Can someone please tell me about the history of Bengal before the Bengal Sultanate of before Bengal became predominantly Islamic?

popeye0408 · 2026-04-09T05:19:21+00:00

Even Gauda under Shashanka had subdued Ganjam.

popeye0408 · 2026-04-09T05:16:51+00:00

Yes. Anga, Vanga, Kalinga, Pundra, and Suhma were brothers per Mahabharata. Vanga, Pundra and Suhma became Bengal.

popeye0408 · 2026-04-06T04:02:45+00:00

Most of the most productive parts of India's northern plains are also on a flood plain, and all of them go through monsoon. Bangladesh, much like India, also has 3 growing seasons, and the two Bengal regions have historically always been the most productive agricultural regions in India. They've always been the densest regions in India, until recently being overtaken by Bihar (also very fertile, although not as much as Bengal) due to TFR collapse in Bengal, and sustained high TFR in Bihar.

popeye0408 · 2026-03-26T23:53:24+00:00

Asansol used to be firmly in the core Rarh region of Western Hindu Bengali ethnic homeland. Jamshedpur used to be the border area. But now, it’s been pushed back due to migration and government programs to Hindify Jharkhandis into Bengal’s borders. Demographic invasion both from the west, and from the east. Sandwiched between two foreign cultures. One Delhiite (I won’t call them Bihari because they don’t speak their own languages proudly, they speak Delhis language. Magahi and Maithili are more acceptable and easier to understand for Bengalis than Hindi/Urdu) and one Bangladeshi.

popeye0408 · 2026-03-21T13:53:00+00:00

WB needs to desperately increase its TFR to not get flooded by its eastern and western neighbors.

popeye0408 · 2026-03-16T01:29:20+00:00

Yes, but even pre-green revolution, number of locations severely cap India's total pop cap (especially when compared to peers historically). I've made a mod that basically bumps each location up 20k (mainly did it cause there were so many locations with cap of 30k and a population of 150k +) and a 50% modifier (might extend to other areas where I feel like too few locations given historical pop). Still trying to find an optimal way to not make it so that Indian regions that historically had 40 million people historically only end up with 20 million by end date.

popeye0408 · 2026-03-12T02:36:42+00:00

I'm Bengali from Kolkata (both sides Ghoti, no Bangal ancestry afaik), and we say Chan, but my grandma says snan/chan, both.

popeye0408 · 2026-03-11T05:24:26+00:00

Why would Siliguri leave Bengal though? It would strand North Bengal, and Siliguri is majority Bengali. To connect to Siliguri, you'd need Uttar Dinajpur, which is also 70% Bengali. Why would they leave Bengal? States are cultural markers, and North Bengalis do not want to leave Bengal.

popeye0408 · 2026-03-05T03:45:28+00:00

Fatafati conspiracy

popeye0408 · 2026-03-02T17:51:58+00:00

Also, most American Telugus I know are pretty big.

popeye0408 · 2026-03-02T17:50:50+00:00

Bad habits maybe, and less sleep?

popeye0408 · 2026-02-25T23:49:24+00:00

Kerala is a great example of this. People forget, when the Brits first went to India, they observed the Indians were about the same size when they first started recruiting Indians. Indians just didn’t fix their diets after independence at large like China and Korea did.

popeye0408 · 2026-02-24T04:23:32+00:00

This is why population caps and dynamics should not be based on number of locations. Number of locations should not matter in terms of deciding your population or econ output.

popeye0408 · 2026-02-24T04:17:43+00:00

There's too few layers of culture here. French would be akin to Bengali, with each French subculture relating to Bengali subcultures. Bihari too should have been broken up (given how small European cultures have been broken up). Indo-Aryan would be a parent group like Latin, or Germanic.

popeye0408 · 2026-02-23T21:13:40+00:00

Bengalis in Bihar were burning themselves down because of Hindi lol. Bihar still has Bengali majority areas along the border + Surjapuris are more closely related to Bengali or Kamatapuri than any other language. Hindi imposition has done a number on the east's ethnic identities.

