya Mangal, Shashtī Mangal, Sītalā Mangal and Kamalā Mangal etc
Bengali literature
–
Charyapada manuscript
Bengali literature
–
Nabanarikunjara, one of the themes of Mediaeval Vishnava lyrics, engraved on a temple pillar at
Bishnupur, Bankura.
Bengali literature
–
Krittibas Memorial at
Phulia,
Nadia.
Bengali literature
–
A scene from Manasa Mangal.
28.
Bengali poetry
–
Bengali poetry is a form that originated in Pāli and other Prakrit socio-cultural traditions. It is antagonistic towards Vedic rituals and laws as opposed to the shramanic traditions such as Buddhism and Jainism, however the modern Bengali owes much to Sanskrit. The history of Bengali poetry underwent three successive stages of development, poetry of the age, the Medieval period and the age of modern poetry. Modernity was introduced into Bengali poetry in the 1930s, Bengali poetry probably began during the 10th century. It is known for the mystic poems called Charyacharyavinishchaya, and sometimes called Charyapad or Charyagiti and these poems were discovered in Nepals Royal Library by Bengali scholar Mahamahopadhyay Haraprasad Shastri. Krittibas Ojha Kashiram Das The Medieval period of Bengali poetry was between 1350 and 1800 and it was known as the period of Jayadeva, the renowned 12th-century poet from neighboring Odisha who was famous for his poem Gitagovinda. Other noted poets from this period include 13th century Vidyapati, known for his lyrics and Baḍu, Chandidas. Sri Krishna Kirtan is considered to be the most important philosophical, the period from 1500 to 1800 is known as the Late Middle Bengali Period. During this period, there was an influence of Chaitanya. Vaishnava poets include Govinddas and Gyandas, beside Vaishnava poetry, the most significant work of the 16th century was Mukunda Chakravartis Chandimangal. Other Mangal-Kāvyas or religious texts are Manasamangal, Dharmamangal and Phullaketu, two of Bengals most well known Muslim poets, Daulat Qazi and Alaol, lived in the 15th century in Myanmar. Bharat Chandra marks the transition between Precolonial theocentric poetry and modern poetry, iswar Gupta, Michael Madhusudan Dutta, Biharilal Chakravarti, Rabindranath Tagore are noteworthy poets of this period. It was a movement that brought permanent change to the structure. Kazi Nazrul Islam first built the foundation of modern Bengali poetry by introducing modern concept of revolt against all autocracy, hypocrisy, superstition, one notable sect of modernists included pro-socialism poets like Sukanta Bhattacharya and Samar Sen. Modern Bengali poetry has also witnessed feminist intellect Kabita Singha, mallika Sengupta, Krishna Basu and Sriparna Bandyopadhyay being some of the most prominent names
Bengali poetry
–
Nobel Laurate
Rabindranath Tagore is the most famous Bengali poet of modern era
Bengali poetry
29.
Bengali science fiction
–
Bengali science fiction is a part of Bengali literature containing science fiction elements. Science fiction in the Bengali language is known as kalpabigyan, Bengali writers wrote various science fiction works in the 19th and early 20th centuries during the British Raj, before the partition of India. The earliest notable Bengali science fiction was Jagadananda Roys Shukra Bhraman and their bodies were covered with dense black fur. Their heads were larger in comparison with their bodies, limbs sported long nails and this story was published a decade before H. G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds in which Wells describes the aliens from Mars. Some specialists credit Hemlal Dutta as one of the earliest Bengali science fiction writers for his Rohosso and this story was published in two installments in 1882 in the pictorial magazine Bigyan Dorpon. In 1896, Jagadish Chandra Bose, considered to be the father of Bengali science fiction and this tale of weather control, one of the first Bengali science fiction works, features getting rid of a cyclone using a little bottle of hair oil. Later, he included the story changes in the collection of essays titled Abyakto as Palatak Tufan. Both versions of the story have been translated into English by Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay, roquia Sakhawat Hussain, an early Islamic feminist, wrote Sultanas Dream, one of the earliest examples of feminist science fiction in any language. It depicts a feminist utopia of role reversal, in men are locked away in seclusion. The short story, written in English, was first published in the Madras-based Indian Ladies Magazine in 1905, premendra Mitra wrote the first novel, Kuhoker Deshe. Hemendra Kumar Ray wrote Meghduter Morte Agomon, after Qazi Abdul Halims Mohasunner Kanna, Humayun Ahmed wrote the first modern Bengali SF novel, Tomader Jonno Valobasa. This book is treated as the first full-fledged Bangladeshi science fiction novel and he also wrote Tara Tinjon, Irina, Anonto Nakshatra Bithi, Fiha Somikoron, and other works. Bengali science fiction is considered to have reached a new level of sophistication with the contributions of Muhammed Zafar Iqbal. Iqbal wrote a story named Copotronic Sukh Dukho when he was a student of Dhaka University and this story was later included in a compilation of Iqbals work in a book by the same name. Muktodhara, a publishing house of Dhaka was the publisher of this book. This collection of fiction stories gained huge popularity and the new trend of science fiction emerged among Bengali writers and readers. After his first collection, Mr. Iqbal transformed his own science fiction cartoon strip Mohakashe Mohatrash into a novel, all told, Muhammed Zafar Iqbal has written the greatest number of science fiction works in Bengali science fiction. Following in the footsteps of the ancestors, more and more writers, especially writers, started writing science fiction
Bengali science fiction
–
J. C. Bose is considered the father of Bengali science fiction.
30.
Bengali novels
–
Bengali novels occupy a major part of Bengali literature. Though the first Bengali novel was Karuna O Phulmonir Bibaran, the Bengali novel actually started its journey with Durgeshnandini written by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay in 1865, almost all these literary activities went on in full swing in Kolkata. Dhaka, on the hand, could not participate in the early stage but literature created by. Novels of Bangladesh fall almost fifty years behind the Bengali novels, in its history of about one hundred years, novels of Bangladesh got a good number of novels where creative emancipation of the writers has been established. In the early stage, glorification of the beliefs and lives was the theme of most of the novels. Later on, picturization of real Bengali life became a common topic, by the end of the fifties, the novelists gradually turned to human mind and its analysis. A great change of the theme came after 1971, novels about the Liberation War of Bangladesh began to come forth. Even till now it has not ceased to be an interesting topic, the content and form of the novels saw various changes in the last fifty years. Starting from ordinary narration, now it has reached to magic realistic presentation through stream of consciousness, to many, Anowara was the most significant one among the earlier novels written in Bangladesh. This novel was written by Mohammad Najibar Rahman in 1914, but the milestone in the modern novels of Bangladesh is Syed Waliullahs Lalsalu. The history of Bangladeshi novels can be categorized in 3 major parts, Mohammad Najibar Rahmans Anowara was the first notable novel and it moved the whole Bengali Muslim community after publication. Main theme of most of the novels in this era was Muslim society and belief, examples of novels incorporating these theme is Najibar Rahmans Premer Somadhi and Goriber Meye, Sheikh Idris Alis Premer Pothe. In this time, for the first time the life of the Bengali farmers took an artistic delineation through Kazi Abdul Waduds Nodibakshe, then Kazi Imdadul Huq sprinkled a new wave. His famous novel Abdullah was published in periodicals in 1920 and it came into form in 1933. According to Biswajit Ghosh this novel was ‘bourgeois and humanitarian revolt against devotion to Peers, religious dogmas, purdah-system, later, Kazi Abdul Wadud and Humayun Kabir extended this attitude. Another novelist Abul Fazal exposed human psychological analyses in his novel Chouchir and he afterwards continued with his own style and wrote Prodip O Patongo and Shahoshika. It is well accepted that this type of approach was a first attempt in novels of Bangladesh. A progressive novelist Humayun Kabir wrote an English novel Rivers and Women which was published in 1945, later the Bengali form was published in 1952 by the name of Nodi O Nari
Bengali novels
–
Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
31.
