Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Bedlam" to "Benson, George"

Chapter XX: Act 1534: , the power to grant such dispensations, which had been (2)

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_History._--The history of so large a province as Bengal forms an integral part of the general history of India. The northern part, Behar (q.v.), constituted the ancient kingdom of Magadha, the nucleus of the imperial power of the successive great dynasties of the Mauryas, Andhras and Guptas; and its chief town, Patna, is the ancient Pataliputra (the Palimbothra of the Greeks), once the capital of India. The Delta or southern part of Bengal lay beyond the ancient Sanskrit polity, and was governed by a number of local kings belonging to a pre-Aryan stock. The Chinese travellers, Fa Hien in the 5th century, and Hsuan Tsang in the 7th century, found the Buddhist religion prevailing throughout Bengal, but already in a fierce struggle with Hinduism--a struggle which ended about the 9th or 10th century in the general establishment of the latter faith. Until the end of the 12th century Hindu princes governed in a number of petty principalities, till, in 1199, Mahommed Bakhtiyar Khilji was appointed to lead the first Mussulman invasion into Bengal. The Mahommedan conquest of Behar dates from 1197 A.D., and the new power speedily spread southwards into the delta. From about this date until 1340 Bengal was ruled by governors appointed by the Mahommedan emperors in the north. From 1340 to 1539 its governors asserted a precarious independence, and arrogated the position of sovereigns on their own account. From 1540 to 1576 Bengal passed under the rule of the Pathan or Afghan dynasty, which commonly bears the name of Sher Shah. On the overthrow of this house by the powerful arms of Akbar, Bengal was incorporated into the Mogul empire, and administered by governors appointed by the Delhi emperor, until the treaties of 1765, which placed Bengal, Behar and Orissa under the administration of the East India Company. The Company formed its earliest settlements in Bengal in the first half of the 17th century. These settlements were of a purely commercial character. In 1620 one of the Company's factors dates from Patna; in 1624-1636 the Company established itself, by the favour of the emperor, on the ruins of the ancient Portuguese settlement of Pippli, in the north of Orissa; in 1640-1642 an English surgeon, Gabriel Boughton, obtained establishments at Balasore, also in Orissa, and at Hugli, some miles above Calcutta. The vexations and extortions to which the Company's early agents were subjected more than once almost induced them to abandon the trade, and in 1677-1678 they threatened to withdraw from Bengal altogether. In 1685, the Bengal factors, driven to extremity by the oppression of the Mogul governors, threw down the gauntlet; and after various successes and hairbreadth escapes, purchased from the grandson of Aurangzeb, in 1696, the villages which have since grown up into Calcutta, the metropolis of India. During the next fifty years the British had a long and hazardous struggle alike with the Mogul governors of the province and the Mahratta armies which invaded it. In 1756 this struggle culminated in the great outrage known as the Black Hole of Calcutta, followed by Clive's battle of Plassey and capture of Calcutta, which avenged it. That battle, and the subsequent years of confused fighting, established British military supremacy in Bengal, and procured the treaties of 1765, by which the provinces of Bengal, Behar and Orissa passed under British administration. To Warren Hastings (1772-1785) belongs the glory of consolidating the British power, and converting a military occupation into a stable civil government. To another member of the civil service, John Shore, afterwards Lord Teignmouth (1786-1793), is due the formation of a regular system of Anglo-Indian legislation. Acting through Lord Cornwallis, then governor-general, he ascertained and defined the rights of the landholders in the soil. These landholders under the native system had started, for the most part, as collectors of the revenues, and gradually acquired certain prescriptive rights as quasi-proprietors of the estates entrusted to them by the government. In 1793 Lord Cornwallis declared their rights perpetual, and made over the land of Bengal to the previous quasi-proprietors or _zamindars_, on condition of the payment of a fixed land tax. This piece of legislation is known as the Permanent Settlement of the Land Revenue. But the Cornwallis code, while defining the rights of the proprietors, failed to give adequate recognition to the rights of the undertenants and the cultivators. His Regulations formally reserved the latter class of rights, but did not legally define them, or enable the husbandmen to enforce them in the courts. After half a century of rural disquiet, the rights of the cultivators were at length carefully formulated by Act X. of 1859. This measure, now known as the land law of Bengal, effected for the rights of the under-holders and cultivators what the Cornwallis code in 1793 had effected for those of the superior landholders. The status of each class of persons interested in the soil, from the government as suzerain, through the _zamindars_ or superior landholders, the intermediate tenure-holders and the undertenants, down to the actual cultivator, is now clearly defined. The act dates from the first year after the transfer of India from the company to the crown; for the mutiny burst out in 1857. The transactions of that revolt chiefly took place in northern India, and are narrated in the article INDIAN MUTINY. In Bengal the rising began at Barrackpore, was communicated to Dacca in Eastern Bengal, and for a time raged in Behar, producing the memorable defence of the billiard-room at Arrah by a handful of civilians and Sikhs--one of the most splendid pieces of gallantry in the history of the British arms. Since 1858, when the country passed to the crown, the history of Bengal has been one of steady progress. Five great lines of railway have been constructed. Trade has enormously expanded; new centres of commerce have sprung up in spots which formerly were silent jungles; new staples of trade, such as tea and jute, have rapidly attained importance; and the coalfields and iron ores have opened up prospects of a new and splendid era in the internal development of the country.

During the decade 1891-1901 Bengal was fortunate in escaping to a great extent the two calamities of famine and plague which afflicted central and western India. The drought of 1896-1897 did indeed extend to Bengal, but not to such an extent as to cause actual famine. The distress was most acute in the densely populated districts of northern Behar, and in the remote hills of Chota Nagpur. Plague first appeared at Calcutta in a sporadic form in April 1898, but down to April of the following year the total number of deaths ascribed to plague throughout the province was less than 1000, compared with 191,000 for Bombay. At the beginning of 1900, however, there was a serious recrudescence of plague at Calcutta, and a malignant outbreak in the district of Patna, which caused 1000 deaths a week. In the early months of 1901, plague again appeared in the same regions. The number of deaths in 1904 was 75,436, the highest recorded up to that date.