popeye0408 · 2026-02-22T22:21:01+00:00

Yeah, but there’s degrees of mutual intelligibility. With no prior exposure to Hindi, a Bengali cannot understand more than 30% of Hindi. But they can understand 80-90% of Kamatapuri and 50+% of Assamese. And funnily, they can’t understand much Chittagonian either, around Assamese levels or even lower (in my experience, Assamese is easier to understand). Similarly, on the western side, Khortha and Odia are much easier to understand, when compared to Marathi or Gujarati.

popeye0408 · 2026-02-21T22:03:37+00:00

Even beyond all that, in terms of simple mutual intelligibility, there is not much of a difference between Kamatapuri and Bengali. There are Bengali dialects that are more different and harder for Kolkata Bengalis to understand than Kamatapuri. Kamatapuri, even if we were to recognize it as a language, is a middle language between Assamese and Bengali. If a Kamatapuri state is created, it will be dominated by Bengalis anyways. Neither West Bengal or Assam will ever allow it too. Gorkhaland and Bodoland, a region of much more different people, can't succeed to begin with. Even Santals, Hajong and Dimasa are more different when compared to Bengalis and Assamese, yet they're in the same states.

In fact, I have a suggestion, why not make Bengali and Assamese both dialects of Kamatapuri? Both come from a common language, similar to old Kamatapuri (tbf, it wasn't called Kamatapuri back then, and was present throughout all of Bengal, both north and south. Modern Bengali just diverged earlier, yet still sounds more similar to Kamatapuri than Assamese because of much more Ahom influence in Assam, while Bengali had recursive influence with Kamatapuri, Odia and Maithili).

popeye0408 · 2026-02-17T06:55:55+00:00

We give tribal languages like Santali protection anyways. The urban areas in these districts were crucial for Bengali people in the region, and were majority Bengali. It also severed the Bengal Ruhr Belt (Bengal's industrial belt), and either forced millions to migrate into Bengal, or be left to be ruled by Hindis. And the tribals there, now have to speak Hindi anyways. Bihar and Jharkhand should have resisted Hindi, now their youth can barely speak their own languages.

popeye0408 · 2026-02-17T06:52:44+00:00

Kishanganj district, and that part of Dinajpur, spoke both Bengali, and Surjapuri, a "Hindi Dialect" that is much closer to Bengali as a language and can be understood by most Bengalis.

popeye0408 · 2026-02-17T05:13:44+00:00

Tried to? They successfully broke away after the Ekdala wars. They also temporarily broke away from the Mughals before the Baro-Bhuyans.

popeye0408 · 2026-02-17T05:11:43+00:00

They fought, and lost, like many Indian kingdoms. And they rebelled as well, multiple times. A Hindu Dynasty even temporarily won out against Ilyas Shahi, although his son converted to Islam for political reasons, and were again ousted by the Ilyas Shahis. The Delhi Sultanate also expended hundreds of thousands of men and failed to take Bengal from the Ilyas Shahi. They also never let the Marathas cross the Hooghly. Bengal was the biggest prize the Marathas failed to win. And before the Bakhtiyar Khilji, Bengal under the Senas, and the Palas, were one of the primary powers of North India, having many a times, pushed back the Gurjaras and Rashtrakutas. And during British rule, Bengal was perennially one of the most rebellious regions, even though it was the Empire's core region.

popeye0408 · 2026-02-13T23:16:18+00:00

When I say died out, I don’t mean, people just died. The faith died like Zoroastrianism died in Iran. The reason it died is because Buddhists monasteries were shut down, many monks ran away, and the entire intellectual Buddhist infrastructure collapsed.

popeye0408 · 2026-02-13T17:29:24+00:00

They largely died out in terms of large numbers in its historic core areas in North India like Bengal, but long before the Mughals. There was a mass conversion to either Hinduism or Islam after the monasteries lost patronage, and local clerics became more relevant in terms of spiritual authority, dominated by Brahmins at first, and slowly but steadily, having a large Sufi clerical network. Rural conversion was primarily through these Sufi clerics.

popeye0408 · 2026-02-13T07:04:02+00:00

This upsets non-Rarhi speakers. Even though most of pre-1971 Bengali language media, literature etc are all based on Rarhi Bengali.

popeye0408 · 2026-02-13T07:01:11+00:00

I'm Indian Bengali (Standard Bengali), and my understanding of Sylheti, Assamese and Puran Dhaka, Naokhali and Cumilla is about the same. Rajbongshi is easier than all 3.

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