Bengal
–
Bengal is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in Asia, which is located in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Geographically, it is made up by the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta system, in 2011, the population of Bengal was estimated to be 250 million, making it the most densely populated region in South Asia. An estimated 160 million people live in Bangladesh, while 91.3 million people live in West Bengal, the predominant ethno-linguistic group are the Bengali people, who speak the Indo-Aryan Bengali language. Bengali Muslims are the majority in Bangladesh, Bengali Hindus are the majority in West Bengal. Dense woodlands, including rainforests, cover Bengals northern and eastern areas. In the littoral southwest are the Sunderbans, the worlds largest mangrove forest, in the coastal southeast lies Coxs Bazaar, the longest beach in the world at 125 km. The region has a climate, which the Bengali calendar divides into six seasons. Bengal has played a role in the history of Asia. In antiquity, its kingdoms were known as seafaring nations, at times an independent regional empire, or a bastion of larger empires, the historical region was a leading power of the Indian subcontinent and the Islamic East. Bengali culture has had a significant influence on other cultures, especially in the fields of literature, music, art, architecture, sports, currency, commerce, politics and cuisine. The name of Bengal is derived from the ancient kingdom of Banga, theories on the origin of the term Banga point to the Proto-Dravidian Bong tribe that settled in the area circa 1000 BCE and the Austric word Bong. The term Bangaladesa is used to describe the region in 11th century South Indian records, the modern term Bangla is prominent from the 14th century, which saw the establishment of the Sultanate of Bengal, whose first ruler Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah was known as the Shah of Bangala. The Portuguese referred to the region as Bengala in the Age of Discovery, most of the Bengal region lies in the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta, but there are highlands in its north, northeast and southeast. The Ganges Delta arises from the confluence of the rivers Ganges, Brahmaputra, the total area of Bengal is 232,752 km2—West Bengal is 88,752 km2 and Bangladesh 147,570 km2. The flat and fertile Bangladesh Plain dominates the geography of Bangladesh, the Chittagong Hill Tracts and Sylhet regions are home to most of the mountains in Bangladesh. Most parts of Bangladesh are within 10 metres above the sea level, because of this low elevation, much of this region is exceptionally vulnerable to seasonal flooding due to monsoons. The highest point in Bangladesh is in Mowdok range at 1,052 metres, a major part of the coastline comprises a marshy jungle, the Sundarbans, the largest mangrove forest in the world and home to diverse flora and fauna, including the royal Bengal tiger. In 1997, this region was declared endangered, West Bengal is on the eastern bottleneck of India, stretching from the Himalayas in the north to the Bay of Bengal in the south
Bengal
–
Map of Hindoostan in 1831 with Bengal (Green colored at the right)
Bengal
–
Map of the Bengal region
Bengal
–
Mahasthangarh is the oldest archaeological site in
Bangladesh. It dates back to 700 BC and was the ancient capital of the
Pundra Kingdom.
Bengal
–
Asia in 323 BC, the
Nanda Empire of
Magadha and
Gangaridai Empire of Bengal in relation to
Alexander 's Empire and neighbours.
32.
Bangladesh
–
Bangladesh, officially the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It shares land borders with India and Myanmar, Nepal, Bhutan and China are located near Bangladesh but do not share a border with it. The countrys maritime territory in the Bay of Bengal is roughly equal to the size of its land area, Bangladesh is the worlds eighth most populous country. Dhaka is its capital and largest city, followed by Chittagong which has the countrys largest port, Bangladesh forms the largest and eastern part of the Bengal region. Bangladeshis include people of different ethnic groups and religions, Bengalis, who speak the official Bengali, make up 98% of the population. The politically dominant Bengali Muslims make the nation the worlds third largest Muslim-majority country, most of Bangladesh is covered by the Bengal delta, the largest delta on Earth. The country has 700 rivers and 8,046 km of inland waterways, highlands with evergreen forests are found in the northeastern and southeastern regions of the country. Bangladesh has many islands and a coral reef and it is home to the Sundarbans, the largest mangrove forest in the world. The countrys biodiversity includes a vast array of plant and wildlife, including critically endangered Bengal tigers, the Greeks and Romans identified the region as Gangaridai, a powerful kingdom of the historical subcontinent, in the 3rd century BCE. Archaeological research has unearthed several ancient cities in Bangladesh, which had trade links for millennia. The Bengal Sultanate and Mughal Bengal transformed the region into a cosmopolitan Islamic imperial power between the 14th and 18th centuries, the region was home to many principalities which had inland naval prowess. It was also a center of the worldwide muslin and silk trade. As part of British India, the region was influenced by the Bengali renaissance, the Partition of British India made East Bengal a part of the Dominion of Pakistan, and was renamed as East Pakistan. The region witnessed the Bengali Language Movement in 1952 and the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, after independence, a parliamentary republic was established. A presidential government was in place between 1975 and 1990, followed by a return to parliamentary democracy, the country has also been affected by poverty, natural disasters, hunger, dominant party systems and military coups. Bangladesh is a power and a major developing nation. Listed as one of the Next Eleven, it has the 46th largest economy and it is one of the largest textile exporters in the world. Its major trading partners are the European Union, the United States, China, India, Japan, Malaysia, with its strategically vital location between Southern, Eastern and Southeast Asia, Bangladesh is an important promoter of regional connectivity and cooperation
Bangladesh
–
Mahasthangarh is the oldest archaeological site in Bangladesh. It dates back to 700 BCE and was the ancient capital of the
Pundra Kingdom
Bangladesh
Bangladesh
–
Asia in 323 BC, the
Gangaridai Empire in relation to the
Nanda Empire,
Alexander 's Empire and neighbours
Bangladesh
–
The
Somapura Mahavihara, once the largest
Buddhist vihara in South Asia, built by Emperor
Dharmapala of Bengal
33.