The earthquake of the 12th of June 1897, which had its centre of disturbance in Assam, was felt throughout eastern and northern Bengal. In all the large towns the masonry buildings were severely damaged or totally wrecked. The permanent way of the railways also suffered. The total number of deaths returned was only 135. Far more destructive to life was the cyclone and storm-wave that broke over Chittagong district on the night of the 24th of October 1897. Apart from damage to shipping and buildings, the low-lying lands along the coast were completely submerged, and in many villages half the inhabitants were drowned. The loss of human lives was reported to be about 14,000, and the number of cattle drowned about 15,000. As usual in such cases, a severe outbreak of cholera followed in the track of the storm-wave. Another natural calamity on a large scale occurred at Darjeeling in October 1899. Torrential rains caused a series of landslips, carrying away houses and breaking up the hill railway.

The most notable event, however, of recent times was the partition of the province, which was decided upon by Lord Curzon, and carried into execution in October 1905. Serious popular agitation followed this step, on the ground (_inter alia_) that the Bengali population, the centre of whose interests and prosperity was Calcutta, would now be divided under two governments, instead of being concentrated and numerically dominant under the one; while the bulk would be in the new division. In 1906-1909 the unrest developed to a considerable extent, requiring special attention from the Indian and home governments; but as part of the general history of India the movement may be best discussed under that heading (see INDIA: _History_).

See Parliamentary Papers relating to the reconstitution of the
provinces of Bengal and Assam (Cd. 2658 and Cd. 2746, 1905); Colonel
E.T. Dalton, _The Ethnology of Bengal_ (1872); Sir W.W. Hunter,
_Annals of Rural Bengal_ (1868), and _Orissa_ (1872); Sir H.H. Risley,
_Tribes and Castes of Bengal_ (1891); C.E. Buckland, _Bengal under the
Lieutenant-Governors_ (1901); and Sir James Bourdillon, _The Partition
of Bengal_ (Society of Arts, 1905).

BENGAL, BAY OF, a portion of the Indian Ocean, resembling a triangle in shape, lying between India and Burma. A zone 50 m. wide extending from the island of Ceylon and the Coromandel coast to the head of the bay, and thence southwards through a strip embracing the Andaman and Nicobar islands, is bounded by the 100 fathom line of sea bottom; some 50 m. beyond this lies the 500-fathom limit. Opposite the mouth of the Ganges, however, the intervals between these depths are very much extended by deltaic influence. The bay receives many large rivers, of which the most important are the Ganges and Brahmaputra on the north, the Irrawaddy on the east, and the Mahanadi, Godavari, Kistna and Cauvery on the west. On the west coast it has no harbours, Madras having a mere open roadstead, but on the east there are many good ports, such as Akyab, Moulmein, Rangoon and Tavoy river. The islands in the bay are very numerous, including the Andaman, Nicobar and Mergui groups. The group of islands, Cheduba and others, in the north-east, off the Burmese coast, are remarkable for a chain of mud volcanoes, which are occasionally active. Thus in December 1906 a new island of mud was thrown up, and measured 307 by 217 yds.

BENGALI, with ORIYA and ASSAMESE, three of the four forms of speech which compose the Eastern Group of the Indo-Aryan Languages (q.v.). This group includes all the Aryan languages spoken in India east of the longitude of Benares, and its members are the following:--

Number of speakers in
British India, 1901.
Bengali 44,624,048
Oriya 9,687,429
Assamese 1,350,846
Bihari 34,579,844
----------
Total 90,242,167

Of these Bihari is treated separately. In the present article we shall devote ourselves to the examination of Bengali together with the two other closely connected languages. The reader is throughout assumed to be in possession of the facts described under the heads INDO-ARYAN LANGUAGES and PRAKRIT.

Language.

Bengali is spoken in the province of Bengal proper, i.e. in, and on both sides of the delta of the Ganges, and also in the Eastern Bengal portion of the province of Eastern Bengal and Assam. The name "Bengali" is an English word, derived from the English word "Bengal." Natives call the language _Banga-Bhasa_, or the language of Banga, i.e. "Bengal." "Oriya" is the native name for the language of Odra or Orissa. Assamese, again an English word, is spoken in the Assam Valley. Its native name is _Asamiya_, pronounced _Ohamiya_. All these languages have alphabets derived from early forms of the well-known Nagari character of northern India. That of Bengali dates from about the 11th century A.D. It is a cursive script which admits of considerable speed in writing. The Assamese alphabet is the same as that of Bengali, but has one additional character to represent the sound of _w_, which has to be expressed in the former language in a very awkward fashion. In Orissa, till lately, writing was done on a talipot palm-leaf, on which the letters were scratched with an iron stylus. In such circumstances straight lines would tend to split the leaf, and accordingly the alphabet received a peculiar curved appearance typical of it and of one or two other South Indian methods of writing.

The three languages are all the immediate descendants of Magadhi Prakrit (see PRAKRIT), the headquarters of which were in south Behar, near the modern city of Patna. From here it spread in three lines--southwards, where it developed into Oriya; south-eastwards into Bengal proper, where it became Bengali; and eastwards, through Northern Bengal, into Assam, where it became Assamese. It thus appears that the language of Northern Bengal, though usually and conveniently treated as a dialect of Bengali, is not so in reality, but is a connecting link between Assamese and Bihari, the language of Behar. It is noteworthy that Northern Bengali and Assamese often agree in their grammar with Oriya, as against standard Bengali.

