This the story of an ancient tribe living on the edge of the Himalayan to the sea.
bangladesh, Bangla or Bengal is a Major ancient geopolitical and historical region in Asia, which is located in the southern part of the Himalayan at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. The people who live in the Bengal is Bengalis ( Bangali ) an Indo-Aryan ethnic group and nation native to the region of Bengal in south-east Asia. Bengalis are the third largest ethnic group in the world, after Han Chinese and Arabs .
The Bengal Was divided by British in 1947 between India and Pakistan . Pakistan Ruled Bengal Gained independence in 1971 by a bloody war of independence .
between most of Bangladesh and the Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura, Assam. They speak the Bengali language. Geographically, it is made up by the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta system, the largest such formation in the world along with mountains in its north bordering the Himalayan states of Nepal and Bhutan and east bordering Burma.
Their ethnonym Bangla is derived from the ancient Banga or Bangla. though it is believed to be derived from the Dravidian-speaking tribe Bang or Banga later the Vanga Kindom. The Arabs accounts refer that “Bong”, a son of Hind (son of Hām who was a son of Prophet Noah ) colonized the area for the first time. Ancient epic Mahabharata suggests that ancient Bengal was formed by various tribes or kingdoms, The kingdoms are known as the Janapadas: Vanga , Pundra (northern Bengal), and Suhma (western Bengal) .This tribe now staggering 230 million in size living in the Ganges Delta.
The Vanga Kingdom was the first powerful seafaring nation of South Asia. They had overseas trade relations with Java, Sumatra and Siam Egypt, Rome. According to legends the Vanga prince Vijaya Simha conquered Lanka (modern-day Sri Lanka) in 544 BCE and gave the name “Sinhala” to the country. Bengali people migrated to the Malay Archipelago and Siam (in modern Thailand), establishing their own colonies there.
The Greeks and Romans identified the region as Gangaridai, a powerful kingdom of historical south-east Asia in the 3rd century BCE.
The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea mentions Arab and Greek merchants trading between Bengal and the Red Sea port of Aduli (in present-day Eritrea), Egypt and Ethiopia in the second century CE . The principal exports in the coastal and overseas traffic of Bengal were a range of manufactured goods and agricultural products—textiles, rice, wheat, gram, sugar, opium, clarified butter, and saltpeter. In return, Bengal imported spices, camphor, porcelain, silk, sandalwood, ivory, metals, conch shells, and cowries, the last of which circulated as an important medium in Bengal’s monetary transactions. Bengal has manufactured textiles for many centuries, as recorded in ancient hand-written and printed documents.
The Vanga Kingdom was the first powerful seafaring nation of South Asia. They had overseas trade relations with Java, Sumatra and Siam Egypt, Rome. According to legends the Vanga prince Vijaya Simha conquered Lanka (modern-day Sri Lanka) in 544 BCE and gave the name “Sinhala” to the country. Bengali people migrated to the Malay Archipelago and Siam (in modern Thailand), establishing their own colonies there.
The Greeks and Romans identified the region as Gangaridai, a powerful kingdom of historical south-east Asia in the 3rd century BCE.
Trade
trade and economic activity of Bengal were largely shaped by the hydrography of this region. Its favorable geographic position for sea and river travel made it an ancient trading hub in whole south Asia.
This is the only true asamudrahimachala (stretching from the Himalayas to the sea) region in the entire south east asia. Its location between the middle Ganga plains and the Brahmaputra valley provided access to the most of India.
The Ganga delta opening out to the Bay of Bengal makes the region under review the only outlet of the landlocked Ganga valley to the sea. These geographical features considerably influenced movements of men and merchandise in early Bengal.
Since ancient period, Bengal had a glorious tradition of boat and ship building. Traditional ship and wooden boat were made in Chittagong. The Moroccan traveller ibn batuta who came to Bengal in the 14th century saw numerous boats in the river carrying men and mercandise and testified to the existence of a gigantic fleet of war-boats.
Archaeologists have discovered remnants of a 4,000-year-old Chalcolithic civilisation in the greater Bengal region, and believe the finds are one of the earliest signs of settlement in the region. However, evidence of much older Palaeolithic human habitations was found in the form of a stone implement and a hand ax in Rangamati and Feni districts of Bangladesh.
Bengal was home to many principalities that made use of their inland naval prowess.It was also a notable center of the global muslin and silk trade. As part of British India,bengal played leading role in anti-British movements.
Geographically, it is made up by the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta system, the largest such formation in the world along with mountains in its north bordering the Himalayan states of Nepal and Bhutan and east bordering Burma.
Archaeological research has unearthed several ancient cities in Bangladesh, which enjoyed international trade links for millennia. The Bengal Sultanate and Mughal Bengal transformed the region into a cosmopolitan Islamic imperial power between the 14th and 18th centuries.
Alexander, after the meeting with his officer, Coenus, was convinced that it was better to return. Diodorus Siculus mentions Gangaridai to be the most powerful empire south Asia whose king possessed an army of 20,000 horses, 200,000 infantry, 2,000 chariots and 4,000 elephants trained and equipped for war. The allied forces of Gangaridai Empire were preparing a massive counterattack against the forces of Alexander on the banks of Ganges. Gangaridai, according to the Greek accounts, kept on flourishing at least up to the 1st century AD
At times an independent regional empire, the historical region was a leading power in Southeast Asia with extensive trade networks. In antiquity, its kingdoms were known as seafaring nations. According to Greek historians , Alexander the Great withdrew from South Asia anticipating a counterattack from an alliance of Gangaridai of Bengal
Gangaridai is a term used by the ancient Greco-Roman writers to describe a people or a geographical entity of the Ganges/Bengal Delta. Their writings describe Alexander the Great withdrew from the Indian subcontinent because of the strong Military force of the Gangaridai present Day Bengal
Alexander crossed the Indus in 326 BC and fought and won an epic battle against King Porus, who ruled a region lying between the Hydaspes River Punjab, Therefore, Alexander turned south, advancing through southern Punjab and Sindh, along the way conquering more tribes along the lower Indus River. After conquering industry Alexander persuade his soldiers to march farther to Ganges delta to conquer Gangaridai the most prosperous region in South Asia.
According to Megasthenes, c. 350 – c. 290 BC) and many Greek scholars Alexander army denied to attack Gangaridai for its geographic defensive position and its Mighty military power.
City mark of Upper ganges to Mouth of Ganges a by Claudius Ptolemy c. AD 100 – c. 170)
Gangaridai, a nation which possesses a vast force of the largest-sized elephants. Owing to this, their country has never been conquered by any foreign king: for all other nations dread the overwhelming number and strength of these animals. Thus Alexander the Macedonian, after conquering all of Asia, did not make war upon the Gangaridai, as he did on all others; for when he had arrived with all his troops at the river Ganges, he abandoned as hopeless an invasion of the Gangaridai when he learned that they possessed four thousand elephants well trained and equipped for war.—— Megasthenes, Indika