মনসামঙ্গল কাব্যে লৌকিক ধর্মাচারের অস্তিত্ব সন্ধান/ Tracing the Existence of Folk Religious Practices in the Manasa mangal Kavya

Abstract

The origin of the Mangal deities can be traced to agrarian, non-Aryan beliefs and practices. In its true sense, the glorification of the Mangal gods and goddesses was not composed under any divine injunction; rather, the history of the everyday joys and sorrows of social life constitutes the principal theme of Mangal poetry.

       It is noteworthy that amid the chaotic political conditions of the medieval period, conflict and contradiction were inevitable within the social and cultural spheres as well. Nevertheless, within the humanistic consciousness of certain sensitive individuals, a spirit of cultural synthesis remained alive. Consequently, even within Mangal poems devoted to the glorification of deities, a note of unity resonates through conflict and opposition. During the Turkish invasions, people from all strata of society, including the Brahmanical upper classes sought refuge far away from prosperous settlements, in underdeveloped rural areas among non-Aryan, superstition-bound communities, whose deities lacked anthropomorphic forms.

       Within the Mangal poems are embedded the narratives of the joys and sufferings of common people. Although Manasa is a non-Aryan goddess, her eventual acceptance of worship by Chand Saudagar, a devotee of Shiva, signifies a phase of synthesis between folk belief and non-Aryan cultural traditions. It may therefore be said that these religiously oriented Mangal poems implicitly preserve a realistic record of the joys, sorrows, and aspirations of ordinary people.