Novel draws from scholar’s Tibet research to build Bengali identity
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In 1958, Bengali writer Saradindu Bandyopadhyay published Tumi Sandhyar Megh, a historical novel that reimagined the life of Atiśa, an 11th-century Buddhist master originally from Bengal, as a symbol of Bengali regionalism. The novel built upon the work of Sarat Chandra Das, a scholar who translated Tibetan texts detailing Atiśa’s life and connections to Tibet. Rakhaldas Bandyopadhyay, an archaeologist and historian, first featured Atiśa’s biography, sourced from Das’s translations, in his History of Bengal.
Saradindu Bandyopadhyay then used Rakhaldas Bandyopadhyay’s history as a basis for his fictional portrayal of Atiśa. Harekrishna Mukhopadhyay, a colleague of Rakhaldas Bandyopadhyay, had asked Saradindu Bandyopadhyay to write a historical novel about the Pāla dynasty of Bengal, prompting the author to draw on existing scholarship. While Das’s translations described Atiśa accepting an invitation to Tibet after a divine vision, Saradindu Bandyopadhyay altered the motivation in his novel.
He wrote that Atiśa traveled to Tibet to learn how to make bombs from Chinese envoys, hoping to use them to defend against Turkish invaders who were attacking parts of India. This narrative linked Bengal’s Buddhist past to a nationalist impulse, positioning both Hindus and Buddhists as unified against a common enemy and reinforcing a sense of Bengali identity.
