Citations
As frightful as Twitter gets, it was all the while surprising to observe how monstrous things can get, when landmarks like dialects, and societies, are involved. Something almost identical had occurred on Twitter a couple of months back, when I saw a celebration of abuses, and disappointment, when two individuals, two societies, and two dialects conflicted for one another's matchless quality. Specifically, Bhojpuri individuals, and Bengalis. However, a large portion of the instinctive bitterness was tossed at Biharis, all in all. Independent of particulars, seeing such fights on web-based forums and gatherings helps me to remember old primitive conflicts. One of the allegations spread out at individuals of Bihar, by Bengalis, is that the previous are not from a high culture (they are), standard society, and need shrewdness, in addition to other things. I remember something almost identical to this being tossed at Russians by the Europeans, who considered the previous as savage, and brutal. To cite, Sputnik News, "European Association Establishment for Security Studies representative chief Florence Gaub has caused a commotion after a dubious appearance on German TV in which she proposed that Russians "aren't Europeans" and don't put a lot of significant worth on human existence and independence: 'We should not fail to remember that regardless of whether Russians look European, they are not European from a social perspective. They ponder savagery, about death,' Gaub expressed, addressing 2DF moderator Markus Lanz recently." Accurately in this way, Bengalis really do have an admirable sentiment about how civilizations are made, ask Magadha. Notwithstanding, to say the least, and with due regard, the present Bihar is nothing similar to the previous Magadha. The present Bihar is loaded up with shadowy figures of ineptitude, idiocy, dormancy, crude men, and uncontrolled ladies of unsavoriness, it has lost brilliance, things won't come regardless of whether they penance the majority of their wrongs, its landscape has been attacked without any result, its customs has been bubbled, and broiled to the most profound of its sparkle. In any case, is Bengal any better, is it not simply hardly better? Does it have something almost identical to Magadha? Do Biharis have something almost identical to Renaissance Bengal? Is claiming each other's ladies is the final retreat of these two great people groups? To cite the significance of Magadha, Wikipedia says, "Magadha was a district and one of the sixteen Mahajanapadas, 'Extraordinary Realms' of the Subsequent Urbanization (600-200 BCE) in what is presently south Bihar (before expansion) at the eastern Ganges Plain. Magadha was administered by Brihadratha administration, Pradyota tradition (682-544 BCE), Haryanka line (544-413 BCE), the Shaishunaga tradition (413-345 BCE) and the Mauryan line toward its end. Towns had their own congregations under their neighborhood bosses called Gramakas. Their organizations were isolated into chief, legal, and military capabilities. Magadha assumed a significant part in the improvement of Jainism and Buddhism. It was prevailed by four of northern India's most prominent domains, the Nanda Realm (c. 345-322 BCE), Maurya Domain (c. 322-185 BCE), Shunga Domain (c. 185-78 BCE) and Gupta Domain (c. 319-550 CE). The Pala Domain likewise managed over Magadha and kept an imperial camp in Pataliputra. The Pithipatis of Bodh Gaya alluded to themselves as Magadhādipati and governed in pieces of Magadha until the thirteenth hundred years."
To cite the significance of Bengal Renaissance, Wikipedia says, "For just about two centuries, the Bengal renaissance saw the extreme change of Indian culture, and its thoughts have been credited to the ascent of Indian anticolonialist and patriot thought and movement during this period. The philosophical premise of the development was its special form of progressivism and advancement. As per Sumit Sarkar, the trailblazers and works of this period were venerated and respected with sentimentality all through the nineteenth and twentieth hundreds of years, in any case, because of another emphasis on its colonialist starting points, a more basic view arose during the 1970s. The Bengal Renaissance was a development portrayed by a sociopolitical arousing in human expression, writing, music, reasoning, religion, science, and different fields of scholarly request. The development scrutinized the current traditions and customs in Indian culture - most outstandingly, the rank framework, the settlement framework, and the act of sati - as well as the job of religion and frontier administration. Thusly, the Bengal Renaissance supported for cultural change - the sort that stuck to secularist, humanist and innovator standards. From Rabindranath Tagore to Satyendra Nath Bose, the development saw the rise of significant figures, whose commitments actually impact social and scholarly works today. The Bengali renaissance was dominatingly driven by Bengali Hindus. Notable figures incorporate the social reformer Raja Rammohan Roy, essayist Rabindranath Tagore, and the physicist Satyendra Nath Bose. The super Muslim figures in the development incorporate individuals from the Suhrawardy family, artist and performer Kazi Nazrul Islam and essayist Rokeya Sakhawat Hussain."