West Bengal
–
West Bengal is an Indian state, located in East India on the Bay of Bengal. It is Indias fourth-most populous state, with over 91 million inhabitants and it has a total area of 34,267 sq mi, making it similar in size to Serbia. A part of the ethno-linguistic Bengal region, it borders Bangladesh in the east and Nepal and it also has borders five Indian states, Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar, Sikkim and Assam. The state capital is Kolkata, the seventh-largest city in India, the geography of West Bengal includes the Darjeeling Himalayan hill region in its extreme north, the Ganges delta, the Rarh region and the coastal Sundarbans. The main ethnic group are the Bengali people, with Bengali Hindus forming the demographic majority, Ancient Bengal was the site of several major janapadas, including Vanga, Radha, Pundra and Suhma. In the 2nd century BC, the region was conquered by the emperor Ashoka, in the 4th century AD, it was absorbed into the Gupta Empire. From the 13th century onward, the region was ruled by sultans, powerful Hindu states and Baro-Bhuyan landlords. The British East India Company cemented their hold on the following the Battle of Plassey in 1757. Between 1977 and 2011, the state was administered by the worlds longest elected Communist government, a major agricultural producer, West Bengal is the sixth-largest contributor to Indias net domestic product. It is noted for its activities and the presence of cultural and educational institutions. The states cultural heritage, besides varied folk traditions, ranges from stalwarts in literature including Nobel-laureate Rabindranath Tagore to scores of musicians, film-makers and artists. West Bengal is also distinct from most other Indian states in its appreciation and practice of playing football besides cricket. The origin of the name Bengal is unknown, one theory suggests that the word derives from Bang, a Dravidian tribe that settled the region around 1000 BC. The word might have derived from the ancient kingdom of Vanga. Although some early Sanskrit literature mentions the name, the early history is obscure. At the end of British Rule over the Indian subcontinent, the Bengal region was partitioned in 1947 along religious lines into east and west, the east came to be known as East Bengal and the west came to known as West Bengal, which continued as an Indian state. In 2011, the Government of West Bengal proposed a change in the name of the state to Poschimbongo. This is the name of the state, literally meaning western Bengal in the native Bengali language
West Bengal
–
Seal
West Bengal
–
Location of West Bengal in India
West Bengal
–
Ram Mohan Roy is regarded as the "Father of the
Bengali renaissance ".
West Bengal
–
Subhas Chandra Bose was a
independence activist in the
Indian independence movement against the
British Raj.
34.
Tripura
–
Tripura /ˈtrɪpuːrɑː/ is a state in Northeast India. The third-smallest state in the country, it covers 10,491 km2 and is bordered by Bangladesh to the north, south, and west, in 2011 the state had 3,671,032 residents, constituting 0. 3% of the countrys population. The Bengali Hindu people form the majority in Tripura. Indigenous communities, known in India as scheduled tribes, form more than 30 per cent of Tripuras population, the Kokborok speaking Tripuri people are the major group among 19 tribes and many subtribes. The area of modern Tripura was ruled for centuries by the Tripuri dynasty. The independent Tripuri Kingdom joined the newly independent India in 1949, Tripura lies in a geographically disadvantageous location in India, as only one major highway, the National Highway 8, connects it with the rest of the country. Five mountain ranges—Boromura, Atharamura, Longtharai, Shakhan and Jampui Hills—run north to south, with intervening valleys, Agartala, the state has a tropical savanna climate, and receives seasonal heavy rains from the south west monsoon. Forests cover more than half of the area, in which bamboo, Tripura has the highest number of primate species found in any Indian state. Due to its isolation, economic progress in the state is hindered. Poverty and unemployment continue to plague Tripura, which has a limited infrastructure, most residents are involved in agriculture and allied activities, although the service sector is the largest contributor to the states gross domestic product. The sculptures at the archaeological sites Unakoti, Pilak and Devtamura provide historical evidence of fusion between organised and tribal religions. The Ujjayanta Palace in Agartala was the royal abode of the Tripuri king. Tripur was the 39th descendant of Druhyu, who belonged to the lineage of Yayati, one of the Puranas, the text about the exploits of Shiva, tells the story of the sack of Tripura. Variants of the name include Tripra, Tuipura and Tippera, although there is no evidence of lower or middle Paleolithic settlements in Tripura, Upper Paleolithic tools made of fossil wood have been found in the Haora and Khowai valleys. An ancient name of Tripura is Kirat Desh, probably referring to the Kirata Kingdoms or the generic term Kirata. However, it is whether the extent of modern Tripura is coterminous with Kirat Desh. The region was under the rule of the Twipra Kingdom for centuries, the boundaries of the kingdom changed over the centuries. At various times, the borders reached south to the jungles of the Sundarbans on the Bay of Bengal, east to Burma, the Mughals had influence over the appointment of the Tripuri kings
Tripura
–
King Bir Chandra Manikya with queen Manamohini
Tripura
–
Location of Tripura (marked in red) in
India
Tripura
–
Rice is grown on Tripura's
alluvial plains, which include lungas, the narrow valleys that are found mainly in the west of the state.
Tripura
–
Green imperial pigeon the state bird of Tripura
35.
Barak Valley
–
The Barak Valley is located in the southern region of the Indian state of Assam. The main city of the valley is Silchar, the region is named after the Barak river. The Barak valley mainly consists of three districts of Assam State - namely Cachar, Karimganj, and Hailakandi. Among these three districts, Cachar and Hailakandi belonged to the erstwhile Cachar district in British India, whereas Karimganj belonged to the Sylhet district, Karimganj was separated from Sylhet after the 1947 referendum, with the rest of Sylhet falling under East Pakistan and Karimganj under India. The name Barak has derived from the Dimasa words Bra & Kro, Bra means bifurcation and Kro upper portion/stream. The river Barak is bifurcated near Haritikar in the Karimganj district into Surma River, the upstream of this bifurcated river was called Brakro by the local Dimasa people. Over the years, Brakro got converted into Barak, the official language of Barak valley is Bengali and English. The majority of the people are of Sylheti decent and they speak Sylheti language, Sylheti speaking people consider themselves as Indigenous of the valley Hindusim is the majority religion in Barak valley. Religious composition of the population according to Census report of 2011 is Hindus,50. 0%, Muslim,48. 1%, Christians 1. 6%. Barak Valley is same as other places in India where Muslims are in second largest minority groups after Hindus, Hindus are majority in Cachar district while Muslims are majority in Hailakandi district and Karimganj district. Apart from Sylhetis, Barak Valley is also the homeland of Bengalis, Dimasas, Manipuris, of the three districts, Hailakandi District and Karimganj District have Muslim majority while Cachar have Hindu majority. The region was part of the Tripura kingdom, which was annexed by Chilarai in the 16th-century to the Koch kingdom. After the death of Nara Narayan, the kingdom, which came to be called the kingdom of Khaspur, the Kachari kingdom was annexed to British-India in 1832. However, the dominance of Mughal Empire in Karimganj and Hailakandi finally ended with the introduction of British rule in Bengal, the undivided Cachar district was included to Assam by British Rulers in 1832. The headquarters of the district was Silchar, the British Companies established a very large number of Tea Gardens in the area and Silchar emerged as a very important center in this part of the country. All modern were introduced to the region in early twentieth century, geographically the region is surrounded by hills from all three sides except its western plain boundary with Bangladesh. In the undivided Surma Valley of which Barak valley was sort of an extension had leaders such as Basanta Kumar Das and Abdul Matin Choudhury, in the Barak Valley region, it was Kamini Kumar Chanda, Arun Kumar Chanda and Abdul Matlib Mazumdar. Kamini Kumar Chanda died well before the eve of independence, but his son Arun Chanda, while Chanda was instrumental in garnering support of the Bengali Hindua, Mazumdar was one of the prominent Muslim leaders of eastern India to oppose the partition of India on communal lines
Barak Valley
–
Barak Valley
36.