Omitting border forms of speech, Bengali, as a vernacular, has two main dialects, a western and an eastern, the former being the standard. The boundary-line between the two may be roughly put at the 89th degree of east longitude. The eastern dialect has many marked peculiarities, amongst which we may mention a tendency to disaspiration, the pronunciation of _c_ as _ts_, of _ch_ as _s_, and of _j_ as _z_. In the northern part of the tract a medial _r_ is often elided, and in the extreme east there is a broader pronunciation of the vowel _a_, like that in the English word "ball," _k_ is sounded like the _ch_ in "loch," and both _c_ and _ch_ are pronounced like _s_. The letter _p_ is often sounded like _w_, and _s_ like _h_, which again, when initial, is dropped. The distinction between cerebral and dental letters is lost, so that the words _ath_ and _sat_ are both pronounced _'at_. In the south-east, near Chittagong, corruption has gone even further, and the local dialect, which is practically a new language, is unintelligible to a man from Western Bengal. Throughout the eastern districts there is a strong tendency to epenthesis, e.g. _kali_ is pronounced _kail_. A more important dialectic difference in Bengali is that between the literary speech and the vernacular. The literary vocabulary is highly Sanskritized, so much so that it is not understood by any native of Bengal who has not received special instruction in it. Its grammar preserves numerous archaic or pseudo-archaic forms, which are invariably contracted in the colloquial speech of even the most highly educated. For instance, "I do" is expressed in the literary dialect by _karitechi_, but in the vernacular by _korcci_ or _kocci_. Oriya and Assamese may be said to have no dialects. There are a few local variations, but the standard form of speech, as a whole, is used everywhere in the respective tracts where the languages are spoken.

The three languages, being all children of a common parent, present many similar features. Oriya on the whole preserves the usual accentuation of the Indo-Aryan Languages (q.v.), seldom having the stress syllable farther back than the antepenultimate. Bengali, on the other hand, throws the accent as far back as possible, and this produces the contracted forms which we observe in the colloquial language, the first syllable of a word being strongly accented, and the rest being hurried over. Literary Bengali preserves the full form of the word, and in reading aloud this full form is adhered to. Assamese follows Bengali in its accentuation, but the language has never been the toy of euphuism. In its literature colloquial words are employed, and are written as they are pronounced colloquially.

In the following account of the three languages, Bengali, literary and
colloquial, will be primarily dealt with, and then the points of
difference between it and the other two will be described.
Abbreviations used: A. = Assamese, Bg. = Bengali, O. = Oriya, Pr. =
Prakrit, Mg. Pr. = Magadhi Prakrit, Skr. = Sanskrit.

_Vocabulary._--As already said, Literary Bengali abounds in
_tatsamas_, or words borrowed in modern times from Sanskrit (see
INDO-ARYAN LANGUAGES), and these have also intruded themselves into
the speech of the educated. So much has the false taste for these
learned words obtained the mastery that, in the literary language,
when a genuine Bengali or _tadbhava_ word is used in literature it is
frequently not put into writing, but the corresponding learned
_tatsama_ is written in its place, although the _tadbhava_ is read. It
is as though a French writer wrote _sicca_ when he wished the word
_seche_ to be pronounced. Similarly, the Bengali word for the goddess
of Fortune is _Lakkhi_, but in books this is always written in the
Skr. form _Laksmi_, although no Bengali would dream of saying anything
but _Lakkhi_, even when reciting a purple passage _ore rotunda_. In
fact, the vocal organs of most Bengalis are incapable of uttering the
sound connoted by the letters _Laksmi_. The result is that the
spelling of a Bengali word rarely represents its pronunciation. Oriya
also borrows freely from Sanskrit, but there is no confusion between
_tatsamas_ and _tadbhavas_, as in Bengali. Assamese, on the other
hand, is remarkably free from these parasites, its vocabulary being
mainly _tadbhava_. In Eastern Bengal, where Mussulmans predominate,
there is a free use of words borrowed from Arabic and Persian. Owing
to geographical and historical circumstances, Oriya is to some extent
infected by Telugu and Marathi idioms, while the Tibeto-Burman
dialects and Ahom have left their marks upon Assamese.

_Phonetics._--The three forms of speech agree in sounding the vowel
_a_ like the _o_ in "hot." When writing phonetically, this sound is
represented in the present article by _o_. The pronunciation of this
frequently recurring vowel gives a tone to the general sound of the
languages which at once strikes a foreigner. In Bg. and A. a final
vowel preceded by a single consonant is generally not pronounced. In
Bg. this is only true for nouns, a final _a_ being freely sounded in
adjectives and verbs. In O., on the other hand, a final _a_ is always
pronounced. The sound of such a final _a_ is in all three languages
the same as that of the second _o_ in "promote"; thus, the Bg. _bara_
is pronounced _boro_. In Bg. a medial _a_ sometimes has the sound of
the first _o_ in "promote," as, for instance, in the word _ban_
(_bon_), a forest. In A. and Eastern Bg. a medial _a_ is often sounded
like the _a_ in "ball," and is then transliterated _a_. _A_ has
preserved as a rule its proper sound of _a_ in "father." The
distinction between _i_ and _i_ and between _u_ and _u_ is everywhere
lost in pronunciation, although in _tatsama_ words the Sanskrit
spelling is followed in literature. Thus, in Bg., the Skr. _vyatita_
is pronounced _betito_, with the accent on the first syllable. In A.
the distinction between these long and short vowels is obliterated
more than elsewhere, the reason being, as in Bg., the changes of
pronunciation due to the shifting back of the accent. In O., the Skr.
vowel _r_ is pronounced _ru_. Elsewhere it is _ri_. In O. the vowel
_e_ is always long, but in Bg. it may be long or short, and in A. it
is always short. The syllable _ya_ preceded by a consonant has in Bg.
the sound of a short _e_, so that _vyakti_ is pronounced _bekti_.
Moreover, in the same language the letter _e_ is often pronounced like
the _a_ in the German _Mann_, a sound here phonetically represented by
_a_; thus, _dekha_ is sometimes pronounced _dekho_, and sometimes
_dakho_ or even _dako_. The syllable _ya_, when following a consonant,
also has this _a_-sound, so that the English word "bank" is written
_byank_ in Bengali characters. _O_ in O. is always long. In Bg., when
it has not got the accent it is shortened to the sound of the first
_o_ in "promote," a sound which, as we have seen, is also sometimes
taken by a medial _a_. In A. _o_ approaches the sound of _u_, and it
actually becomes _u_ when followed by _i_ in the next syllable. The
diphthongs _ai_ (in _tatsamas_, i.e. the Skr. _ai_) and _ai_ (in
_tadbhavas_) are sounded like _oi_ in "oil" in Bg. and O., while in A.
they have the sound of _oi_ in "going." Similarly, in Bg. and O. the
diphthongs _au_ and _au_ are sounded like the _au_ in the German
_Haus_, but in A. like _au_ in the French _jaune_, or the second _o_
in "promote." In colloquial Bg. the two syllables _ai_ often have the
sound of _e_, as in _khaite_ (_khete_), to eat.

