When the Puranic religion came to Ráŕh it did not come alone, it brought with it incalculable social ulcers and social ills.

After the first Aryan migrations to India, caste divisions overtook Ráŕh just as they did other parts of India. I have mentioned this before. Although caste divisions entered in, there was no caste discrimination; there was not even any social bar to inter-caste marriages. But when the kings of Ráŕh embraced the Puranic religion, they imposed an inflexible system of caste discrimination with the help of orthodox Brahmans and Kayasthas. Ráŕh, which was not a restrictive caste-oriented society, could not accept this completely. As a result, there was a lot of social chaos. It became difficult for the people to categorize the many castes that arose from the social intermingling of Brahmans and non-Brahmans.

When a particular wrong is decreed, one has to continuously support a chain of wrongs. Similarly, in promulgating one falsehood, a chain of falsehoods is created. So when this unnatural system of caste distinctions was adopted, other theories supporting this sort of discrimination needed to be invented. At this juncture,⁽¹⁾ Raghunandan came and attempted to solve the problem. Being unable to trace the complicated lines of descent underlying the caste divisions, he gave his decision that Ráŕh should not follow the four-caste system of India, rather it should recognize a two-tier system of Vipra and Shúdra.

The common people accepted this divisive social system out of fear of the kings who supported the Puranic religion (though mentally they did not accept it). The system of one-month purification [in mourning or as a penance], which had once applied only to Shúdras, was imposed on 95% of the people of Ráŕh [all non-Vipras had become classified as Shúdras]. This two-caste system developed by Raghunandan did no good to Ráŕh, rather it harmed the society enormously. It also brought down the curse of the kuliina [nobility] system on Ráŕh.

The kuliina system was introduced among the Brahmans, Kayasthas and Vaidyas who blindly supported the Puranic religion. The intention was to keep those Brahmans, Kayasthas and Vaidyas recently converted from Jainism and Buddhism under the control of the orthodox Puranic Brahmans, Kayasthas and Vaidyas.⁽²⁾ It was proclaimed that a girl of a kuliina [noble] family must marry into another kuliina family, otherwise the kuliina status [of her family] would be lost. If, on the contrary, shrotriya Brahmans married their daughters to kuliina boys, their social status would increase. (In the Brahman social hierarchy the shrotriyas were non-kuliina, and in the Kayastha social hierarchy the maoliks were non-kuliina.) The result was that a kuliina Brahman or Kayastha could marry a hundred or more girls. Their numbers increased by leaps and bounds. The numbers of followers of the Puranic religion also increased by leaps and bounds, and the numbers of shrotriyas and maoliks considerably decreased. No one wished to marry their daughters into non-kuliina families. As another result, the influence of Buddhism and Jainism substantially waned. But quantitative growth does not necessarily lead to qualitative growth. Social vices overtook the society due to the rampant polygamy among the kuliinas and its opposite among the non-kuliinas.

During the Pathan rule,⁽³⁾ the prime minister of Bengal, Gopinath Basu, introduced a new system to save the Kayastha community from this vicious atmosphere. The eldest son of a Kayastha family must marry a kuliina girl [though the other sons were not required to do so]. But the Brahman community did not accept this system.

Since as a result of the kuliina system, one section of society had a lot of marriages and the other few, society suffered a lot of degeneration and deterioration. Later on, Devibar Ghatak of Ráŕh introduced melbandhan (in Barendra it is known as pat́ibandhan) so that conversion to another religion or surrender to social vices might stop,⁽⁴⁾ and society might be saved from degeneration and distortion. Melbandhan meant the creation of groups made up of people having similar defects or virtues. This allowed them to remain within the [Hindu] society. In a community of people having similar qualities, no one could ostracize others. No doubt the Brahmans saved their skin through this system, but they could not maintain their honour.

The social degeneration that resulted from the imposition of the Puranic religion in Ráŕh caused a simmering discontent in the minds of the people. The harmful effects of this became clearly visible after a few hundred years, particularly during the Pathan rule and during the days of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. These disgruntled people embraced either Islam or the Gaoŕiiya Vaishnavism propagated by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. In the Buddhist-influenced parts of Bengal, the people converted to Islam in large numbers long before the birth of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Those who did not convert to Islam embraced Gaoŕiiya Vaishnavism, especially in western Ráŕh where the influence of Jainism was greater. Both internal and external differences between Jainism and Islam are great. For this reason the people of western Ráŕh did not readily accept Islam. On the contrary, they accepted Gaoŕiiya Vaishnavism in overwhelming numbers. For the differences in practical life between Jainism and Vaishnavism were minimal, whatever the philosophical differences may have been.

We can find traces of the above-mentioned suppressed anger in the Shúnya Puráńa by Ramai Pandit.

The Puranic religion weighed heavily on Ráŕh, like an immovable stone. It struck a heavy blow at the roots of sama-samája tattva, the principle of social equality, the invaluable asset of Ráŕh, and threw it deep into the darkest dungeon. One of the main factors responsible for the present backwardness of Ráŕh, especially western Ráŕh, is the Puranic religion that was forcibly imposed on it.

Footnotes

(1) About the mid-15th century CE. –Trans.

(2) Such converts could be given Brahman, Kayastha or Vaidya status, but not the full status: they would be designated non-kuliina. –Trans.

(3) The Pathans were Pashto-speaking people from Afghanistan and adjoining areas who ruled Bengal during one period. –Trans.

(4) The kuliina system created large numbers of lower-caste persons. Lower-caste persons were prone to convert to other religions. –Trans.