To blame Bihar for a graceless presence is to blame the presence for Mithila, Videha, and Gargi Vachaknavi, who carried their own sort of Renaissance to Bihar. To cite the significance of Gargi Vachaknavi, Wikipedia says, "Gargi Vachaknavi was an old Indian sage and savant. In Vedic writing, she is regarded as an extraordinary normal thinker, eminent expounder of the Vedas, and known as Brahmavadini, an individual with information on Brahma Vidya. In the 6th and the eighth Brahmana of Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, her name is conspicuous as she takes part in the Brahmayajna, a logical discussion coordinated by Lord Janaka of Videha and she challenges the sage Yajnavalkya with puzzling inquiries on the issue of atman (soul). She is additionally said to have composed many psalms in the Rigveda. She stayed a chaste for her entire life and was held in love by the traditional Hindus. Gargi, the little girl of sage Vachaknu in the ancestry of sage Garga (c. 800-500 BCE) was named after her dad as Gargi Vachaknavi. Since early on she revealed distinct fascination with Vedic sacred writings and turned out to be extremely capable in fields of theory. She turned out to be profoundly learned in the Vedas and Upanishads in the Vedic times and held scholarly discussions with different rationalists."
To count the accomplishments of Bengal, aside from Renaissance, we get a particular, yet a genuine, picture that lets us know Bengal today. Sincerely, and truth be told, it is simply barely better compared to Bihar. Were Lordess Sita, Janaka, Mahavira, Gobind Singh, Vasupujya, Mallinatha, Munisuvrata, Naminatha unseemly, crude, and dolts of the greatest race? Were Devavarman, Shalishuka, Shatadhanvan, Samprati, Aryabhata, Gonu Jha, Samudragupta, and Vātsyāyana not extraordinary men, of incredible worth, of incredible type? To resemble antiquated men is something else, to not copy them, and decline into something different, is another. Without a doubt, Bihar won't change simply through recalling these extraordinary men, yet to be like them. Recollecting that them won't change the current you. It would be ideal for you to change. What's more, here, Bengal could be an extraordinary educator to Bihar.
To further discuss the shared history of these two peoples, it would be ideal to quote some learned scholars, and understand things about the surface.
To quote, from Bangla Wiki, "Gupta Rule forms an important chapter in the history of ancient Bengal. Gupta rule spread over Bengal probably in the reign of Chandragupta I or Samudragupta towards the end of the 3rd or the beginning of the 4th century AD. Eulogical inscriptions (prashasti lipi), copperplates, coins, literary evidences, and foreign accounts bear testimony to the existence of Gupta rule in Bengal. It is likely that on the eve of the eastward expansion of the Gupta Empire Bengal was divided into a number of small but powerful independent states. A record engraved on the Susunia hill, about 12 miles to the northwest of Bankura town in West Bengal, mentions Puskaranadhipa Maharaja Chandravarman, son of Maharaja Singhavarman. According to Allahabad Prasasti of Harisena, Samudragupta uprooted one Chandravarman. Puskaranadhipa Chandravarman and Chandravarman of Allahabad Prasasti are most probably identical. However, by the middle of the fourth century AD, the whole of Bengal with the exception of samatata (the trans-Meghna region comprising the Comilla-Noakhali area), was incorporated in the Gupta Empire. The land administration of the Guptas was also well controlled. We find references to some varieties of land in the Gupta epigraphic records such as ksetra (a field under cultivation), khila (uncultivated), and vastu (a dwelling site). In Gupta period, the accurate measurement system of land was active. The terms like kulyavapa and dronavapa were the units of measuring the lands. Apart from the units mentioned above, the terms pataka, bhu-pataka, adhaka, kakini, khadika, hala, drona etc were said to be in practice for measuring the land. In the vast Gupta Empire Bengal was an important province. The period of the imperial Guptas is generally considered to be the 'golden age' of Indian history. During this period, under a strong benevolent central authority, peace, wealth and prosperity were manifest for a considerable time and Bengal enjoyed the benefit of being a part of the All-Indian empire. Bengal had a participation in the All-Indian trade. Gold and silver coins brought into currency in entire Bengal. Introduction of a large number of gold coins proves economic prosperity of Bengal. Betel nut, silk, cotton, coconut, salt, and sugar etc were probably exported from Bengal. At that time Bengal had trading links with Southeast Asia and China. The discovery of a large number of imitation Gupta coins from different places of Bengal prove that Bengal enjoyed the benefit of money economy. This period also saw artistic excellence. During the Gupta age the evolution of sculptural art that developed in Northern India had left a definite stamp on the sculptural art tradition of Bengal. A few examples recovered from North Bengal clearly show this evolution. The Gupta School inspired the Bengal School of sculptural art distinctly in the Pala period. The Gupta period is also remarkable for religious toleration. The imperial Gupta monarchs were followers of Brahmanic Hindu religion, but they patronised Buddhism, Jainism, and other religious communities and the people of the period enjoyed an environment of religious toleration and mutual coexistence of religions. Bengal was an integral part of All-Indian history for the second time, the first probably in the age of the Imperial Mauryas." (RC Majumdar, History of Ancient Bengal, Calcutta, 1971; AM Chowdhury and others, Bangladesher Itihas, Bangla, Dhaka, 7th edition, 1998.)