In Eastern Bengal _k_ has often the sound of _ch_ in "loch." In A. the
consonants _c_ and _ch_ are both pronounced like _s_, and _j_ and _jh_
become _zh_ (i.e. the _s_ in "pleasure") or (when final) _z_. The same
tendency is observable in Bg., though it is usually considered vulgar.
In parts of Eastern Bengal _c_ is pronounced like _ts_. O. as a rule
has the proper sound of these letters, but towards the south _c_ and
_ch_ become _ts_ and _tsh_ when not followed by a palatal letter. The
letters _d_ and _dh_, when medial, are pronounced as a strongly burred
_r_, and are then transliterated _r_ and _rh_ respectively. In A. and
Eastern Bg. there is a strong tendency to pronounce both dentals and
cerebrals as semi-cerebrals, as is done by the neighbouring
Tibeto-Burmans. In A. _r_ and _rh_ become _r_ and _rh_ respectively.
In Bg. and A. _n_ has universally become _n_, but is properly
pronounced in O. _Y_ is usually pronounced as _j_, unless it is a
merely euphonic bridge to avoid a hiatus between two vowels, as in
_kariya_ for _kari-a_. In A. the resultant _j_ has the usual
_z_-sound. When _y_ is the final element of a conjunct consonant, in
Bg. (except in the south-east) it is very faintly pronounced. In
compensation the preceding member of the conjunct is doubled and the
preceding vowel is shortened if possible, thus _vakya_ becomes
_bakk^yo_. In A., while the _y_ is usually preserved, an _i_ is
inserted before the conjunct, so that we have _baikyo_. _M_ and _v_
when similarly situated are altogether elided in Bg., and this is also
the case with _v_ in A., in which language _m_ under these
circumstances becomes _w_; thus, _smarana_ becomes Bg. _ssoron_, A.
_sworon_, and _dvara_ becomes Bg. and A. _ddara_. _R_ is generally
pronounced correctly, except that when a member of a compound it is
often not pronounced in colloquial Bg.; thus _karma_ (_kommo_). In
North-eastern Bengali and in A. a medial _r_ is commonly dropped;
thus, Bg. _karilam_ (_kailam_), A. _kari_ (_kai_).[1] The vulgar
commonly confound _n_ and _l_. O. has retained the old cerebral _l_ of
Pr., which has disappeared in Bg. and A. The semi-vowel _v_ (_w_)
becomes _b_ in Bg. and O., but retains its proper sound when medial in
A. When Bg. wishes to represent a _w_, it has to write _oya_; thus,
for _chawa_ it writes _chaoya_. Similarly _baro_, twelve, +_yari_,
friendship, when compounded together to mean "a collection of twelve
friends," is pronounced _barwari_. Bg. pronounces all uncompounded
sibilants as if they were _s_, like the English _sh_ in "shin." This
was already the case in Mg. Pr. (see PRAKRIT). O., on the contrary,
pronounces all three like the dental _s_ in "sin," while A. sounds
them like a rough _h_, almost like the _ch_ in "loch." In Eastern Bg.
_s_ becomes frankly _h_, and is then often dropped. The compound _ks_
is everywhere treated as if it were _khy_, In colloquial Bg. there is
a tendency to disaspiration; thus _dekha_ is pronounced _dako_ and the
Pr. _hattha-_, a hand, becomes _hat_, not _hath_. In Eastern Bg. there
is a cockney tendency to drop _h_, so that we have _'at_, a hand, and
_kailam_ for _kahilam_, I said.

The above remarks show that O. has, on the whole, preserved the
original sounds of the various letters better than Bg. or A.

_Declension._--The distinction of gender has disappeared from all
three languages. Sex is distinguished either by the use of qualifying
terms, such as "male" or "female," or by the employment of different
words, as in the case of our "bull" and "cow." The plural number is
almost always denoted by the addition of some word meaning "many" or
"collection" to the singular, although we sometimes find a true plural
used in the case of nouns denoting human beings. Case was originally
indicated by postpositions (see INDO-ARYAN LANGUAGES), but in many
instances these have been joined to the noun, so that they form one
word with it. The following is the full declension of the singular of
the word _ghora_, a horse, in the three languages:--

In Bg. and A. a noun often takes _e_ (_e_) in the nominative singular,
when it is the subject of a transitive verb; thus Bg. _bedee_ (from
_bed_) _bale_, the Veda says. In Bg. the nominative plural may, in the
case of human beings, be formed by adding _a_ to the genitive
singular; thus, _santan_, a son; gen. sing., _santaner_; nom. plur.,
_santanera_. The same is the case with the pronouns; thus _amar_, of
me; _amara_, we; _tahar_, his; _tahara_, they. In Bihari (q.v.) the
pronouns follow the same rule, and, as is explained under that head,
the nominative plural is really an oblique form of the genitive. With
this exception, the plural in all our three languages is either the
same as the singular, or (when the idea of plurality has to be
emphasized) is formed by the addition of nouns of multitude, such as
_gan_ in Bg., _mana_ in O., or _bilak_ in A.

