Who is the promoter of the Bengali
year? In answer to this question, many of us will say, Emperor Akbar. But this
claim is completely wrong.
We have been reading the textbooks
since the time of Emperor Akbar, the founder of the Bengali year. It is said
that Emperor Akbar introduced the Bengali year to facilitate the collection of
taxes at the harvest time. Since this Bengali year is introduced for the
convenience of the farmers to know about the time of harvest, this year is also
called the harvest year.
This lie has been swallowing us for a
long time.
According to simple calculations, if the
year 1427 Bengal is 2020 AD, then the first year of Bengal must be 2020 - 1426
i.e. 594 AD. In the last decade of the 6th century, Shashanka, the feudal king
of the Gupta Empire, declared himself the independent sovereign ruler of
Bengal. To commemorate the beginning of his reign as an independent patriarch,
Maharaja Shashanka introduced The Bangabada or Bengali Calendar according to
the calendar based on the sun's position. In this regard, Sunil Kumar Banerjee,
in an article titled 'The Source of Bengali Calendar', says,
"According to solar science-based
mathematical, on Monday, April 12, 594, sunrise is the starting point of
Bengal.”
We have been told that Akbar created
the Bengali Calendar. Question arises, which historian discovered this fact? That
historian is none other than Amartya Sen! He made this claim in the book 'The Augmentative
Indian' published in 2005. Then he began to say this in various speeches.
Gradually it turns on as the truth.
We know that Bengali New Year is celebrated
according to the holy Boishakh Bangabda. April 14th or sometimes April 15th is
celebrated as Pohela Boishakh. Now if we look at the different states of India.
We will see that New Year is celebrated in different states at the same time.
For example, Puthandu in Tamil Nadu, Bishu in Kerala, Baishakhi in Punjab,
Rangali Bihu in Kamarupa (present name- Assam) are celebrated at the beginning
of Bhaskarabda, Baisagu among the tribes of Tripura etc.
How come so many nations are
celebrating New Year on the same day at exactly the same time? Did Akbar found
all these calendars too?
Akbarists
argue that in 1584, Akbar launched a solar calendar called Tarikh-e-Ilahi to
facilitate the collection of taxes. The base year of that calendar was 1556,
the first year of Akbar's reign. So, the Tarikh-e-ilahi begins in its 29th
year. On the other hand, 1556 AD was 963 Hijri.
According to
the Akbarists, Akbar introduced The Bangabada(Bengali Calendar) along with the Tarikh-e-Ilahi
in 1584 ad, where first Bangabda year was 963(1556 AD) on paper, so that it
maintains similarity with the Hijri Calendar year. That is, the actual Bengal
year begins with its 963 + 29 = 991st year. Being a lunar year, hijri had by
then again moved a year ahead. 1584 AD was 992 Hijri. According to the demands
of the Akbarists, from this year onwards, the 29st tarikh-e-Ilahi and 991
Bengali year were started.
But did Akbar
really launch 'Bangabda' or 'Bengali Calendar'? Let's see what history says.
First, the
'Ain-e-Akbari' contains chronological accounts of the various calendars of the
world and India covering 30 pages. At the end of it all is Tarikh-i-Ilahi. But
there is no mention of 'Bangabda' or 'Bangla Son' (Bengali Calendar). If Akbar
had really introduced 'Bangabda' then why there would be no mention of it in
the Ain-e-Akbari?
Secondly, Ain-i-Akbari clearly states that Akbar
did not like the Hijri year, so he started Tarikh-i-Ilahi. At the same time, if
he had really started Bangabda, would his base year have been matched with the
disliked Hijri without equating it with his introduced date-i-Ilahi?
Thirdly, during the reign of Akbar, the Mughal
Empire had a total of twelve states(Subha) like Bengal, Allahabad, Ayodhya,
Agra, Patna, Multan, Kabul etc. So why did Akbar go to create a special
calendar for Bengal only? He did not make any separate calendar for Kabul or
Multan.
Fourthly, Bengal was then practically ruled by
mighty Feudal Kings like Pratapaditya and Kedar Roy. They had a fierce feud with
the Mughals. The capital of ‘Mughal Occupied Bengal’ was then Rajmahal, far
away from Jessore or Sreepur, the center of Bengal politics. From the point of
view of the Mughals, total chaos was running in Bengal at that time. In that
situation, why would Akbar, known as a good ruler, take the risk of compiling a
new calendar just for Bengal?
Fifth, from Punjab to Deccan, from Gujarat to
Assam, Manipur, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and all-over Southeast Asia,
wherever Indian culture has reached, the beginning of the year in all these places
has the same time of the year; that is Pohela Boishakh. The first day of the
Bengali Calendar is also the first date of Cambodian/Thai/Burmese calendar. So,
what do you say? Akbar of Delhi introduced calendars in all these places? There
is no mention of ‘Fasal-i-Shan’ or ‘Year of Good Harvest’ as there is no
mention of ‘Bangabd’ or ‘Bangla Year’ in ‘Ain-e-Akbari’. As the Hijri year is a
lunar calendar, there is a problem in collecting revenue untimely and there is
no mention that Akbar prepared a solar calendar for that. Nowhere is it said
that proper revenue is being collected after re-formulation.
In the official history of Akbar's time, it is said
that the new calendar, Tarikh-i-Ilahi, was introduced to bring harmony between
the calendars of the vast region of Hindustan. The question naturally arises
here, why did this problem suddenly come to mind after three decades of rule?
Why didn't this problem come to mind before Akbar who is known as a good ruler?
In fact, just a year and a half ago, in October
1582, Pope Gregory VIII revised the old Julian calendar and introduced a new
Gregorian calendar. That gained Pope Gregory VIII a massive popularity in Europe,
which made Akbar jealous and Akbar also wanted to become. That is why Akbar's
astronomer Fatullah Shirazi compiled the Tarikh-i-Ilahi calendar based on the
Gurgani calculation system of Samarkand in Central Asia.
There is also rocky evidence that Akbar did not
establish Bangabda. Nitish Sengupta's book 'The Land of the Rivers' mentions
the thousand-year-old terracotta Shiva temple at Dihargram and Sonatpan village
in Bankura district of West Bengal. The two temples bear the inscription of
Bangabda, which is older than Akbar.