Assam
–
Assam (English pronunciation, /əˈsæm/ listen is a state in northeastern India. Located south of the eastern Himalayas, Assam comprises the Brahmaputra Valley, Assam, along with Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, and Meghalaya, is one of the Seven Sister States. Geographically, Assam and these states are connected to the rest of India via a 22 kilometres strip of land in West Bengal called the Siliguri Corridor or Chickens Neck. Assam shares a border with Bhutan and Bangladesh, and its culture, people. Assam is known for Assam tea and Assam silk, the first oil well in Asia was drilled here. The state has conserved the one-horned Indian rhinoceros from near extinction, along with the water buffalo, pygmy hog, tiger. It provides one of the last wild habitats for the Asian elephant, the Assamese economy is aided by wildlife tourism, centred around Kaziranga National Park and Manas National Park which are World Heritage Sites. Sal tree forests are found in the state which, as a result of abundant rainfall, Assam receives more rainfall compared to most parts of India. This rain feeds the Brahmaputra River, whose tributaries and oxbow lakes provide the region with a hydro-geomorphic and aesthetic environment, the precise etymology of Assam came from Ahom Dynasty. In the classical period and up to the 12th century the region east of the Karatoya river, largely congruent to present-day Assam, was called Kamarupa, in medieval times the Mughals used Asham and Kamrup, and during British colonialism, the English used Assam. Though many authors have associated the name with the 13th century Shan invaders the precise origin of the name is not clear. It was suggested by some that the Sanskrit word Asama was the root, which has been rejected by Kakati, among possible origins are Tai and Bodo. Assam and adjoining regions have evidences of settlements from all the periods of the Stone ages. The hills at the height of 1, 500–2,000 feet were popular habitats probably due to availability of exposed dolerite basalt, useful for tool-making. According to a text, Kalika Purana, the earliest ruler of Assam was Mahiranga Danav of the Danava dynasty. The last of these rulers, also Naraka, was slain by Krishna, narakas son Bhagadatta became the king, who fought for the Kauravas in the battle of Kurukshetra with an army of kiratas, chinas and dwellers of the eastern coast. Samudraguptas 4th century Allahabad pillar inscription mentions Kamarupa and Davaka as frontier kingdoms of the Gupta Empire, ruled by three dynasties Varmanas, Mlechchha dynasty and Kamarupa-Palas, from their capitals in present-day Guwahati, Tezpur and North Gauhati respectively. All three dynasties claimed their descent from Narakasura, an immigrant from Aryavarta, in the reign of the Varman king, Bhaskar Varman, the Chinese traveller Xuanzang visited the region and recorded his travels
Assam
–
Montage of Assam Clockwise from top left: academic complex of
IIT Guwahati,
Ahom Raja's Palace (
Garhgaon),
Kamakhya temple (
Guwahati),
Rang Ghar pavilions (
Sivasagar),
Kolia Bhomora bridge over
Brahmaputra river (
Tezpur),
one horned rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis) at
Kaziranga National Park, and
Sivadol (
Sivasagar).
Assam
–
The Kamrup Kingdom
Assam
–
Madan Kamdev ruins
Assam
–
Kareng ghar, the palace of the Ahom kings
37.
Bangal
–
Bangal is a term used to refer to the people of East Bengal, now in Bangladesh. The term is used to describe Bengalis from the east, who are marked by a distinct accent, some of the people from East Bengal, mainly Hindus, migrated to West Bengal during the Partition of India in 1947. These refugees were sometimes referred to as Bangals by the population of West Bengal. The terms Ghoti and Bangal are mostly used in West Bengal while in Bangladesh, amongst the high-caste Bengali Hindus, Bangal and Ghoti are used as social sub-groups. The term as used here has little relation to actual geography, historically, in addition to marrying within their castes, people from these groups also preferred to marry within the group, whether Bangal or Ghoti. Bangals and Ghotis keep up their rivalry through their respective support of the football clubs East Bengal. They also cherish a rivalry through claim of supremacy of their respective cuisines and especially river-food delicacies, chingri for Ghotis and Ilish for Bangals. Partition of India Partition of Bengal Bengali language East Bengal Habul Sen Boria Majumdar, a social history of Indian football, striving to score
Bangal
–
Society
38.
Ghoti people
–
Ghoti, also called Paschimbangiya or Edeshi, are a social group native to West Bengal, India. Their dialects, folk traditions and cuisine are distinct from those of the Purbabangiyas or the natives of erstwhile eastern Bengal, the term came into greater use after many people from Bangladesh migrated to West Bengal during and after the Partition of Bengal in 1947. Initially there was a cultural and sociological clash between the population and the refugees. Ghotis are frequently distinguished by their Bangla accent and use of local dialects. Also, certain sweets, like Sponge Rosogolla, Ledikeni, Langcha, Mihidana, Rasakadamba, amongst the Bengali Hindus of India, Bangal and Ghoti are used as social sub-groups indicating the ancestral origin of a family. Those whose families came from East Bengal are Bangals and those whose families originated in West Bengal are Ghotis, the term Bangal as used here has little relation to actual geography, since most members of these groups all now live in India. The term is used freely and not considered derogatory within this social class, however, there is a subtle difference between the terms Ghoti and Edeshi. Ghoti is specifically used to refer to living in Districts like Hooghly, Howrah, Purba Medinipur, Paschim Medinipur, Burdwan, Bankura, Birbhum. South Bengal west of the Hugli river, the native people of districts like North 24 Parganas, South 24 Parganas, Nadia, Murshidabad, Maldah, Uttar Dinajpur, etc. i. e. Though there are exceptions, often it is considered that among the neighborhoods of Kolkata. There are approximately 5 lakh Hindu Ghoti in Kolkata, mostly in North Kolkata and this doesnt include Ghoti/Bangal mix population. Neither does it include Edeshi population,5 lakh Ghoti Bengalis of Kolkata includes 1 lakh Brahmins and Baidyas, around 20,000 Bengali Rajputs who are different then other 40,000 Bengali Kshatriyas. Rest 3 lakh belong to other castes from which Bengali Ghotis belong to Mahisya, Suvarna Banik and Gandha, Ugra Khatriyas, Tili. There are also namasudra castes in Kolkata, however, some Bangals also use these surnames. Some of other surnames for Ghoti people include Roy, Kar, Jana, Mondal, Bagui, Chandra, Laha, Manna, Karak, and so on. Traditionally Bengali people like football and most of the Ghotis are supporters of Mohun Bagan AC whereas the Bangals are traditionally supporters of East Bengal Club, though there are several exceptions but in general both these communities share an immense rivalry between them regarding the Kolkata derby. They also cherish a rivalry through claim of supremacy of their respective cuisines and especially river-food delicacies, chingri for Ghotis and Ilish for Bangals
Ghoti people
–
Society
39.