We shall see that pronominal suffixes are freely used in all three
languages in the conjugation of verbs. In the Outer languages of the
north-west of India (for the list of these, see INDO-ARYAN LANGUAGES)
pronominal suffixes are also commonly added to nouns to signify
possession. In most of the languages of the Eastern Group such
pronominal suffixes added to nouns have fallen into disuse, but in A.
they are still commonly employed with nouns of relationship; thus,
_bap_, a father; _bopai_, my father; _baper_, your father; _bapek_,
his father. Their retention in A. is no doubt due to the example of
the neighbouring Tibeto-Burman languages, in which such pronominal
_prefixes_ are a common feature.

In all three languages the adjective does not change for gender, for
number or for case.

The personal pronouns have at the present day lost their old
nominatives, and have new nominatives formed from the oblique base. In
the first and second persons the singulars have fallen into disuse in
polite conversation, and the plurals are used honorifically for the
singular, as in the case of the English "you" for "thou." For the
plural, new plurals are formed from the new singular (old plural)
bases. In A., however, the old singular of the first person is
retained, and the old plural plays its proper function. The Bg.
pronouns are, _mui_ (old), I; _ami_ (modern), I; _tui_ (old), thou;
_tumi_ (modern), thou; _se_, _tini_, he; _e_, _ini_, this; _o_, _uni_,
that; _je_, _jini_, who; _ke_, who?; _ki_, what?; _kon_, what
(adjective)?; _keha_, anyone; _kichu_, anything; _kona_, any. Most of
the forms in the other languages closely follow these. The words in O.
for "I" and "thou" are _ambhe_ and _tumbhe_ respectively. All these
pronouns have plurals and oblique forms to which the case suffixes are
added. These must be learnt from the grammars.

_Conjugation._--It is in the conjugation of the verb that colloquial
Bg. differs most from the literary dialect. There is no distinction in
any of the three languages between singular and plural. Most of the
old singular forms have survived in a non-honorific sense, but they
are rarely employed in polite language except in the third person. The
old plural forms are generally employed for the singular also. The
usual base for the verb substantive, when employed as an auxiliary, is
_ach_, be, derived from the Skr. _rcchati_. O., however, forms its
past from the base _tha_ (Skr. _sthita-_), and in South-western Bengal
the base _tha_, derived from the same original, is used for both
present and past time. Only two of the old Skr.-Pr. tenses have
survived in the finite verb, the simple present and the imperative.
Thus, Bg. _kari_, I do; _kar_, do thou. The past is formed by adding
pronominal suffixes to the old past participle in _il_ (Skr. _-illa-_,
a pleonastic suffix, see PRAKRIT), and the future by adding them to
the old future participle in _b_ (Skr. _-tavya-_, Pr. _-avva-_). Thus,
Bg. _karil-am_, done + by-me, I did; _karib-a_, it-is-to-be-done +
by-me, I shall do. In Bg. there are two modern participles, a present
(_kar-ite_) and a past (_kar-iya_), and from these there are formed
periphrastic tenses by suffixing auxiliary verbs. Thus, _karite-chi_
(colloquial, _korci_ or _kocci_), I am doing; _karite-chilam_ (coll.
_korcilum_ or _koccilum_), I was doing; _kariya-chi_ (coll., _korsi_),
I have done; _kariya-chilam_ (coll., _korsilum_), I had done. A past
conditional is formed by adding pronominal suffixes to the present
participle; thus, _karitam_ (coll., _kortum_ or _kottum_), (if) I had
done. Similar tenses are formed in O. and A., but the periphrastic
tenses are formed with verbal nouns and not with participles. Thus, O.
_karu-achi_, A. _kari-cho_, I am a-doing, I am doing. O. and A. have
each a very complete series of gerunds or verbal nouns which are fully
declined. In Bg. only one gerund, that of the genitive, is in common
use.

In order to illustrate the conjugation of the verb, we here give that
of the root _kar_, do, in its present, past and future tenses.

All the three languages have negative forms of the verb substantive,
and A. has a complete negative conjugation for all verbs, made by
prefixing the negative syllable _na_ under certain euphonic rules.

Literature.

_Bengali Literature._--The oldest recognized writer in Bengali is the Vaishnava poet Candi Das, who flourished about the end of the 14th or the beginning of the 15th century. His language does not differ much from the Bengali of to-day. He founded a school of poets who wrote hymns in honour of Krishna, many of whom, in later times, became connected with the religious revival instituted by Caitanya in the early part of the 16th century. In the 15th century Kasi Ram translated the _Mahabharata_, and Krttibas Ojha the _Ramayana_ into the vernacular. The principal figure of the 17th century was Mukunda Ram who has left us two really admirable poems entitled _Candi_ and _Srimanta Saudagar_. Parts of the former have been translated by Professor Cowell into English verse, and both well deserve putting into an English dress. With Bharat Candra, whose much admired but artificial Bidya Sundar appeared in the 18th century, the list of old Bengali authors may be considered as closed. They wrote in genuine nervous Bengali, and the conspicuous success of many of them shows how baseless is the contention of some native writers of the present day that modern literary Bengali needs the help of its huge imported Sanskrit vocabulary to express anything but the simplest ideas. This modern literary Bengali arose early in the 19th century, as a child of the revival of Sanskrit learning in Calcutta, under the influence of the college founded by the English in Fort William. Each decade it has become more and more the slave of Sanskrit. It has had some excellent writers, notably the late Bankim Candra, whose novels have received the honour of being translated into several languages, including English. Even he, however, sometimes laboured under the fetters imposed upon him by a strange vocabulary, and all competent European scholars are agreed that no work of first-class originality has much chance of arising in Bengal till some great genius purges the language of its pseudo-classical element.

