Bhattacharya's of Sylhet...Scholars thro' generations:part..A

Remains of our ancestral house in Baniachong (Habiganj subdivision,Sylhet)

Vidya cha avidya cha yastad ubhayam sah

Avidyaya mrityum tirtwa vidyaya amritam ashnutey ..Ishavashya Upanishad

Life eternal through Learning .......

I. Who will benefit from this website?
- (A). those interested in studying transformation of society ,culture, education, life style, values , migration pattern due to pressure of politics and other factors over a period of nearly 3 centuries
- (B). those having origin in Sylhet (now in Bangladesh)
- (C). those having ‘Bhattachryya’, ‘Mishra’, ‘Biswas’ as surnames, and ‘Katyayan’ as gotra
N.B. readers of category (C) above have the responsibility to post information about profiles /photo of self, her/his father and children as this site is dedicated to FUTURE generations.
[Author :Prof.(Dr.) Prosanto K.Bhattacharyya nicknamed 'Kanchan' (jointdirector@hotmail.com), belonging to generation 15 in the chart ,son of Late Promod Chandra(generation 14)]
Baniachong is pronounced as Bai’na’chng in Sylheti tongue
I , took up this task of joining bits and pieces of information about my illustrious ancestors who were great scholars ,litterateurs of Sanskrit besides being educators through during last 350 years or so. The starting point is a very old torn piece of handwritten paper ( from my late uncle) which has turned yellowish and brittle .This gives some account of descendants starting from KESHAB MISHRA .

II. Generations 1 to 14:   1. KESHAB MISHRA ………2. Jagannath/Nandan—3.Ganapati—4.Sadashiv— 

5.Laksminath—6.Jagadish Vidyabhusan---7.Gopal---8.Hrishikesh---9. Ramananda— 

10.Ramkanto/Rameshwar(Harubhat)                                                                      

 11. Shyamananda, Shivananda, Gangananda, Sadananda  

12. Panchananda

 13. Paramananda Kabiratna               ,                         Padmanath Saraswati(Vidyabinod)

14 Purna Shastri, Promod-,Prahlad-,Paresh chandra,

                                                                Dr. Pundarikaksha,Birupaksha,Sahasraksha(died in infancy)

Shyamananda had 4 sons; eldest Panchananda had two : Paramananda and Padmanath. Paramananda had 4 sons: Purno,Promod,Prahlad,Paresh; while Padmanath had three: Pundarikasha,Birupaksha,Sahasraksha( died in infancy).Names of daughters are not given here.                      III. It is said that

KESAB MISRA, a Brahmin from Mithila / Kanauj was the founder of habitation in Baniachong. Date of Keshab Mishra is not known . There remains a missing link between him and Jagannath/ Nandan. Another Jagannath Mishra, father of Mahaprabhu Srikrishna Chaitanya Dev (Nimai, born 522 years ago) migrated to Nabadweep from Sylhet. As the population was sparse and Mishra community was very small those days, he might be possibly related to our family tree, though there is no evidence. It also could not been established when exactly habitation at Baniachong started. Being extremely fertile , Baniachong was a surplus zone in rice and other agricultural production. It was well connected to neighbouring villages and towns particularly by navigable crisscrossing perennial rivulets and canals similar to Alleppey in Kerala, So it flourished into a large village of extra ordinary beauty in the district of Srihatta or Sylhet (termed by the British). We learn that Baniachong was declared the largest village in India ( survey- 1934 ?). Due to torrential rains during rainy season ,even a child had to row a boat to go the school, as roads and fields were submerged.
The name of the district continues to be called Sylhet even today . It belonged to Bengal in Mughal, post Mughal and British periods .Sylhet was a part of Assam which during British rule was a very large province encompassing today’s seven states ,eg. Arunachal Pradesh, Assam,Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Tripura, Nagaland . Due to partition of India / Bengal in 1947,Sylhet became integral part of East Pakistan ; and then after 24 years East Pakistan became Bangladesh when it got freedom from Pakistan in 1971 with the military intervention from India.