On the significant contributions of the Guptas, we can only expect the present Republic to respect the legacy of those great people, and build upon their foundations. The Guptas gave India its golden age, it is now time for you, to payback. Most of India, and her accomplishments, came into existence through the lands of North. Few people accept these facts, and few understand the significance of Aryan North. To quote Dorothy Norman, "Although the ancient Indians were great calculators of time, they did not standardise the dates of important events in a uniform manner. This is because ancient India, except for the two relatively brief imperial periods of the Mauryans (321 BCE to 185 BCE) and the Imperial Guptas (CE 320 to 467), was largely both politically and culturally fragmented and regionalised. There were numerous ancient Indian calendars, each with its own commencement year, used by different dynasties or religious communities. The early modern scholars and historians who systematised ancient Indian studies performed a most valuable service in establishing the credibility of certain dates and then synchronising them with the traditional European system of dating events before and after Christ (BC and AD), now updated to BCE and CE (before and during the Common Era). Part of the success of synchronisation is owed to foreign sources or mathematical calculations from ancient India itself, as the following three examples demonstrate. From the Greek sources, for example, we learn that Alexander the Great invaded India in 327 BCE; this, along with the information about the Buddha’s dates from Sanskritic and Pali sources, enabled the scholars to work out the accession date of the first Mauryan emperor, Chandragupta Maurya. Again, the famous astronomer Aryabhatta wrote his definitive mathematical work in CE 499, which was the year that, through his astronomical calculations, he claimed to have completed 3,600 years of the Kali Yuga, the latest of the time-periods of the main Hindu religious calendar that began in 3101 BCE. This means that, when the third Christian millennium began in CE 2000-01, the Hindus had just completed the first century of their sixth millennium. Finally, Islamic historiography, being more systematic in its approach than the ancient Indian, also developed a more reliable dating system; calculating the dates from the start-year of the Islamic lunar calendar (CE 622) against the modern solar reckoning, we are on firm ground with Islamic chronology. That is why we can be confident of the veracity of such a date as CE 1000, when Mahmud of Ghazni attacked India. The modern European system of dating is inaccurate, because Christ was born at least four years before what we consider to be its start-year of CE 1, supposedly the year of his birth, and there have also been both slippages of days and days added artificially by the Church authorities at different times in European history. Nevertheless, it is now a well established universal dating system; it has also been modernised to take account of the fact that most people in the world are not Christian, and we now use the term Common Era (CE) rather than the Year of Our Lord (AD). We are using this updated system in the present edition of this book. It is, of course, worth bearing in mind that all dates of ancient Indian history are somewhat fluid, and in the dating of some events one has to accept a certain 'give and take' of a few years. Sacred geography in the Hindu imagination: Pandit Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India, was a thoroughly modern man. He had little time for religious rituals and conventions. Nevertheless, he made clear in his last will and testament that he wanted part of his ashes to be immersed in the waters of the River Ganges. In the following extract his feelings betray a deep sense of appreciation as to why the Indian people stand in awe of the Ganges, a mere river to those without a sense of the history of India. 'The Ganga (Ganges) is the river of India, beloved of her people, round which are intertwined her racial memories, her hopes and fears, her songs of triumph, her victories and her defeats. She has been a symbol of India’s age-long culture and civilization, ever-changing, ever-flowing, and yet ever the same Ganga. Smiling and dancing in the morning sunlight, and dark and gloomy and full of mystery as the evening shadows fall, the Ganga has been to me a symbol and a memory of the past of India, running with the present and flowing on to the great ocean of the future. And although I have discarded much of the past tradition and custom, I do not wish to cut myself off from that past completely. And as witness of this desire of mine and as my last homage to India’s cultural inheritance, I am making this request that a handful of my ashes be thrown into the Ganga at Allahabad to be carried to the great ocean that washes India’s shore.’" (Source: Dorothy Norman, Nehru: The First Sixty Years, London: Bodley Head, 1965, 574-5.)