_Oriya Literature_ does not go back beyond the 16th century, though examples of the language are found in inscriptions of the 13th century. Nearly all the works are connected with the history of Krishna, and the translation of the _Bhagavata Purana_ into Oriya in the first half of the 16th century still exercises great influence on the masses. Dina Krsna Das (17th century) was the author of another popular work entitled _Rasa Kallola_, or "The Waves of Sentiment," which deals with the early life of Krishna. Every verse in it begins with the letter k. It is not always decent, but is immensely popular. Upendra Bhanja, Raja of Gumsur, a petty hill state, is the most famous of Oriya poets, and was the most prolific. His work is insipid to a European taste, and when not unintelligible is often obscene. Oriya poetry, from first to last, has been an artificial production, the work of _pandits_, who clung to the rules of Sanskrit rhetoric, and loaded their verses with so many ideas and words borrowed from that language that it is rarely understood, except by the learned. The whole literature is, in fact, overshadowed by the great temple of Jagannath (a name of Krishna) at Puri in Orissa.

_Assamese Literature._--The Assamese are justly proud of their national literature. It has an independent growth, and its strength lies in history, a branch of letters in which other Indian languages are almost entirely wanting. They have chronicles going back for the past 600 years, and a knowledge of their contents is a necessary part of the education of the upper classes of the country. In poetry, the Vaishnava reformer, Sankar Deb, who flourished some 450 years ago, was a voluminous writer. His best known work is a translation of the _Bhagavata Purana_. About the same time Ananta Kandali translated the _Mahabharata_ and the _Ramayana_ into his native tongue. Medicine was a science much studied, and there are translations of all the principal Sanskrit works on the subject. Forty or fifty dramatic works in the vernacular are known and are still acted. Some of them date back to the time of Sankar Deb.

AUTHORITIES.--There is no work dealing with the three languages as a
group. Both the _Comparative Grammars_ of Beames and Hoernle (see
INDO-ARYAN LANGUAGES) are silent about Assamese. The fullest details
concerning them all will be found in vol. v. of the _Linguistic Survey
of India_, parts i. and ii. (Calcutta, 1903). In this each dialect and
subdialect is treated with great minuteness and with copious examples.

The first Bengali grammar and dictionary in a European language was
the _Vocabulario em Idioma Bengalla e Portuguez_ of Manoel da
Assumpcam (Lisbon, 1743). N.B. Halhed wrote the first Bengali grammar
in the English language (Hooghly, 1778), but the real father of
Bengali philology was the great missionary, William Carey (_Grammar_,
Serampore, 1801; _Dictionary, ib_., 1825). W. Yates's _Grammar_, as
edited and improved by T. Wenger (Calcutta, 1847) and others, is still
on sale. It is entirely confined to the literary Bengali of the
pandits. Its great rival has been Syama Caran Sarkar's _Grammar_
(Calcutta, 1850), of which there have been numerous reprints. In 1894
J. Beames published his _Grammar_ (Oxford), now the standard work on
the subject. It is largely based on Syama Caran's work, but with much
new material, especially that dealing with the colloquial side of the
language. G.F. Nicholl's _Grammar_ (London, 1885) is an independent
study of the language, in which the vernacular works of the best
native grammarians have been freely utilized. There is no good Bengali
dictionary. G.C. Haughton's _Dictionary_ (London, 1833) is perhaps
still the best, but J. Mendies' (Calcutta, about 1870) is also well
known, and is the parent of countless others which have issued from
the Calcutta presses. _A Small Dictionary of Colloquial Bengali
Words_, by J. M. C. and G. A. C. (Calcutta, 1904), may also be studied
with advantage. Cf. also Syama-caran Ganguli, _Bengali Spoken and
Written_ (Calcutta, 1906). For Bengali literature, see R.C. Dutt, _The
Literature of Bengal_ (Calcutta and London, 1895), and Hara Prasad
Sastri, _The Vernacular Literature of Bengal before the Introduction
of English Education_ (Calcutta, n.d.). The most complete work is
_Bangabhasa o Sahitya_ by Dines Candra Sen (2nd ed., Calcutta, 1901)
in the Bengali language.

For Oriya there are E. Hallam's (Calcutta, 1874), T. Maltby's
(Calcutta, 1874) and J. Browne's (London, 1882) _Grammars_. The last
two are in the Roman character. They are all mere sketches of the
language. Sutton's (Cuttack, 1841) is still the only _Dictionary_
which the present writer has found of any practical use. For Oriya
literature, see App. IX. of Hunter's _Orissa_ (London, 1872), and
Monmohan Chakravarti's "Notes on the Language and Literature of
Orissa" in the _Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_, vol. lxvi.
(1897), part i. pp. 317 ff., and vol. lxvii. (1898), part i. pp. 332
ff.

The first Assamese _Grammar_ was Nathan Brown's (Sibsagar, 1848, 3rd
ed. 1893), and it is still the one usually studied. G.F. Nicholl gives
an Assamese grammar as a supplement to his Bengali _Grammar_ already
quoted. Like that work, it is quite independent, and is not a revised
edition of Brown. M. Bronson's _Dictionary_ (Sibsagar, 1867) was for
long the only vocabulary available, and a very useful and practical
work it was. It is now superseded by Hem Candra Barua's _Hema-kosa_
(Shillong, 1900). For Assamese literature, see Ananda Ram Dhekial
Phukan's _A Few Remarks on the Assamese Language_ (Sibsagar, 1855),
partly reprinted in the _Indian Antiquary_, vol. xxv. (1896), pp. 57
ff. (G. A. Gr.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] In Mg. Pr. every _r_ becomes _l_. For an explanation of the
apparent non-observance of this rule in languages of the Eastern
Group, see BIHARI.

