Bengali Literature - Bauls and Traditional Singers

Bauls and Traditional Singers

The mystic Bauls of the Bengal countryside who preached the boundless spiritual truth of Sôhoj Pôth (the Simple, Natural Path) and Moner Mānush (A person of The Heart) drew on Vedantic philosophy to propound transcendental truths in song format, traveling from village to village proclaiming that there was no such thing as Hindu, Muslim or Christian, only moner mānush.

The literature discussed so far can be more or less regarded as the common heritage of both Bangladesh and West Bengal. Since the partition of Bengal in 1947, the east and west parts of Bengal have also developed their own distinctive literatures. For example, the Naxalite movement has influenced much of West Bengal's literature, whereas the Liberation War has had a similarly profound impact on Bangladeshi literature.

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