BANGLADESH, TRAVEL WRITERS AND TOURISM.

The first recorded tourist arrived in Bangladesh in the 3^rd Century. Fa Xiang was a Chinese Buddhist monk whose comprehensive account of his travels has provided us with some insight into the history of the region, and particularly to the enormous part played there in the development and spread of Buddhism.

In the 7^th Century another Chinese Buddhist Monk followed much the same route as Fa Xiang, and it seems that a few hundred years had done nothing to diminish the great monuments that the Emperor Ashoka erected in the 3^rd Century BCE to mark the progress of The Buddha.

On the Jamuna River

The greatest travel writer of them all, Ptolemy, in the 2^nd Century CE shows that his informants were very familiar with the lands of Bangladesh, listing cities that are, only now, being identified. Not the least of them, the possibility that his Ramu is the same Ramu that still exists close to the great tourist destination of modern times, Cox’s Bazar.

Ptolemy's Map of the Ganges Delta

The first recorded outbound tourist was probably another Buddhist, Atish Dipankar, known within the religion as the ‘Second Buddha’, the man who restored the religion in Tibet. He is recorded, as a young man, taking his own ‘Gap Year’, and travelling with a group of Gem Merchants to Java and Sumatra in the 11^th Century.

Pagoda built to commemorate Atish Dipankar

These days, Bangladesh is widely neglected by tourists and writers alike. Despite its rich and colourful history, and one of the finest natural environments in the world, contemporary travellers seem less savvy than those of ancient times, regarding Bangladesh, apparently, as an almost invisible adjunct to India.

Tajhat Palace

One travel company in Bangladesh has developed the rather aggressive proposition, ‘More History than India, More Beaches than Malaysia, and More Buddhism than Nepal’. All of which, of course, is true. And it is ironic that it was probably the Silk Road, and traffic to and through it, that accounts for much of the tangible history that India can show today, to entice the writers and the travellers, the same Silk Road which, of course, ran through present day Bangladesh. 

Hemnagor Zaminderbari

The Main Entrance

The detail and the jewel like quality of the intricate mosaic work of the fascia and entrance of this remarkably well preserved palace, close to the east bank of the Jamuna River, reveals a probable date of construction.

Intricate, Skilled Mosaic Work

Dhamrai Palace, the ‘Glass Mosque’ at Saidpur, and mansions and palaces at Sonargaon all date from the same decade, around the 1850s. All these buildings were evidently sufficiently well built, or sufficiently far from the epicentre to survive, unlike so many others, the disastrous 1897 Great India Earthquake. In this case however, the palace, known as The Angle House, is said to have been constructed around 1890. More research will be needed to attempt to establish the origins and development of this particular architectural skill!

The Entry Vestibule

Such mosaic work, created from broken pieces of pottery, porcelain or glass, is a common feature of ‘shop houses’ of South East Asia, such as in Malacca, Malaysia, and Singapore.

Crest above the Main Entrance

It seems reasonable to suppose that around 1850 Chinese craftsmen were brought into Bangladesh by the then rulers, the East India Company. Whether it is likely that the same great skills would have been available 50 years later seems debatable.

Mosaic Columns at Hemnagor Zaminderbari

Whatever the truth, this lovely construct, said to have been built by Hem Chandra Chowdhury a Hindu, property developer and businessman who was certainly the incumbent Zaminder in 1900 when he constructed Hemnagar Shashi Mukhi English High School named after his mother, is certainly one of the least decayed of the 100 or so palaces in Bangladesh.

Fine Architectural Detail

Is it possible, one wonders, that Hem Chandra Chowdhury only acquired the rights of Zaminder late in the 18^th Century and acquired the palace with his acquisition? There is, of course, an answer to such a question, and perhaps, when we tire of unlocking Bangladesh, we might find time to search the records of the India Office, or, indeed, of the East India Company itself, for some answer.

Concrete and Mosaic Columns

Meanwhile, what we can say is that Hem Chandra Chowdhury’s greatest claim to fame, perhaps, is having been involved in the Sub Continent’s first legal case about real estate development, in the late 19^th Century.

The Neo Classical Inner Courtyard

A Hindu himself, he is possibly responsible for the nearby community of Hindu pottery craftsmen, who still practice their skills where they have for over a hundred years.

BALIHAR PALACE, NAOGAON.

