Why the Claim That Ram is a "North Indian Outsider" to Bengal is a Modern Sociological Fiction Contradicted by 600 Years of Bengali Civilisation
THE RIVER ALWAYS KNEW HIS NAME: Why the Claim That Ram is a "North Indian Outsider" to Bengal is a Modern Sociological Fiction Contradicted by 600 Years of Bengali Civilisation Yash Sharma | History, Etymology, Defence, Finance Abstract The recent political assertion that the worship of Lord Ram constitutes cultural imperialism imposed upon Bengal by the North Indian Hindu mainstream is not a scholarly hypothesis. It is an ideological construction, assembled from selective amnesia, the erasure of vernacular literary history, and a breathtaking disregard for six centuries of documented Bengali civilisation. This article conducts a systematic, evidence-based demolition of that assertion across six domains: the print culture of the Battala publishing industry; quantitative manuscript survival data; the theological architecture of Durga Puja; terracotta iconography of the Malla dynasty; the onomastics of the Bengal Renaissance; and the literary historiography of the fiftee...