BENGAZI (anc. _Hesperides-Berenice_), a seaport on the north coast of Africa, capital of the sanjak of Bengazi or Barca, formerly in the vilayet of Tripoli, but, since 1875, dependent directly on the ministry of the interior at Constantinople. It is situated on a narrow strip of land between the Gulf of Sidra and a salt marsh, in 30 deg. 7' N. lat. and 20 deg. 3' E. long. Though for the most part poorly built, it has one or two buildings of some pretension--an ancient castle, a mosque, a Franciscan monastery, government buildings and barracks. Senussi influence is strong and there is a large _zawia_ (convent). The harbour is half silted up with sand and the ruins of fortifications and is accessible only to vessels of light draught. A lighthouse has been erected at the entrance, but reefs render approach difficult, and the outer anchorage is fully exposed to west and north and not good holding. The export trade is largely in barley, shipped to British and other maltsters. The Sudan produce (ivory, ostrich feathers, &c.) formerly brought to Bengazi by caravan, has now been almost wholly diverted to Tripoli, the eastern tracks from Wadai and Borku by way of Kufra to Aujila having become so unsafe that their natural difficulties are no longer worth braving. Consular vigilance has also killed the once considerable slave trade. Trade in other commodities, however, is on the increase, exports now amounting to nearly half a million sterling and imports to half that figure. The neighbouring coast is frequented by Greek and Italian sponge-fishers, the industry being a valuable one. The province of Bengazi, being still without telegraphs or roads, is one of the most backward in the Ottoman empire.

Founded by the Greeks of Cyrenaica under the name Hesperides, the town received from Ptolemy III. the name of Berenice in compliment to his wife. The ruins of the ancient town, which superseded Cyrene and Barca as chief place in the province after the 3rd century A.D., are now nearly buried in the sand. The modern town lies south-west of the original site. Certain large natural pits which are found in the plain behind, and have luxuriant gardens at the bottom, are supposed to have originated the myth of the Gardens of the Hesperides. Ancient tombs are found, which in 1882 yielded fine Greek vases to G. Dennis, then British vice-consul. The present name is derived from that of a Moslem saint whose tomb, near the sea-coast, is an object of veneration. The population, amounting to about 25,000, is greatly mixed. Levantines, Maltese, Greeks and Jews form the trading community, but since 1895, when a branch of the Agenzia Italiana Commerciale was established at Bengazi, Italians have exercised an increasing influence on Cyrenaic commerce. Turks, Arabs and Berbers are the ruling castes, and negroes act as labourers and domestics. Many of these found their way to Crete, and becoming porters, &c. in Canea and Candia, were notorious for turbulence and fanaticism. In 1897 and 1898 the European admirals forcibly deported consignments of the worst characters back to Bengazi. In 1858 and again in 1874 the town was devastated by plague (see also TRIPOLI and CYRENAICA). (D. G. H.)

BENGEL, JOHANN ALBRECHT (1687-1752), Lutheran divine and scholar, was born at Winnenden in Wurttemberg, on the 24th of June 1687. His father died in 1693, and Bengel was educated by a friend, who became a master in the gymnasium at Stuttgart. In 1703 Bengel left Stuttgart and entered the university of Tubingen, where, in his spare time, he devoted himself specially to the works of Aristotle and Spinoza, and in theology to those of Philipp Spener, Johann Arndt and August Franke. His knowledge of the metaphysics of Spinoza was such that he was selected by one of the professors to prepare materials for a treatise _De Spinosismo_, which was afterwards published. After taking his degree, Bengel devoted himself to theology. Even at this time he had religious doubts; it is interesting in view of his later work that one cause of his perplexities was the difficulty of ascertaining the true reading of certain passages in the Greek New Testament. In 1707 Bengel entered the ministry and was appointed to the parochial charge of Metzingen-unter-Urach. In the following year he was recalled to Tubingen to undertake the office of _Repetent_ or theological tutor. Here he remained till 1713, when he was appointed head of a seminary recently established at Denkendorf as a preparatory school of theology. Before entering on his new duties he travelled through the greater part of Germany, studying the systems of education which were in use, and visiting the seminaries of the Jesuits as well as those of the Lutheran and Reformed churches. Among other places he went to Heidelberg and Halle, and had his attention directed at Heidelberg to the canons of scripture criticism published by Gerhard von Mastricht, and at Halle to C. Vitringa's _Anacrisis ad Apocalypsin_. The influence exerted by these upon his theological studies is manifest in some of his works. For twenty-eight years--from 1713 to 1741--he was master (_Klosterpraceptor_) of the _Klosterschule_ at Denkendorf, a seminary for candidates for the ministry established in a former monastery of the canons of the Holy Sepulchre. To these years, the period of his greatest intellectual activity, belong many of his chief works. In 1741 he was appointed prelate (i.e. _General Superintendent_) at Herbrechtingen, where he remained till 1749, when he was raised to the dignity of consistorial counsellor and prelate of Alpirspach, with a residence in Stuttgart. He now devoted himself to the discharge of his duties as a member of the consistory. A question of considerable difficulty was at that time occupying the attention of the church courts, viz. the manner in which those who separated themselves from the church were to be dealt with, and the amount of toleration which should be accorded to meetings held in private houses for the purpose of religious edification. The civil power (the duke of Wurttemberg was a Roman Catholic) was disposed to have recourse to measures of repression, while the members of the consistory, recognizing the good effects of such meetings, were inclined to concede considerable liberty. Bengel exerted himself on the side of the members of the consistory. In 1751 the university of Tubingen conferred upon him the degree of doctor of divinity. He died after a short illness, in 1752.

The works on which Bengel's reputation rests as a Biblical scholar and critic are his edition of the Greek New Testament, and his _Gnomon_ or _Exegetical Commentary_ on the same.