Balihar Palace

This fascinating palace reveals at least three generations of construction, making it one of the most interesting sites in Bangladesh.

The Mughal influence is quite clear in the fairly well preserved remains of what is clearly the most ancient part of the palace, which suggests that, like Natore Rajbari not so far away, its origins lie in the earliest Zaminder developments of the late 16^th Century.

Outstanding Mughal period features lie behind a late 19^th Century entrance in the neo classical style. The Temple, which lies beside this older part of the palace, appears to be of the same period.  This structure confirms that the Mughals too found Hindu Zaminders as acceptable as the later East India Company seems to have found them desirable, presumably the latter based on the tried and tested British Imperialism tradition of ‘divide and rule’.

The fascia of the temple has, as is often the case, been defaced with a corrugated iron canopy, but both on the temple, and within the courtyard of the palaces, fine terracotta panels show scenes of life and faith.

'Staircase to Nowhere', Balihar Palace

Intriguing is the broad, tall stairway to nowhere that lies facing the temple, and at right angles to the palace. It might be assumed it was once the grand entrance, as at Tajhat Palace in Rangpur, to another palace building. One, perhaps, that collapsed, like so many, in the Great India Earthquake of 1897.

The greater, more contemporary, neoclassical palace lies behind the original Mughal structure.  This may support the theory of a disappeared building since the earlier extant palace obviously survived the earthquake and the newer construction dates from the late 19^th century or early twentieth century.

Part of this building has been used, most recently, as a school building, though it is impossible to judge whether that meant it was better maintained, or more abused. The great building is certainly in a semi ruinous state.

There is more to see here than at most estates, and perhaps more for the architectural historian to consider. Altogether, even in an area with so many palaces and an extraordinary number of remains of ancient Buddhist Vihara, visitors will find it is worth the time and trouble to find and explore Balihar Palace.

FLAME TREES OF BANGLADESH

Delonix Regia

Between April and June Bangladesh is ‘on fire’ with the extensive blooming of the ‘Delonix Regia’ along highways, byways, streets, paths and parks.

Known in English as Royal Poinciana, and one of the species of tree referred to around the world as Flame Trees, in Bangladesh, with its delicate, fern like leaves, and its flamboyant scarlet and crimson covering of blossom, it is called ‘Krishnachara’: the Crown of Lord Krishna.

The tree has extensive root systems which are sometimes regarded as nuisance, preventing undergrowth, but it is hard not to forgive that for the two months or so it so enlivens the environment.

Flame Tree or Royal Poinciana

With yellow and purple blooming varieties as well it is certainly one of the stars of a spring in Bangladesh that is famed for its luxuriant palette of colours, including a far wider variety of green shades than the average water colour box!

MAHAYANA BUDDHISM. BORN IN BANGLADESH.

The home of Mahayana Buddhism is often regarded as being Tibet. In fact however, there is growing evidence that a hitherto unconsidered location may be where this more ‘liberal’ school of Buddhism first emerged. Bangladesh, one of the world’s largest Islamic states with a strong cultural tradition in its Sunni majority, has long been recognized as having a considerable Buddhist background that was, almost literally, wiped out by the 12^th and 13^th Century raiders and invaders from Afghanistan and Persia.

Varendra Research Museum

A survey of the Buddhist collection of the Varendra Museum reveals art, sculptural and architectural detail from over 50 locations in North Bangladesh alone. Such a large concentration of sites in such a small area of the world certainly justifies consideration.

Buddhist Sculpture, Varendra Museum

Early investigation of the Buddhist history of Bangladesh commenced in the mid and late 19^th Century, largely under the influence of British archaeologists. With partition in 1947 and the very emotive environment surrounding that process, and later, the disastrous and genocidal Liberation War in 1971, meant there was neither the incentive, not the resources to continue the work that was first effectively formalized in 1910, with the foundation of Varendra Research Museum in Rajshahi
.

There is little doubt that Prince Gautama, the Buddha himself, while under the patronage of King Bimbisara the Magadha ruler, preached in North Bengal the north western province of Bangladesh. Indeed Early Chinese visitors in the Common Era noted Ashokan Pillars erected to mark the places of the Buddha’s preaching as well as a stupa, also erected by the great emperor, built over a bodily remain of the great prince.