Burjor Avari says, "The northern ones are: Ayodhya, the birthplace of the Hindu god Rama; Mathura, the birthplace of Krishna, the eighth incarnation of the god Vishnu; Haridwar, a city renowned for its great river festival of Kumbh Mela and a staging-post for the Hindu pilgrims who make arduous treks to the Gangotri glacier, the source of the Ganges, which then flows into the plains; Kashi, where the embankments of the Ganges are the last stopping points, in this world, for the dying Hindu; Prayag, where the rivers Ganges, Yamuna and the invisible Sarasvati meet in a mystical threefold confluence, and where also the festival of Kumbh Mela takes place every twelve years; and Dwarka, on the Gujarat coast, where Krishna came from Mathura for his safety. Most of these northern sites are located in Madhyadesha, the spiritual heartland of Hindu, Aryan and Brahmanic culture. The three important southern sites are Madurai, Kanchipuram and Rameshwaram. These sites came to be added to the list of sacred cities only after the south conformed to the Vedic, or Brahmanic, mainstream religion." (India: The Ancient Past, A history of the Indian subcontinent from c. 7000 BCE to CE 1200, Second edition, Burjor Avari)
On the shared history of Bihar and Bengal, its languages, and its cultures, Nitish Sengupta says, "In Jaydev’s times Sanskrit was clearly the language of expression for the educated, although Bengali was the spoken language. Gradually, the distance between the newly revived, grammar-ridden Sanskrit and the Bengali vernacular language became greater and greater. The Tibeto-Burman elements which appeared in Bengal through the northeast and the Dravidian and the Australoid tribal elements which were indigenous also made their impacts on the Bengali language. Slowly but surely, a lingua franca took shape that was common to Bengal, Assam, Nepal, Orissa and north Bihar. Hiuen-Tsang’s travelogue in the seventh century suggests that there was one common language spoken in Bihar, Bengal and western Assam. This has been loosely called Magadhi Apabhramsa. The most well-known poet who wrote in this language, also known as Brajabuli, was Bidyapati, or Vidyapati (fifteenth century), and is claimed by both Bengali and Maithili, and Hindi literature as one of the pioneers. According to tradition, Bidyapati was the court poet of Raja Shiv Sinha of Mithila. His compositions centred on the eternal Vaishnava theme of the love between Radha and Lord Krishna and related anecdotes and combined devotional and romantic elements. It is possible that the name Bidyapati became a generic name adopted by several poets in Bengali, Maithili and Nepali, who wrote in the same form and style on the same or similar themes in the succeeding centuries. There was, however, at least one historical Bidyapati at Mithila, who lived around AD 1460. The Brajabuli style influenced Bengali poets long afterwards, and even the great Rabindranath Tagore composed one of his works, Bhanusingher Padabali, in this form. It can also be presumed that at least some part of north Bengal was included in the territory directly ruled by the Gupta dynasty. On the whole, there is no doubt that Bengal together with Bihar formed the home ground of the imperial Guptas. Bengal, therefore, rose to the height of political glory under the first three imperial Guptas, viz., Chandragupta I, Samudragupta and Chandragupta II, also called Vikramaditya, when the Gupta Empire covered the largest part of the subcontinent since the Mauryas. Among the kingdoms which were conquered by Samudragupta, as given in the Allahabad pillar inscription written by Samudragupta’s court poet Harisen, are Samatata, comprising portions of southern Bengal—also described by the ancient name of Dhaka (according to certain historians)—and Pushkarna ruled by a King Chandravarmana who is identified as Chandravarmana of Susunia Hills in Bankura district of West Bengal. According to the epigraphic records of Kumaragupta, who followed Chandragupta II, north Bengal, described as Pundravardhana Bhukti, was an important province of the empire. It was under the charge of a governor appointed by the emperor, and the governor in his turn appointed officers in charge of various districts into which the province was divided. The Damodarpur plate of Budhagupta also supported this view that north Bengal formed an important part of the Gupta Empire. Samatata appears to have been a semi-feudatory state during Samudragupta’s rule. In the years AD 507–08 this was ruled by Maharaja Vijayagupta who granted land in Tippera district of Bangladesh and also issued coins under the name of Dawaditya. He might well have been a member of the imperial family who was holding charge of the