Bengali Muslims
–
Bengali Muslims are an ethnic, linguistic, and religious population who make up the majority of Bangladeshs citizens and the largest minority in the Indian states of West Bengal, Assam and Tripura. Ethnic Bengalis who adhere to Islam, they speak the Bengali language and they form the second largest Muslim ethnolinguistic group in the world. Bengal was a power of the medieval Islamic East. The Bengali Muslim population emerged as a synthesis of Islamic and Bengali cultures, after the Partition of India in 1947, they comprised the demographic majority of Pakistan until the independence of East Pakistan as Bangladesh in 1971. A Bengali is a person of ethnic and linguistic heritage from the Bengal region in South Asia speaking the Indo-Aryan Bengali language, the mighty Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers allowed the Bengali people to develop a great civilisation. Islam arrived in the first millennium and influenced the native Bengali culture, the influx of Persian, Turkic, Arab and Mughal settlers further added to the rich cultural melting pot of Bengal. Today, most Bengali Muslims live in the state of Bangladesh. The dominant majority of Bengali Muslims are Sunnis who follow the Hanafi school of jurisprudence, there are also minorities of Shias and Ahmadiyas, as well as people who identify as non-denominational. Rice-cultivating communities existed in Bengal since the second millennium BCE, the region was home to a large agriculturalist population influenced by Indian religions, but was not fully integrated into the caste system. Buddhism influenced the region in the first millennium, the Bengali language developed from Apabhramsa and Magadhi Prakrit between the 7th and 10th centuries. It once formed a single Indo-Aryan branch with Assamese and Oriya, early Muslim traders and merchants visited Bengal while traversing the Silk Road. This increased trade with seaports like Chittagong from the 9th century, coins of the Abbasid Caliphate have been discovered in many parts of the region. Early Muslim explorers visited the Bengal region while traversing the Silk Road in the first millennium, one of the earliest mosques in South Asia is under excavation in northern Bangladesh, indicating the presence of Muslims in the area around the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad. Starting in the 9th century, Muslim merchants increased trade with Bengali seaports, coins of the Abbasid Caliphate have been discovered in many parts of the region. The Muslim conquest of the Indian subcontinent took place between the 12th and 16th centuries, Bengal became a province of the Delhi Sultanate in 1204. In the 14th century the Sultanate of Bengal became independent and emerged as a regional power and it adopted Bengali as one of its official languages, alongside Persian, the diplomatic language of the Islamic world, and Arabic, the liturgical language of the religion. The Sultanate also ruled parts of Arakan and Assam, the Sur Empire briefly overtook the region in the 16th century. During the sultanate period, Hindu aristocrats occupied prominent positions in the administration, the Mughal Empire eventually controlled the region under its Bengal Subah viceregal province
Bengali Muslims
–
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman
Bengali Muslims
Bengali Muslims
–
A. K. Fazlul Huq
Bengali Muslims
–
Khan Bahadur Ahsanullah
40.
Bengali Hindus
–
Bengali Hindus are ethnic Bengali adherents of Hinduism, and are native to the Bengal region of the Indian Subcontinent. Bengali Hindus speak Bengali, which belongs to the Indo-Aryan language family and adhere to the Shakta and Vaishnava traditions of their native religion, Hinduism. Bengali Hindus also form a majority of 60% in the Indian state of Tripura, due to migrations from East Pakistan. There are significant numbers of Bengali-speaking Hindus in many states of India, including Assam, Karnataka, Meghalaya, Jharkhand, Odisha, and the Union Territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Around the 8th century, the Bengali language branched off from Magadhi Prakrit, during the Sena period the Bengali culture developed into a distinct culture within the Hindu civilization. Bengali Hindus were at the forefront of the Bengal Renaissance in the 19th century, the Bengal region was noted for its participation in struggle for the independence from the British rule. At the time of independence of India in 1947, the province of Bengal was partitioned between India and East Pakistan, part of the Muslim-majority state of Pakistan, millions of Bengali Hindus migrated from East Bengal and settled in West Bengal and other states of India. The migration continued in waves through the fifties and sixties, especially during the 1950 East Pakistan genocide, in 1971, during the Bangladesh Liberation War, an estimated 2.4 million Bengali Hindus were massacred by the Pakistani army. Estimats for the number of people killed by Pakistan Army range from 300,000 to 3,000,000. The Hindus are a group, native to the Indian subcontinent, speaking a broad range of Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages and adhering to the native belief systems. The word Hindu is popularly believed to be a Persian exonym for the native to the Indian subcontinent. The word is derived from Sindhu, the Sanskrit name for the river Indus, the Hindus are constituted into various ethno-linguistic subgroups, which in spite of being culturally diverse, share a common bond of unity. The word Bengali is an English exonym for the native Bengali word bangali, according to Harivamsa, Bali, the king of the asuras had five sons from his wife Sudeshna through sage Dirghatama. The five sons namely Anga, Vanga, Kalinga, Pundra, the Bengali Hindu people belong to the broader Hindu people of India. In India, they tend to themselves as Bengalis while in Bangladesh they tend to identify themselves as Hindus. In the global context, the terms Indian Bengali and Bangladeshi Hindu are respectively used, in India, Bengali generally refers to Bengali Hindus, excluding a significant number of Bengali Muslims who are also ethnically Bengalis. The Bengali Hindus constitute of numerous endogamous castes, which are further subdivided into endogamous subgroups. The caste system evolved over centuries and became more and more complex with time, in the medieval period, several castes were boycotted by the ruling classes from time to time and this isolation continued till the 19th century
Bengali Hindus
–
Dancing Ganesha sculpture from North Bengal, 11th century AD, Asian Art Museum of Berlin (Dahlem)
Bengali Hindus
–
The Bengali Hindu
Swastika
Bengali Hindus
–
Swami Vivekananda was a leading figure of the Renaissance who
promoted India and Hinduism to the world
Bengali Hindus
–
Savitri-Satyavan story on Kalighat Painting, 3rd quarter of the 19th century.
41.
Bengali Buddhists
–
Bengali Buddhists, are Buddhists of Bengali ethnic and linguistic identity. Bengali Buddhists constitute 1% of the Buddhist population in Bangladesh, Buddhism has a rich ancient heritage in the Bengal. The region was a bastion of the ancient Buddhist Mauryan and Palan empires, south-eastern Bengal was ruled by the medieval Buddhist Kingdom of Mrauk U during the 16th and 17th centuries. The British Raj influenced the emergence of modern community, today, Bengali Buddhists are followers of orthodox Therevada Buddhism. Ancient Bengal was a center of Buddhist learning, art and imperialism, Buddhist artifacts have been excavated throughout the region, particularly in Wari-Bateshwar, Chandraketugarh, Paharpur, Mahasthangarh and Mainamati. The Mauryan Empire led by Ashoka extended its suzerainty to the region in the 2nd century BCE, Ashoka played an important role in propagating Buddhism in his own empire and the wider ancient world. Mauryan rule was succeeded by the Buddhist Samatata maritime kingdom in Bengal, successive Buddhist powers tussled for dominance with Hindu and Jain kings in the Indian subcontinent. The Bengali Buddhist Pala Empire arose during the 8th century, founded by the election of Buddhist chieftain Gopala circa 750 CE, the empire grew into one of the largest imperial powers in classical Asia. The Palas promoted Mahayana and Tantric Buddhism and they patronized the creation of many outstanding temples, monasteries and works of art. The Palas enjoyed strong relations with the Abbasid Caliphate, the Tibetan Empire, the empire reached its peak under Dharmapala and Devapala. They reigned for four centuries until being replaced by the resurgent Hindu Sena dynasty, brahmin persecution played a key role in the decline of Buddhism in India, followed by later Muslim conquest. Remnants of Buddhist communities continued to flourish in southeastern Bengal, the Buddhist Kingdom of Mrauk U ruled the region during the 16th and 17th centuries. By the late 18th-century, the region was ceded to the British Empire, during this period, a revival movement developed that led to the development of two orders of Theravada monks, the Sangharaj Nikaya and the Mahasthabir Nikaya. Bengali Buddhists benefited from Western education during the British Raj in the early-20th century, professor Benimadhab Barua was the first Asian to receive a Doctor of Letters degree from the University of London. Bengali Buddhist activists and guerrillas were also active in the Bangladesh Liberation War, Bangladesh is home to the predominant section of the Bengali Buddhist community. They usually enjoy a high rate and are found in the Bangladeshi middle class. Many members of community reside in Dhaka, Coxs Bazaar and Comilla, the eastern Indian state capitals of Agartala and Kolkata also host major sections of the community. Buddhas Birthday is a holiday in Bangladesh
Bengali Buddhists
–
Top row (left to right)
Atish Dipankar •
Tilopa •
Partha Barua
Bengali Buddhists
–
Somapura Mahavihara from the
Pala dynasty, a
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Bengali Buddhists
–
The
Mainamati Buddhist ruins in southeastern Bangladesh
Bengali Buddhists
–
A Buddhist temple on
Maheshkhali Island, Chittagong
42.