It was about the same time, in the 5^th and 4^th Centuries BCE, that the earliest of the Aryans are believed to have followed the Dravidians into the largely forested lands of the Ganges Delta, bringing with them early Vedic Hindu beliefs. These beliefs show a considerable merging with more traditional and pagan beliefs, not least the worship of Saura, the Sun God, the worship of whom is believed by some historians to have motivated the flow of the great Aryan diasporas, including the Celts, who are said to have travelled in search of the resting place of the Sun God during his nocturnal disappearances, and the famous Mother Goddess, whose worship continued in Europe through Roman times.

Bodhisattva Sculpture

The result, in these Gangetic lands, was fusion of a number of developing faiths and philosophies. Much of the evidence of that fusion as the foundation of Mahayana Buddhism lies in the art recovered from the many ruined Vihara that are numerous across the vast plains of the delta.

Those who describe Mahayana Buddhism as ‘originating in India’ are, perhaps, being a little disingenuous; ancient India comprised the entire subcontinent, including both Pakistan and Bangladesh. The ‘rediscovery’ of the extent of Buddhist archaeology, particularly in northern Bangladesh, and suggested reason for its heartland around the wealth and communications, as well as the peaceful environment around the great trading routes, reinforces the view that the ‘power house’ of development was less limited geographically than previously thought.

Votive Stupa

The Mahayana School, of course, is actually a collection of philosophical approaches to attaining enlightenment: Zen, Pinyin (Pure Land), Tendai and Nichiren, as well as the ‘esoteric’ traditions that are regarded as associated with Shingon and Tibetan Buddhism.

Zen, the attainment of enlightenment through experience rather than theory, seems very likely to have found early expression in Bangladesh, where Buddhism is so clearly part of a strong commercial and trading tradition.

Pinyin, or Pure Land, derives from the example of Amitabha Buddha, who is said to have been a king who gave up his throne after attaining enlightenment. The location of this origin is unknown, though theorized across the Buddhist world. The assortment of ‘realms’ or kingdoms surrounding the South West Silk Road must clearly widen the field of contenders, at the very least. But, once again, the intensity of the concentration of monasteries/vihara in Bangladesh, together with the identification of Vihara such as Paharpur(Somapara) and Jagaddala as both major centres of learning, and with evidence such as the reproduction of Paharpur design in Cambodia, Java and Sumatra, suggest that there was, at least, considerable development from within the area.

Ruins of Jagaddala Vihara

Tendai, or ‘Lotus School’, is in many ways, even more interesting since the unearthing of a 3^rd/6^th Century Lotus Temple in the great trading centre at Wari Bateshwar on the Brahmaputra in Bangladesh. The 13^th Century development in Japan of Nichiren, based on the Lotus Sutra, surely derives from such centres of international study as that at Vikrampur in Bangladesh, known, in the middle of 11^th Century to be a very considerable centre of study, from which Atish Dipankar left to travel to Tibet.

Pagoda built by the government of the People's Republic of China to to commemorate Atish Dipankar

The emerging evidence of the existence of a further ‘Silk Road’ which passed between West, South and South East utilizing the Brahmaputra for access towards the Himalayan passes through Tibet, and Myanmar/Yunnan, a route accessed by Grand Trunk Road from Indus and Arabian Sea, and by Ganges, as well as, of course, the sea itself, that carried Malaysian Tin to the developing Bronze Age in China, and such as Money Cowries from Bay of Bengal and Southern Ocean, centuries before the Common Era, explains, too, both the wealth that financed the development, and the routes by which early Buddhism spread across Central, East and South East Asia.

Buddhist Vihara Somapura, Paharpur, Naogaon

The art recovered includes an astonishing number of Hindu images from Vihara, as well as early Bodhisattva images commonly associated with Tibetan Buddhism. It is widely accepted that Vajrayana and associated exotic practices such as Tantric and Yogic meditations derive from the Mahayana school, and represent this very close fusion with other and more ancient beliefs and practices.

Buddhist Sculpture

It is, under the circumstances of identifying this unique environment of history, study, peace and wealth, unsurprising that it may now be thought likely that, after all, the cradle of these beliefs, still so strongly held and practiced, especially amongst Buddhist followers in East and South East Asia, as well as amongst the huge diversity of others seeking de-stressing practices in their lives, across the world, has finally been identified, in Bangladesh!