province of eastern Bengal under the title of Maharaja. We do not have any direct evidence of the inclusion of any other part of what later on became Bengal in the empire of the Guptas. It can be safely assumed that the Gupta Empire collapsed in the sixth century AD under the impact of the continuous invasion by the Hunas and also the weakening of the central power. This led to another phase of political disintegration in north India. Bengal also must have taken advantage of the collapse of the Gupta Empire to wrest sovereign power and so we come across two powerful kingdoms, Gaur and Banga in the sixth century AD. Out of all this grew the great tradition of padabali literature which sustained a substantial number of Hindus in Bengal for centuries, both spiritually and aesthetically. The padabalis, or lyrical poems, concentrated on the theme of Lord Krishna being the only god and the object of rapturous adoration, stressing the fact that the ideal way of obtaining his grace is not through meditations and austerities, but through chanting his name and showering love and affection on mankind in general. Padabalis are written mostly in Bengali and partly in Brajabuli, language created by mixing Bengali and Maithili [of North Bihar]." (Land of Two Rivers: A History of Bengal from the Mahabharata to Mujib, Book by Nitish Sengupta)
On Mithila, Bengal, during the Mughal Administration, Tahir Hussain Ansari says, "Darbhanga was one of the Mahals in the sarkar of Tirhut during the reign of Akbar. The ancient name of the Darbhanga region is Mithila. Mithila was bounded on the north by the Himalayas and the rivers Kosi (Kausik), Ganga and Gandak on the east, south and west, respectively, and comprised the present districts of Muzaffarpur, Vaishali, Hajipur, Darbhanga, Madhubani, Sitamarhi, Saharsa, Champaran (east and west), parts of Munger, Bhagalpur, Purnia in India, and the Morang Sapta Sara Labi, Rotahat, Vera and Parsa districts in Nepal. The chieftaincy covered an area of more than 2,000 sq. miles. Mithila has been a centre of high learning and culture through the ages. The region enjoyed a very important position during the period of the mahajanapadas and the Mauryans. During the Gupta age, the Mithila region was known as Tirabhukti, which included both Vaishali and Mithila but the latter gained importance as a border province with Nepal and Tibet on the north and Kamarupa on the east at the time of Harshavardhana of Kanauj in the seventh century. Till the coming of the Karnatas, Mithila remained a dependancy of one or the other principal kingdoms. The Karnatas established their political authority over the Mithila region in about 1098. They ruled till 1353 and were replaced by the Oinwaras. In 1527, Nasrat Shah invaded Tirhut and killed Kansanarayan, the last Oinwara chief of Mithila, and the Oinwara dynasty came to an end. Soon after, Mithila slipped into a period of chaos and confusion. The Afghans exercised control over it up to 1574 when it passed under the Mughals. Thereafter, the overall administration of Mithila fell into the hands of the Mughal emperors. Mahesh Thakur, a Maithili Brahman and the founder of the Darbhanga Raj, was one of the most learned scholars of the time. His ancestors came from Mandala in the district of Jabalpur, in Madhya Pradesh, in the beginning of the sixteenth century. It appears that one of his ancestors, Gosain Shankarshan Upadhyaya, was granted a village in Khandwa and on account of holding landed property, he like the other chiefs of the region, began to be called Thakur. It seems that after the conquest of Bihar, Mahesh Thakur approached Akbar and apparently impressed him with his learning. The emperor appointed him the chaudhari and qanungo of the sarkar of Tirhut, and a farman was also issued in this connection. Although this farman is not available to us, a close study of the farman issued to Gopal Thakur, the son of Mahesh Thakur, clearly indicates that a farman to Mahesh Thakur had been issued. The farman addressed to Gopal Thakur runs as follows: Jalalluddin Muhammad Akbar Badshah Ghazi. Exalted farman, let it be known to the exalted officers and economy effecting functionaries [...] of Sarkar Tirhut, present and future that Ajit Thakur (Achutta Thakur) obedient to officers, brother of Gopal as, obedient to Islam, Qanungo and Chaudhari of the above mentioned Sarkar having presented himself in the court, the Refuge of Humanity, submitted to the effect that the Qanungo and Chaudhari of the said Sarkar were assigned to the said Gopal Das and the said person during the life time of Diwan (no name is mentioned here) performed good service for the betterment of the Ryots' condition. Therefore, the farman having (the same force