IV. Paradise lost due to Partition of India/Bengal
One of the severest blow on India in recent times is the unfortunate splitting of undivided India into India and Pakistan, by cruel designs of the then politicians in 1947; in the same year India broke the shackles of British rule of nearly 200 years. Bengal was mercilessly cut into two - West Bengal( India) and East Pakistan ( Pakistan) as result of referendum, Sylhet came under East Pakistan .Foolishness of the then politicians combined with hunger for power created that mess where thousands died in riots and millions became refugees overnight after the referendum. Though Hindus and Muslims have been staying together for centuries and continue to stay together even today in India, politicians found the reason for creating a separate state for Muslims, that too in two pockets - west Pakistan and East Pakistan separated by more than 1500 km. Situations during partition days were even worse than the political unrests and mass massacre that we see now in certain parts of Africa, middle east and Afghanistan. My father and other relations with their families had to run for life and flee Baniachong and Habiganj (Sylhet District) with four or five bags packed overnight with essential things leaving behind agricultural land, property, library, everything for ever. They did not have time even to sell properties . Such evacuees had to brave traveling on the roof of train and the risk of being ambushed and killed by violent mobs en route to Calcutta ( now called Kolkata). Civilized societies talk of “heritage”,” Culture”, “motherland”. In our case, these terms hardly make any sense. We had to remain happy to survive the massacre, to be alive .But remaining alive with abject poverty is also a curse. The story of remaining alive is painfully long. Let’s forget it for the time being.
V. Family of Scholars

Through generations we were scholars in Sanskrit and used to house Chatuspathi (or the institute for Vedic/Sanskrit studies) in the sprawling premises of the residence. Though originally we were Mishra's, but subsequent generations were Biswas, Bhattacharyya, etc.

Many of our ancestors were awarded 'Churamani',’Siddhanta’ 'Vidyabhusan', 'Vidyabinod', 'Saraswati',’Shastri’, etc. by the civic authorities/government for their scholarship and contribution to education. As I learn from my parents, our ancestral house in Baniachung used to have an intake of 80 students for various courses in Sanskrit even during early 20th Century. The locality was known as Bidyabhusaner Para. My grandfather groomed his only younger brother Padmanath Saraswati (photo-left) to be an outstanding personality with chracter.Padmanath became a household name in Sylhet / Assam as he had the topmost academic record as a profound scholar in sanskrit, philosophy and literature.He had been teaching at the university/colleges. He has many publications in Bengali;his contemporary greats were Rabindra Nath Tagore,Ramkrishna Paramhansa, Swami Vivekananda,Madan Mohan Malvia.. to name a few. Being in the intellectual circle, he had immense interaction with them face-to-face as well as through letters.Poet Kalidas Roy once came all the way from Calcutta (now Kolkata) to Baniachung to visit him at our ancestral house at Baniachung and wrote an account of the daily life of this great man titled Panditer sathe kayek din.Padmanath Saraswati has been acknowledged as one of the great sons of Bengal by Bangiya Sahitya Parishad ,Calcutta. My father's elder brother Purna Chandra Shastri was a topper at the universty ; he was the last Sanskrit scholar down the line so far, who spent his lifetime in teaching in schools, colleges and universities.
I shall post biography of Padmanath Saraswati,his writings,etc. subsequently.





VI. Today's Baniachong : photo album has been contributed by Shri Santosh(Sontu), Barasat,15th generation,son of late Birupaksha Bhattacharya

Very old Kali Mandir ( the deity was 'jagroto'in the true sense) established by our forefathers. Name of descendants of this family (Katyayan Gotra)are on the tablet(left).Note that most of them are scholars with titles 'vidyanivas','Vedanta Shiromani',etc.

Samadhisthal of Sanyasis who used to stay in the temple complex.They had supernatural powers.I have seen one of them when I was five.He healed my dying mother ; she got a new lease of life.

This pond was exavated by Padmanath Saraswati , dedicated to his foster mother and opened it to public.Saraswati lost his mother when he was a few days old; only a foster mother ( a wet nurse) could save the new born.

A village with tranquility...

113 year old School: functoional even today

Outer wall of our ancestral house

.....

Sri Santosh (Sontu) and Smt. Rekha

visited Banichong in 2007 and took these photos