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Bengali Kayastha is a caste or community of Hindus in Bengal, and a sub-caste of the Kayastha caste in India.

Bengali Kaysathas are regarded as the highest Hindu castes along with Brahmins and Baidyas in the caste system of Bengal, that comprise the "upper layer of Hindu society". Bengali Kayasthas form a considerable part of the population in the Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura, Assam and in the country of Bangladesh.

History

In Bengal, during the reign of the Gupta Empire beginning in the 4th century AD, when systematic and large-scale colonization by Aryan Kayasthas and Brahmins first took place, Kayasthas were brought over by the Guptas to help manage the affairs of state. During this period, the Kayasthas had not developed into a distinct caste, although the office of the Kayasthas (scribes) had been instituted before the beginning of the period, as evidenced from the contemporary smritis. Tej Ram Sharma, an Indian historian, says that

The names of brahmanas occuring in our inscriptions sometimes end in a non-brahmanic cognomen such as Bhatta, Datta and Kunda, etc., which are available in the inscriptions of Bengal. Surnames like Datta, Dama, Palita, Pala, Kunda (Kundu), Dasa, Naga and Nandin are now confined to Kayasthas of Bengal but not to brahmanas. Noticing brahmanic names with a large number of modern Bengali Kayastha cognomens in several early epigraphs discovered in Bengal, some scholars have suggested that there is a considerable brahmana element in the present day Kayastha community of Bengal. Originally the professions of Kayastha (scribe) and Vaidya (physician) were not restricted and could be followed by people of different varnas including the brahmanas. So there is every probability that a number of brahmana families were mixed up with members of other varnas in forming the present Kayastha and Vaidya communities of Bengal.

Between the 5th/6th century AD and 11th/12th century AD, the Bengali Kayasthas evolved as a caste from a category of officials or scribes, its component elements being putative Kshatriyas and, for the larger majority, Brahmins.

Common Surnames

Common Bengali Kayastha surnames are - Basu/Bose, Ghosh, Mitra, Guha, Sen, Sinha, Dutta/Datta, Pal/Paul, Dey/Dev, Das/Dass, Kar, Dhar, Chanda/Chandra, Nag, Nandi, Palit, etc.

Kayasthas in Bengal also received honorific titles during the erstwhile Mughal Empire and British Raj. Common honorific titles are - Majumdar, Sarkar, Roy, Bakhshi, Chaudhury, Dastidar, Munshi, Biswas, Mondal/Mandal, Sikder, Halder, Malik/Mulik, Burman, Samaddar, Tarafder, Tapader, etc.

Compounded Bengali Kayastha surnames include:

• BasuRoy
• BasuMalik
• BasuBhowmik
• BasuMondal
• GhoshDastidar
• GhoshRoy
• GhoshHazra
• GuhaRoy
• GuhaMajumdar
• GuhaMalik
• GuhaBiswas
• MitraMajumdar
• MitraMustafi
• MitraThakur
• DuttaMajumdar
• DuttaMunshi
• DuttaRoy
• DuttaChaudhry
• DuttaBurman
• DeySarkar/DevSarkar
• DeyBiswas/DevBiswas
• DevRoy
• DevChaudhry
• DeyTarafder
• DeyKirty
• DeySikder/DebSikder
• DeyMajumdar
• DeyNeogi
• DeyBakhshi
• DevBurman
• DasSikder
• DasRoy
• DasChaudhry
• DasThakur
• DasBakhshi
• DasMunshi
• SinghRoy/SinhaRoy
• SinhaChaudhry
• RoyChaudhry

References

1. Inden, Ronald B. (1976). Marriage and Rank in Bengali Culture: A History of Caste and Clan in Middle Period Bengal. University of California Press. p. 1. ISBN 978-0-520-02569-1. Retrieved 2011-10-31.
2. >Bandyopadhyay, Sekhar (2004). Caste, Culture, and Hegemony: Social Dominance in Colonial Bengal. Sage Publications. p. 20. ISBN 81-7829-316-1.
3. Bhattacharya, Jogendra Nath (1896). Hindu Castes and Sects. Calcutta: Thacker, Spink & Co. p. 175. Retrieved 2011-10-31.
4. U. A. B. Razia Akter Banu (1992). Islam in Bangladesh. Brill Academic Publishers. pp. 5–6. ISBN 978-90-04-09497-0. Retrieved 15 August 2011.
5. Sharma, Tej Ram (1978). Personal and Geographical Names in the Gupta Empire. New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company. p. 115.
6. Andre Wink (1991). Al-Hind, the Making of the Indo-Islamic World, Volume 1. Brill Academic Publishers. p. 269. ISBN 978-90-04-09509-0. Retrieved 3 September 2011.

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• Indian family names
• Social groups of West Bengal
• Hindu communities
• Bengali Hindu castes