Rivers, as Bengal’s nurturing mother, shaped the soul of this land and cultural landscape. The ever-flowing water and fertile sediments formed the entire Bengal region, nourishing the Indus Valley civilization to today’s Bengali civilization. Over centuries, from sediments to sentiments to culture, rivers sketched this delta’s people’s values and belief system, art and literature, and countless folk tales. The mighty Indus and Ganges rivers, each stretching from the great Himalayas, scratched a 700,000 km2 fertile plain, the Indo-Gangetic Plain. These rivers like artists created a painting of development with their rich sediments, known as the Indus Valley Civilization. Based on some dominant opinions, natural forces spelled the end of this civilization, whether from a devastating earthquake or relentless flooding or other climatic factors. By around 1700 BCE, most inhabitants abandoned the Indus Valley in search of safer grounds, migrating to the Ganges Valley. For millennia, people living on the banks of the Indus, historically known as Hindus, fostered a deep spiritual bonding with it. They embraced ‘river religion’ as the way of life, fabricating Bengal’s folklore and traditions long before the Sonaton (old) Dharma (religion), and other religions’ rooted in the Bengal Delta, flowed from the banks of the Indus to the Ganges. On Manpura Island, a group of fisherfolk prepare nets for their next voyage. Image courtesy of Ammar Bin Asad. The dynamic process of delta formation gave birth to the ever-changing deltaic landscape of Bengal, bridging the current Bangladesh to India’s West Bengal. The waterways of Bengal always…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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