"Ages ago, the vast subcontinent of India birthed explorers and innovators who focused on the inner realm. Those geniuses - spiritual sages or scientists of consciousness, depending on your perspective - gave us, through a series of modern translators and adapters, insights that have profoundly influenced religion, healthcare, psychology, the arts and other areas of life. The way we understand ourselves and the universe has been shaped by India more than we can readily appreciate.” Philip Goldberg.
Global Hindu Heritage Foundation is extremely happy to inform that we are conducting about 200 Bala Samskar Kendras in five States in India – Assam, Telangana, Andhra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. We have many active Hindus who are helping in different ways to ensure our children are taught about the richness of Sanatana Dharma. Each school teaches different things and at the same time they follow the required syllabus to ensure all the students learn things that are common to all the students. It is challenging as the ages of the students vary from one school to another. This week they are taught about the composed of Vandemataram.
Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (also Chattopadhyay) was an Indian novelist, poet, essayist and journalist. He was the author of the 1882 Bengali language novel Anandamath, which is one of the landmarks of modern Bengali and Indian literature. He was the composer of Vande Mataram, written in highly Sanskritized Bengali, personifying Bengal as a mother goddess and inspiring activists during the Indian Independence Movement. Chattopadhyaya wrote fourteen novels and many serious, serio-comic, satirical, scientific and critical treatises in Bengali. He is known as Sahitya Samrat (Emperor of Literature) in Bengali.
Composed national Song – Vande Mataram
Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s poem Vande Maataram was written in highly sanskritized Bengali in the 1870s and included in his Bengali novel Anandamath in 1882. Rabindranath Tagore performed the poem for the first time before the Indian National Congress in 1896. Prior to the end of colonial administration in August 1947, the Congress Working Committee selected the first two verses of the song as the National Song of India in October 1937.
It was written in Bengali script in the novel Anandmath as an ode to the Motherland. “I praise motherland, Mother,” says the title “Vande Mataram.” Though the language does not clearly state it, the “mother goddess” in later sections of the hymn has been understood as the people’s motherland –– Banga Mata (Mother Bengal) and Bharat Mata (Mother India).
His Legacy
Tagore penned in the memory of his mentor:
"Bankim Chandra had equal strength in both his hands, he was a true sabyasachi (ambidextrous). On the one hand, he created literary works of excellence; and with the other, he guided young and aspiring authors. With one hand, he ignited the light of literary enlightenment; and with the other, he blew away the smoke and ash of ignorance and ill-conceived notions."
Sri Aurobindo wrote in his memory:
"The earlier Bankim was only a poet and stylist, the later Bankim was a seer and nation-builder."
After the Vishabriksha (The Poison Tree) was published in 1873, the magazine, Punch wrote:
"You ought to read the Poison Tree
of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee."
His novel Anushilan-Tattva inspired Pramathanath Mitra to start Anushilan Samiti.
Bankim Puraskar (Bankim Memorial Award) is the highest award given by the Government of West Bengal for contribution to Bengali fiction.
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