(A.) His edition of the Greek Testament was published at Tubingen in 1734, and at Stuttgart in the same year, but without the critical apparatus. So early as 1725, in an addition to his edition of Chrysostom's _De Sacerdotio_, he had given an account in his _Prodromus Novi Testamenti Graeci recte cauteque adornandi_ of the principles on which his intended edition was to be based. In preparation for his work Bengel was able to avail himself of the collations of upwards of twenty MSS., none of them, however, of great importance, twelve of which had been collated by himself. In constituting the text, he imposed upon himself the singular restriction of not inserting any various reading which had not already been _printed_ in some preceding edition of the Greek text. From this rule, however, he deviated in the case of the Apocalypse, where, owing to the corrupt state of the text, he felt himself at liberty to introduce certain readings on manuscript authority. In the lower margin of the page he inserted a selection of various readings, the relative importance of which he denoted by the first five letters of the Greek alphabet in the following manner:--[alpha] was employed to denote the reading which in his judgment was the true one, although he did not venture to place it in the text; [beta], a reading better than that in the text; [gamma], one equal to the textual reading; [delta] and [epsilon], readings inferior to those in the text. R. Etienne's division into verses was retained in the inner margin, but the text was divided into paragraphs. The text was followed by a critical apparatus, the first part of which consisted of an introduction to the criticism of the New Testament, in the thirty-fourth section of which he laid down and explained his celebrated canon, _"Proclivi scriptioni praestat ardua"_ ("The difficult reading is to be preferred to that which is easy"), the soundness of which, as a general principle, has been recognized by succeeding critics. The second part of the critical apparatus was devoted to a consideration of the various readings, and here Bengel adopted the plan of stating the evidence both _against_ and _in favour_ of a particular reading, thus placing before the reader the materials for forming a judgment. Bengel was the first definitely to propound the theory of families or recensions of MSS. His investigations had led him to see that a certain affinity or resemblance existed amongst many of the authorities for the Greek text--MSS., versions, and ecclesiastical writers; that if a peculiar reading, e.g., was found in one of these, it was generally found also in the other members of the same class; and this general relationship seemed to point ultimately to a common origin for all the authorities which presented such peculiarities. Although disposed at first to divide the various documents into three classes, he finally adopted a classification into two--the African or older family of documents, and the Asiatic, or more recent class, to which he attached only a subordinate value. The theory was afterwards adopted by J.S. Semler and J.J. Griesbach, and worked up into an elaborate system by the latter critic. Bengel's labours on the text of the Greek Testament were received with great disfavour in many quarters. Like Brian Walton and John Mill before him, he had to encounter the opposition of those who believed that the certainty of the word of God was endangered by the importance attached to the various readings. J.J. Wetstein, on the other hand, accused him of excessive caution in not making freer use of his critical materials. In answer to these strictures, Bengel published a _Defence of the Greek Text of His New Testament_, which he prefixed to his _Harmony of the Four Gospels_, published in 1736, and which contained a sufficient answer to the complaints, especially of Wetstein, which had been made against him from so many different quarters. The text of Bengel long enjoyed a high reputation among scholars, and was frequently reprinted. An enlarged edition of the critical apparatus was published by Philip David Burk in 1763.

(B.) The other great work of Bengel, and that on which his reputation as an exegete is mainly based, is his _Gnomon Novi Testamenti, or Exegetical Annotations on the New Testament_, published in 1742. It was the fruit of twenty years' labour, and exhibits with a brevity of expression, which, it has been said, "condenses more matter into a line than can be extracted from pages of other writers," the results of his study. He modestly entitled his work a _Gnomon_ or index, his object being rather to guide the reader to ascertain the meaning for himself, than to save him from the trouble of personal investigation. The principles of interpretation on which he proceeded were, to import nothing _into_ Scripture, but to draw _out of_ it everything that it really contained, in conformity with grammatico-historical rules; not to be hampered by dogmatical considerations; and not to be influenced by the symbolical books. Bengel's hope that the _Gnomon_ would help to rekindle a fresh interest in the study of the New Testament was fully realized. It has passed through many editions, has been translated into German and into English, and is still one of the books most valued by expositors of the New Testament. John Wesley made great use of it in compiling his _Expository Notes upon the New Testament_ (1755).

Besides the two works already described, Bengel was the editor or author of many others, classical, patristic, ecclesiastical and expository. The more important are: _Ordo Temporum_, a treatise on the chronology of Scripture, in which he enters upon speculations regarding the end of the world, and an _Exposition of the Apocalypse_ which enjoyed for a time great popularity in Germany, and was translated into several languages.

AUTHORITIES.--For full details regarding Bengel the reader is referred
to Oskar Wachter's _J.A. Bengels Lebensabriss_ and to the _Memoir of
His Life and Writings_ (_J.A. Bengels Leben und Wirken_), by J.C.F.
Burk, translated into English by Rev. R.F. Walker (London, 1837); see
also Herzog-Hauck, _Realencyklopadie_, and E. Nestle, _Bengel als
Gelehrter_ (1893).

BENGUELLA (Sao Felipe de Benguella), a town of Portuguese West Africa, capital of Benguella district, on a bay of the same name, in 12 deg. 33' S., 13 deg. 25' E. Benguella was founded in 1617 by the Portuguese under Manoel Cerveira Pereira. It was long the centre of an important trade, especially in slaves to Brazil and Cuba, but has now greatly declined. The anchorage, about a mile from the town, in 4 to 6 fathoms, is nothing but an open roadstead. Besides the churches of S. Felipe and S. Antonio, the hospital, and the fortress, there are only a few stone-built houses. The white population numbers about 1500. A short way beyond Benguella is Bahia Tarta, where salt is manufactured and sulphur excavated.

About 20 m. north of Benguella is Lobito Bay, a natural harbour chosen (1903) as the starting-point of a railway to Katanga. At Lobito steamers can come close inshore and discharge cargo direct. Lobito is connected with Benguella by a railway which passes about midway through Katumbella, a town at the mouth of the river of the same name, and the sea terminus of an ancient route from the heart of Central Africa through Bihe. Old Benguella is a small town about 120 m. north of Lobito Bay.

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