Bengali Christians
–
Also known as Firingis, are adherents of Christianity among the Bengali people. They speak the Bengali language and are native to Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, the majority of Bengali Christians are Roman Catholics. Christianity took root in Bengal after the arrival of Portuguese voyagers in the 16th century and it witnessed further conversions among the Bengali elite during the 19th century Bengali renaissance. Bengali Christians have made significant contributions to Bengali culture, commerce, the region is home to venerable Christian missionary institutions, including the Missionaries of Charity founded by Mother Teresa. Christianity was established in Bengal by the Portuguese in the 16th century, the Portuguese settlement in Chittagong hosted the first Vicar Apostolic in Bengal. Jesuit missionaries also established churches in Bandel and Dhaka, in 1682, there were 14,120 Roman Catholics in Bengal. William Carey translated the Bible into Bengali in 1809, many upper-class Bengalis in the British Indian capital Calcutta converted to Christianity during the Indian Renaissance. The Missionaries of Charity was founded by the Ottoman-born nun Mother Teresa in Calcutta in 1950 and it played a major role in supporting and sheltering refugees during the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971. The Roman Catholic Church in West Bengal is based in the Archdiocese of Calcutta, the Catholic Church in Bangladesh is based in the Archdiocese of Dhaka, with dioceses in Chittagong, Dinajpur, Khulna, Mymensingh, Sylhet and Rajshahi. St. Pauls Cathedral, Kolkata is the seat of the Anglican Diocese of Calcutta of the Church of North India, Christian missionaries operate many schools, hospitals and shelters for the poor. They receive support from the Indian and Bangladeshi governments, Kolkata, Dhaka. and Chittagong have significant Christian populations. Many Catholic Bengali Christians have Portuguese surnames, in a tradition similar to Bengali Muslims, Bengali Christians adopted Portuguese surnames due the early influence of Portuguese missionaries in spreading Christianity. Common Catholic Bengali Christian surnames include Gomes, Rozario, DCosta, Gonsalvez, Cruze, Daes, D’Silva, christmas is known as “Borodin” and is a public holiday in both Bangladesh and Indian West Bengal
Bengali Christians
–
Michael Madhusudan Dutt •
Reverend Krishna Mohan Banerjee
Bengali Christians
Bengali Christians
–
Archdiocese of Calcutta
Bengali Christians
–
Archdiocese of Dhaka
43.
Bengali music
–
Bengali music comprises a long tradition of religious and secular song-writing over a period of almost a millennium. Composed with lyrics in the Bengali language, Bengali music spans a variety of styles. Bengal is today split between the Indian state of West Bengal and the independent country Bangladesh, the Middle Ages saw a mixture of Hindu and Islamic trends when the musical tradition was formalized under the patronage of Nawabs and the powerful landlords baro bhuiyans. Another writer of the time was Vidyapati, the Bishnupur Gharana is the sole Classical gharana of Bengal. It originated in Bishnupur, Bankura by the musicians of the Malla Kings. Bahadur Khan of Delhi, a descendant of the Tansen, was the father of Bishnupur Gharana, bahadur Khan was brought to Bishnupur by Malla King Raghunath Singha II. The Bauls are a group of mystic minstrels from the Bengal region and they are thought to have been influenced greatly by the Hindu tantric sect of the Kartabhajas as well as by Muslim Sufi philosophers. The greatest personality in Bengali music is, without a doubt, none other than Rabindranath Tagore (known in Bengali as Robi Thakur and Gurudeb, the latter meaning Respected Teacher. With around 2,230 songs written and composed over a lifetime that spanned more than sixty five years. His music is based on poetry, and hence is an exemplary instance of kavya-geeti. His songs are affectionately called Rabindra Sangeet, and cover topics from humanism, structuralism, introspection, psychology, romance, yearning, nostalgia, reflection and this truly reinforces the notion that Rabindrasangeet has at its heart some unbelievably powerful poetry. The Upanishads influenced his writing throughout his life, and his music is addressed almost always to an inanimate entity, a personal, a private god. Rabindranath Tagore was a curator of melodic and compositional styles, in the course of his travels all over the world, he came into contact with the musical narratives of the West, of the South of India, and these styles are reflected in some of his songs. There are several classifications of his work, most of his musical poems are detailed in two series of books – the Gitabitan and the Swarabitan. However, there exist several poems of his that are set to music and these are handed down from his students to their students and so on. Shyama Sangeet is a genre of Bengali devotional songs dedicated to the Hindu goddess Shyama or Kali which is a form of supreme universal mother-goddess Durga or parvati and it is also known as Shaktagiti or Durgastuti. Shyama Sangeet appeals to the man because it is a musical representation of the relationship of eternal and sublime love. It is free of the rituals of worship and also the esoteric practice of the Tantra
Bengali music
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Baul, the
mystic minstrel of
Bengal.
44.
Bengali wedding
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A Bengali wedding includes many rituals and ceremonies that can span several days. In most cases, it starts with the Kabin ceremony and ends with the Bou Bhat ceremony, though the rituals differ with the various districts of Bengal, among Hindus, it is usually classified into two, the Ghoti and Bangal rituals. A traditional wedding is arranged by Ghotoks, who are friends or relatives of the couple. The Ghotoks facilitate the introduction to the wedding guests, and are given special gifts called Ghotokbidae if the alliance is agreed upon. Families traditionally seek their childrens matches from the caste, religion. In the case of a marriage, if the aforementioned compatibility factors are duly matched. In modern English parlance, such an alliance is called a love match and is based more upon the preferences and wishes of the partners than strict traditional norms. Once the arrangement is done, the planning of the wedding itself is done by parents and they usually start the planning the wedding venue many months ahead. The bride usually participates actively in shopping for her bridal attire, although nowadays the couple find each other according to their own choices, the official engagement must follow from formal consent given by the family elders from both sides. Sometimes priests may also officiate, documenting the marriages specifications for legal/government purposes, videography or static photography can be used to record the details for posterity in lieu of paper documentation. After the legal formalities, its time for all to enjoy the sweet rasgullas and misti-doi, following the paka-dekha, public announcements of the auspicious alliance are made in the localities of both sides. The time frame within which such banns of marriage type announcements are made is typically six to eighteen months before the wedding, hence one way casual observers realize a Bengal wedding reception is in progress is this unique vocalization made by women in attendance. Nandi mukh is a prayer whereby the family takes the blessings of the forefathers who have died. This ritual is followed by the ceremonies or gaye holud take place before the wedding ceremony. There is one turmeric ceremony for the bride and another for the groom, for the brides gaye holud, the grooms family - except the groom himself - travel in procession to the brides home. They carry with them the brides wedding dress/outfit, some wedding decorations including turmeric paste and they also take a large Rohu fish decorated as a bride. After the two yellowing ceremonies, the bride and groom are bathed in the water that the women had fetched from the early that morning. The bride is seated on a sheel-nora, and the women walk encircling her, the turmeric paste is applied to the brides skin by her friends
Bengali wedding
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Bride's friends and family apply turmeric paste to her body as a part of
Gaye Holud ceremony.