of) incontrovertibility as Death had the honor of being brought into existence (issued) that the Chaudhari and Qanungo of the entire above mentioned Sarkar be restored to the said Gopal Das, obedient to Islam. It is expected out of his (sense of) profuse honesty and ability that he will put forth his best endeavors in looking after the interests of Diwani and in protecting the lives of Ryots and increasing their prosperity. And if he duly performed the said duty, he should realize from the Ryots the Rusum-Chaudharai at 1 Tanka per Bigha and Rusum-Qanungoi at one-forth Tanka per Bigha totaling 1¼ Tankas per Bigha and from the same (torn in the original) find out the means to support himself. It is ordered that the Muqaddams, Ryots and cultivators residing in the said Sarkar should consider the above named person (without associating anybody else’s name with his) as the official Chaudhari and Qanungo and should not go beyond (i.e. act contrary to) his orders and advices which are in accordance with equity and are conducive to the welfare and prosperity (of the Ryots) and pay him without interruption the Rusum-Chaudhari and Qanungoi, as of old. They should not consider any one as sharing these powers with him. They should act as ordered and consider this as urgent." (Mughal Administration and the Zamindars of Bihar, Book by Tahir Hussain Ansari)
On the affinity between Maithili, Bengali, and their rich heritage, quoting Catalogue of Mithila Manuscripts, "Nalanda’s dateable history begins in the 5th century. A seal discovered at the site identifies a monarch named Shakraditya (Śakrāditya) as its founder and attributes the foundation of a sangharama (monastery) at the site to him. This is corroborated by the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang travelogue. The tradition of formalized Vedic learning "helped to inspire the formation of large teachings centres," such as Nalanda, Taxila, and Vikramashila. In the Indian tradition and texts, kings were called by many epithets and names. Scholars such as Andrea Pinkney and Hartmut Scharfe conclude that Shakraditya is same as Kumaragupta I. He was one of the kings in the Hindu dynasty of the Guptas. Further, numismatic evidence discovered at Nalanda corroborate that Kumaragupta I was the founder patron of Nalanda’s University, or monastery. The affinity of Maithili and Bengali is so very strong that the works in Maithili can easily be claimed to be in Bengali. Maithili agrees with Assamese, Bengali and Oriya in the use of pronouns and their scripts are very much alike. The intimate contact between Mithila and Bengal led to greater intercourse both culturally and linguistically and distinction between the two languages in the early period was hardly perceptible. Similarly Mithila and Assam were culturally bound into close ties and that led to the closer linguistic affinities between the two. Maithili exercised considerable influence on the Assamese. Sankaradeva (c. 1449- 1586) employed Maithili in his plays. Maithili and Oriya, specially in respect of phonology, have got some points of similarity. It agrees with Oriya in stressing long vowels. Oriya does not possess the short vowels of Maithili. The literary tradition of Mithila has been very old and the people of Mithila appear to have been well-versed in prosody. The joining of metre with melodies (Ragas and Raginis) is found as early as the eleventh-twelfth century A.D. in Nanyadeva’s (c.1097-1147 A.D.) Saraswatihridyalankarahara and in Jayadeva’s Gitagovinda. Lochana’s song metres are regulated by definite Ragas and Talas. The existence of a large number of commentaries on Prakritapaingalam, written through the centuries in Mithila by various commentators, is indicative of the poetic talents and interest in prosody. K. P. Jayaswal has rightly observed, "Prakrit prosody was a favourite study in Mithila. This is evidenced by the several manuscripts of the Prakritapaingala and the commentaries thereon. It has exercised the greatest influence on poetry in Mithila and other northern vernaculars. It deals with Dola, Totaka, Chappaiya, Kundaliya, Malini and other metres. There is a vast variety of vernacular metres which are now not in use. The Srutabodha, Chhandamanjari and Vrittaratnakara were popular works of prosody." Similarly we find Alamkara and Kavyashastra works of Maithili authors from the thirteen-fourteenth century to the sixteenth becoming standard works in Mithila to the exclusion of the text books from other parts of India. There is therefore a special Maithili school of poetics and a clear influence of the vernacular composition on it is evident from the fourteenth century A.D. onwards." (Catalogue of Mithila Manuscripts, II; Introduction).
Radhakrishna Choudhary, on the history of Maithili, and its connection to Bengali, says, "The early and middle Maithili prosody is based on the Prakrit and Apabhramsa metres. In the Prakrit and Apabhramsa metres, Matra (the metrical moments) is a more important factor where as Sanskrit, Varna (or the letter) plays an important part. Lochana has discussed the song metres of Mithila. What needs emphasis here is this that the metre formed an important basis for distinguishing the Desi songs. In the song metres, poets are obliged to follow the Ragas and the Raginis to which our attention is drawn by Lochana, who has given a list of ninety six Ragas, then prevalent in Mithila. There was a common script throughout the whole of northeastern India. Manuscripts in Maithili character have been noticed in Tibet by the late Mahapandit Rahul Sankrityayana. To most of the Bengali Pandits, who read Sanskrit at Mithila or elesewhere, this script was known as Tirhut or Tirhuta. There was hardly any difference between the old Bengali and Maithili alphabets. The similarity of the Maithili and the Bengali script has led some scholars to describe the former as a copy of the latter. The European scholars of the nineteenth century A. D. described it as the OJHA script, though the form of Tirhuta was known to them in 1771. The name Tirhuta is derived from Tirabhukti, by which name Mithila was known in the Gupta period. The earliest recorded epigraphic evidence of the script is to be found in the Mandar Hill Stone inscriptions of Adityasena (c. 7th century A. D.), now fixed in the Baidyanath temple, Deoghar. The next stage of the development of script can be gleaned through the terracotta plaque inscription of the La Sam 67 (in possession of the writer of these lines) discovered from Begusarai (Vide R.K. Chaudhary, Inscription of Bihar, p. 133). The development of the Maithili script can be studied with the help of the following inscriptions discovered in Mithila, viz. Shrinagar inscription, Andhratharki inscription, Asi-Matiahi inscription of Vardhamana of the Vilva-pancha dynasty, Khojpur Durga image inscription, Tilkeshwara temple inscription, Kandaha inscription of Narasimhadeva; Bhagirathpur inscription, Barantpur inscription of Sarva- Simhadeva, Bideshwara and Madhuravanishwar temple inscriptions and various others. They refer to the various forms of Maithili script through the ages. The MSS of Baudha Gan Doha, the Kurrukullasawana (noticed by Rahul Sankrityayana in Tibet), the Vishnupurana, the copy of the Karnaparva dated La Sam 327 (1447 A.D.), the Bhagwata in the handwriting of Vidyapati, the Gitagovinda of Karana Ratipati Bhagat and the judgement, written by Sachal Mishra in the 18th century A. D. are the living specimens of the Maithili script. Thousands of palm leaflets' MSS give evidence of the fact that the script was extensively used not only in Mithila but in other parts as well. In Mithila, a child begins to read and write with a set formulae "Siddhirastu" (let there be success). We have a reference to this particular word in the Dohakosha of Sarhapada. The couplet is as follows: "Let there be success - the formulae was my first lesson, but by feeding only on gruel I forgot the alphabet. Now I have learnt only a single letter; but I know not its name, O, my dear." The script had its beginning in the early years of the Christian era and living epigraphic specimen in the Vaishali region show a marked difference from its western variety of the Brahmi. From the sixth to the twelfth century A. D., it appears that there was almost a common script throughout eastern India, out of which the various scripts of eastern India have developed. The script, current from Varanasi to Assam in those days, was probably the eastern variety of Kutila. Some call it proto-Bengali or proto-Nagri, though in recent times the theory of Gaudiya script is gaining currency. Dr. S. K. Chatterji believes that the alphabets of both Maithili and Bengali have developed out of the common script of eastern India in the post-Gupta period. The Tibetan traveller, Dharmaswami, who visited Mithila in the first half of the thirteenth century A. D. and was honoured by the Karnata King, Ramasimhadeva, has mentioned the use of Vaivarta script. This was the proto-Maithili script then current in Mithila. It is evident from the inscriptions of Kanaka-bhanga (JBORS, II, pp. 355 ff) that upto the fifteenth century A.D. early Oriya and Maithili Scripts were very much similar. Acharya Parmananda Shastri has written an account of the origin of the Maithili script in a number of articles in the various issues of Mithila Mihira (Patna) and Pandit Rajeshwar Jha has published a detailed and exhaustive account of the origin and development of Maithili Script (Mithilaksaraka Udbhava Vikasa, Patna, 1971). Though there are grounds for difference of opinion regarding the theories propounded by him and to which attention has been drawn by Dr. S. K. Chatterjee in his letter (in an explicit manner), the fact remains that the book is the only authoritative published material on the development of Maithili script (incorporating all the latest researches). Some of his findings are far-fetched and in most cases unacceptable.” (A Survey of Maithili