Bengali wedding
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Close relatives, often in couples, take turns to spread turmeric on the face of bride or bridegroom.
Bengali wedding
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Wedding portrait of bride
Bengali wedding
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A bride dressed in red sari
45.
Bengali calendar
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The Bengali Calendar or Bangla Calendar is a solar calendar used in the region of Bengal. A revised version of the calendar is the national and official calendar in Bangladesh, the New Year in the Bengali calendar is known as Pôhela Bôishakh. The Bengali Era or Anno Bengal, the Bengali year is 594 less than the AD or CE year in the Gregorian calendar if it is before Pôhela Bôishakh, the revised version of the Bengali calendar was officially adopted in Bangladesh in 1987. However, it is not followed in India where the traditional version continues to be followed due to occurrence of Hindu festivals based on a particular sidereal solar day. The Bengali calendar is a solar calendar, the calendar was developed by Alauddin Husain Shah, a Hussain Shahi sultan of Bengal by combining the lunar Islamic calendar with the solar calendar, prevalent in Bengal. All theories agree that the Mughal Emperor, Akbar was instrumental in promulgating the Bengali calendar, Akbar modified, developed and re introduced the Bengali Calendar in order to make tax collection easier in Bengal. The calendar was called as Tarikh-e-Elahi. Sources credit the idea to Alauddin Husain Shah, akbars royal astronomer Fathullah Shirazi developed the Bengali calendar, by synthesizing the Lunar Islamic and Solar calendars. The calendar started with the Islamic calendar value, but the Sanskrit month names were used from the earlier version, the distinctive characteristic of the Bengali year was that rather than being a lunar calendar, it was based on a union of the solar and lunar year. This was essentially a great promotion as the solar and lunar years were formulated in very diverse systems, primarily this calendar was named as Fasli Sôn and then Bônggabdô. The Bengali Year was launched on 1584 AD or 992 AH and this was the day that Akbar defeated Hemu in the clash of Panipat to ascend the throne. The month of Muharram in the year 963 AH was equal to the month of Boishakh in the Bengali calendar, in the Tarikh-e-Elahi version of the calendar, each day of the month had a separate name, and the months had different names from what they have now. The Bengali calendar consists of 6 seasons, known as Rreetu ঋতু or Kal কাল, hence after some centuries the months will shift far away from the actual seasons. But the new revised version of the Bengali calendar used in Bangladesh will continue to maintain the seasons on time as mentioned above. The Bengali Calendar incorporates the seven-day week as used by other calendars. The names of the days of the week in the Bengali Calendar are based on the Navagraha, the day begins and ends at sunrise in the Bengali calendar, unlike in the Gregorian calendar, where the day starts at midnight. Pôhela Bôishakh in West Bengal and other states of India with Bengali diaspora, is celebrated on 14/15 April of the Gregorian calendar, however, according to the revised version of the calendar, now followed in Bangladesh, Pôhela Bôishakh always falls on 14 April. It is not clear, from what ground they start counting of 1st Bengali calendar year from the 593AD, the length of a year is counted as 365 days, as in the Gregorian calendar
Bengali calendar
–
Differences shown between the two different versions of the Bengali calendar (for
Asharh month of the year 1419). On the top is the "Traditional unrevised version" followed in
West Bengal and below it is the "New revised version" followed in
Bangladesh.
46.
Bengali New Year
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Pahela Baishakh, also called Pohela Boishakh, is the traditional new year day of the Bengali people. The festival date is set according to the lunisolar Bengali calendar as the first day of its first month Baishakh and it therefore almost always falls on or about 14 April every year on the Gregorian calendar. The festival is celebrated with processions, fairs and family time, the traditional greeting for Bengali New Year is শুভ নববর্ষ Shubho Nabobarsho which is literally Happy New Year. The festive Mangal Shobhajatra is organized in Bangladesh, in 2016, the UNESCO declared this festivity organized by the Dhaka University as a cultural heritage of humanity. In Bengali, Pahela stands for ‘first’ and Baishakh is the first month of the Bengali calendar, Bengali New Year is referred to in Bengali as Nababarsha. During the Mughal rule, land taxes were collected from Bengali people according to the Islamic Hijri calendar and this calendar was a lunar calendar, and its new year did not coincide with the solar agricultural cycles. Akbar asked the royal astronomer Fathullah Shirazi to create a new calendar by combining the lunar Islamic calendar and solar Hindu calendar already in use, according to some historians, this started the Bengali calendar. According to Shamsuzzaman Khan, and Nitish Sengupta, the origin of the Bengali calendar is unclear, some historians attribute it to the 7th century king Shashanka. The term Bangabda is found too in two Shiva temples much older than Akbar era, suggesting that Bengali calendar existed before Akbars time and it is also unclear, whether it was adopted by Hussain Shah or Akbar. The tradition to use the Bengali calendar may have started by Hussain Shah before Akbar. Vaishakhi is an ancient harvest festival of India, particularly the Punjab region, Vaisakhi, also spelled Baisakhi, is observed by both Hindus and Sikhs. The current Bengali calendar in use in the Indian states is based on the Sanskrit text Surya Siddhanta and it retains the historic Sanskrit names of the months, with the first month as Baishakh. Their calendar remains tied to the Hindu calendar system and is used to set the various Bengali Hindu festivals, for Bengalis of West Bengal and other Indian states, the festival falls either on 14 or 15 April every year. This was officially adopted by Bangladesh in 1987, since then, the national calendar starts with and the new year festival always falls on 14 April in Bangladesh. The Bengali New Year is observed as a holiday in Bangladesh. It is celebrated across religious boundaries by its Muslim majority and Hindu minority, the day is marked with singing, processions, and fairs. Traditionally, businesses start this day with a new ledger, clearing out the old, singers perform traditional songs welcoming the new year. People wear festive dress with women desking their hair with flowers, white-red color combinations are particularly popular
Bengali New Year
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Poila Boishakh celebration in
Dhaka,
Bangladesh
Bengali New Year
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Panta Ilish — a traditional platter of leftover rice soaked in water with fried Hilsa, supplemented with dried fish (shutki), pickles (achar), lentils (dal), green chillies and onion — a popular dish for the Poila Boishakh festival
Bengali New Year
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Students of Charukala (Fine Arts) Institute,
Dhaka University preparing for Pohela Boishakh
Bengali New Year
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Colorful celebration of Pohela Boishakh in Dhaka.
47.
Pohela Falgun
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The first of Falgun usually falls on 13 February of the Gregorian Calendar. This day is marked with colourful celebration and traditionally, women wear yellow saris to celebrate this day and this celebration is also known as Basanta Utsab. In Bengali, Pahela stands for first and Falgun is eleventh month of the Bengali calendar, phalguna Culture of Bangladesh Culture of Nepal Festivals of West Bengal
Pohela Falgun
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Bangladeshi girls taking Selfie at Pohela Falgun festival.
48.
Nobanno
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Nabanna is a Bengali harvest celebration usually celebrated with food and dance and music in Bangladesh and in the Indian State of West Bengal. It is a festival of food, many preparations of Bengali cuisine like pithe are cooked and offered. The festival is celebrated with mela which are called nabanna mela and it is one of the numerous festivals that gave the name baro mase tero parban to the land of Bengal. Although the nabanna parban is somewhat different from other ones since it is not connected to a such as Ratha Yatra. The villagers and locals from both the religious groups join the festival with equal participation. There are also several fertility rituals which make the festival truly a harvest ritual, the festival gets a lot of support from the creative army of Bengali culture. Several poets, musicians, baul and painters flock to such mass gatherings, there is a famous play written on nabanna by Bijon Bhattacharya which depicts the sad incident of the great Bengal Famine of 1943. Nowadays the Festival Nabanna is celebrating every Bengali year in Dhaka, mr. Shahriar Salam is main planner of the organisation. There are huge number of activists, organisations & performing in a day long festival. Traditional Dance, Song & Rally arranging by the Committee, once upon a time 1st Agrahayan was the first day of Bengali New Year. It is a festival in Bengal. Below is a found in west Bengal on one such mela website. People from several villages of Howrah and even from other districts of West Bengal come here, people not only come to visit the Mela. In addition, they participate in cultural programmes and competitions like Pithe Making, Seat-and Draw. An Art-Camp may attract creative minded people where artists from different states will participate, some rare items of rural Bengal as Dhenki, paddy of different varieties directly from the farmers house are to be exhibited in the Exhibition ground. You can taste some delicious Bengali dishes like Pati-sapta, Payesh, bengals time-honoured culture and heritage will be presented to you in forms of Baul song, Chhou-dance, Jatra, Tarja, Kobi-gaan, etc. These artists come from different parts of the state to perform their talent, moreover, you can refurbish your collection of folk arts from the exhibition-cum-sale stalls of handicrafts made by rural artisans. Several dance and music forms have grown out of the ritual accompanied with the festival, also the name nabanna is associated to several rural welfare projects and banks
Nobanno
–
Harvesting preparation
49.
Bengali cuisine
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Bengali cuisine is a culinary style originating in Bengal, a region in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent, which is now divided between Bangladesh and West Bengal. Other regions, such as Tripura, and the Barak Valley region of Assam also have large native Bengali populations, with an emphasis on fish, vegetables and lentils are served with rice as a staple diet. Bengali cuisine is known for its subtle flavours, and its spread of confectioneries, Bengali food has inherited a large number of influences, arising from a historical and strong trade links with many parts of the world. Bengal fell under the sway of various Turkic rulers from the thirteenth century onwards. The Jews brought bakeries to Bengal and the families of Wajid Ali Shah. British patronage and the Babu Renaissance fueled the development of different culinary strands into a distinct heritage. From the culinary point of view, some major historical trends influenced Bengali food, Bengal has been ruled by Muslim governors since the days of the Delhi Sultanate, five short-lived, Delhi-based kingdoms or sultanates, of Turkic origin in medieval India. However, for more than 500 years, Muslim rule in Bengal was centred in Dhaka, trade routes going from Delhi to Dhaka traversed almost the entire width of todays Bengal, crossing most major rivers. Dhaka evolved a vibrant cuisine based heavily on the influence of the Mughal courts, popularly called Mughlai cuisine and characterised by rich sauces and these food traditions continued in the courts of the Nawabs of Bengal. Though defeated by the British in 1757, they continued as puppet rulers of Bengal until 1880, with their courts, manners and cuisine maintained by doles from the English. Another key influence to the food came much later, when Wajid Ali Shah, concerning Awadhi cuisine, the Nawab is said to have brought with him hundreds of baburchis, khansamas and moshlachis. While deriving from Mughlai cuisine, Awadh preferred mutton to beef and was liberal in the use of attor of aromatics such rose or ketoki and this is the other reason a shift occurred from using beef to using mutton instead. The recipes that have a Mughal Bengali influence do not use mustard, the reason mustard was not used is that it was not appreciated much by the Mughals and was avoided. The Christian influence came to Bengal a few hundred years after its arrival on the Western borders of India, while the religion spread among the population, the region remained isolated from the political and religious centres of Christian India. This meant that people retained many of their customs, especially food habits. Though the Dutch and the French also had colonies in West Bengal and that came from the British, and other Western immigrants such as the Baghdadi Jews who set up Kolkatas famous Jewish bakeries. West Bengals flourishing community of Anglo-Indians formed a once-influential cuisine, the key culinary influence of the Christian community was the ritual of tea. Baking, which was pretty much unknown until the British came along, the popularity of baked confectioneries was a direct result of the British popularising the celebration of Christmas
Bengali cuisine
–
As legend goes, to cater for the needs of British workmen, Nizam's restaurant in Kolkata invented the first
Kati roll
Bengali cuisine
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A Bengali meal traditionally set up.
Bengali cuisine
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An authentic Bengali meal.
Bengali cuisine
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Fried
rui served in
Dhaka, Bangladesh.
50.
Bengali architecture
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The architecture of Bengal has a long and rich history, blending indigenous elements with influences from different parts of the world. Bengali architecture includes ancient urban architecture, religious architecture, rural architecture, colonial townhouses and country houses. The bungalow style is a notable architectural export of Bengal, the corner towers of Bengali religious buildings were replicated in medieval Southeast Asia. Bengali curved roofs were copied by the Mughals in North India, urbanization is recorded in the region since the first millennium BCE. This was part of the wave of urban civilization in the Indian subcontinent. Ancient Bengal was part of a network of urban and trading hubs stretching to Ancient Persia, the archaeological sites of Mahasthangarh, Wari-Bateshwar ruins, Chandraketugarh and Mainamati provide evidence of a highly organized urban civilization in the region. Terracotta became a hallmark of Bengali construction, as the region lacked stone reserves, bricks were produced with the clay of the Bengal delta. Ancient Bengali architecture reached its pinnacle during the Pala Empire, especially in the construction of viharas, temples, Pala architecture influenced Tibetan and Southeast Asian architecture. The most famous monument built by the Pala emperors was the Grand Vihara of Somapura, Historians believe Somapura was a model for the architects of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Islamic influence in the Bengali architecture can be seen from the 12th century, the oldest surviving mosque was built during the Delhi Sultanate. The mosque architecture of the independent Bengal Sultanate period represents the most important element of the Islamic architecture of Bengal and this distinctive regional style drew its inspiration from the indigenous vernacular architecture of Bengal, including curved chala roofs, corner towers and complex floral carvings. Sultanate-era mosques featured multiple domes or a dome, richly designed mihrabs and minbars. While clay bricks and terracotta were the most widely used materials, the former Adina Mosque was the largest mosque ever built in the medieval Indian subcontinent. The surviving Sixty Dome Mosque is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Sultanate style also includes gateways and bridges. The style is widely scattered across the region, Mughal Bengal saw the spread of Mughal architecture in the region, including forts, havelis, gardens, caravanserais, hammams and fountains. Mughal Bengali mosques also developed a distinct provincial style, dhaka and Murshidabad were the hubs of Mughal architecture. The Mughals copied the do-chala roof tradition in North India, the roofing style of Bengali Hindu temple architecture is unique and closely related to the paddy roofed traditional building style of rural Bengal. Roofing styles include the ek-bangla, jor-bangla, do-chala, char-chala, at-chala, deul, bishnupur in West Bengal has a remarkable set of such temples which being built from the Malla dynasty are examples of this style
Bengali architecture
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Baitul Mukarram in
Dhaka is the
National Mosque of
Bangladesh.
Bengali architecture
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Dakshineswar Kali Temple in
Kolkata, West Bengal.
Bengali architecture
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The
Vidyasagar Setu over the Hooghly River in West Bengal, India
Bengali architecture
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Shaheed Minar, or the Martyr's monument, in
Dhaka, commemorates the
struggle for the Bengali language.
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