Literature, Radhakrishna Choudhary, 1976) "Three alphabets, Maithili, Kaithi and Devanagari, are in use in modern times for writing Maithili. The use of Mithilakshara is now limited to the Maithili Brahmanas and Karana Kayasthas who use this script on all ceremonial and religious occasions. After independence, the Kaithi script has been replaced by the Devanagari character. The use of Maithili script is becoming more and more restricted as a large number of writers have begun to use Devanagari script for all purposes. Like Gujrati and Marathi, the Maithili writers have opted out for the common Devanagari script. A movement for the revival of the old script is, no doubt, there but there is hardly any chance of replacing Devanagari script by Mithilakshara, which is getting obsolete day by day." (A Reference Grammar of Maithili, Ramawatar Yadav, 2011)
Dineschandra Sircar on the similarity between Maithili script and Bengali script, their origins, says, "The Bengali script used in the record does not really suggest that the construction, to which the stone belonged, was situated somewhere in Bengal. It is difficult to assume that the materials of the building were carried to a long distance to be utilized in building a mosque in the Patna District. It should be remembered on the other hand that the use of the Bengali (or Bengali-Maithili) script was prevalent in the medieval period at least in East and North Bihar. Some modern records of the Santal Parganas prove the use not only of the Bengali Sal and the Bengali script, but also of the Bengali language. The Mandaragiriprakaranam, incised on the right-hand side pier in the porch in the temple of Baidyanath at Deoghar about the junction of the Districts of Monghyr, Bhagalpur and Santal Parganas, is written in the Gauḍīya script from which the East Indian alphabets developed. Moreover, the script of Mithila in North Bihar is even now practically the same as the Bengali alphabet. That the temple was situated in Bihar is not only supported by the provenance of the record and its palaeographical similarities with the Biharsharif inscription of 1395 A.D. discussed above, but probably also by its date which is given in Vikrama-Samvata and is also called Rudhirodgarin according to the Northern Cycle of Jupiter. The use of an era was not popular in ancient Bengal. The Saka era, popular in the Deccan, was popularised into the country during the age of the Senas who originally belonged to Karnata in the South. The use of the Vikrama era, however, never became popular in Bengal. Naming the years of the date according to Jupiter’s Cycle, Northern or Southern, is also practically unknown in the country. On the other hand, the popularity of the Vikrama Samvat in Uttar Pradesh and of the said era as well as of the years of the Northern Cycle of Jupiter is noticed in the central and western regions of India as well. Its influence can also be traced on the medieval epigraphy of Bihar.' Thus the temple referred to in the inscription was situated in the Biharsharif region." (Some Epigraphical Records of the Medieval Period from Eastern India, Dineschandra Sircar, 1979) "Gangesa Upadhyay of Mithila and Raghunatha Shiromani of Nabadwip developed a new version of Nyaya Shastra known as Navya Nyaya School of Indian Philosophy to combat with the logic of Buddhism Philosophy and to defeat them to minimise Buddhism’s influence. They established a new University for Hindu philosophy at Nabadwip (Nadia district) known as Nabadwip University or Nadia University. Vasudeva Sarvabhauma was once prevented from copying the texts of Mithila University, then he committed to memorize the whole parts of Tattav Chintamani and the metrical part of Kusumanjali. He then wrote down the texts at Nadia, which he memorized and helped in the establishment of the new University at Nadia. Mahamahopadhyaya Gokulnath (1650-1750) was the scholar of Maithili who migrated to Nadia to contribute in the establishment of new school of logic known as ‘Navya Nyaya’. This led to the decline of the reputation and importance of Mithila. From here Nadia emerged as second center of learning of Hindu Philosophy. Gurukuls of the Vedic period in India can be called the ancient form of University because they had a system of higher education. Later, in the Upanishads and the Brahmanical period, we find the "Council" functioning as a University. These councils held conferences of scholarly teachers and students and were authorized to confer degrees. The Ancient Mithila University was gradually started from the philosophical conferences held by Janaka, the king of Mithila at his court. There was a council of philosophical Conferences in the Mithila University know as Mithila Darshanik Sammelan Parishad. The council was founded by the King Janaka at his court. The council was holding philosophical conferences at the court of the King Janaka. These philosophical conferences led to the formation of a seat of learning and this seat of learning converted into the University of Mithila. It was the prominent seat of Brahmanical system of education." (Jha, Bishwambhar (2010). "Education in Early Mithila: A Reappraisal". Proceedings of the Indian History Congress. 71: 160–164. ISSN 2249-1937. JSTOR 44147484.)
