Shandilya Gotra/ Barendra Brahmin- The origin story

Often we hear from our elders, we are of Shandilya Gotra, Barendra Brahmins; particularly during arranged marriages, family functions and other ritualistic occasions. But exactly what do they mean other than some obscure words hinting at some long forgotten traditions may be? I know, many of my seniors will be laughing or scoffing reading this particular line. But this holds true for many of the youngsters. So in an attempt to dissipate the mist...

Śāṇḍilya (Sanskrit: शाण्डिल्य, Bengali: শাণ্ডীল্য) was the name of at least two prominent rishis. One of the rishis was the progenitor of the Sandilya gotra. 

The name was derived from the Sanskrit words śaṇ, full and dilam, the moon, with the derivative ya added, meaning the one of the full moon, thereby implying a priest or a descendant of the Moon God. 

One rishi was a son of the sage Vasistha and grandson of the rishi Kashyap, and the founder of the Śāṇḍilya gotra. Brihadaranyak Upanishad states that he was a disciple of Vaatsya rishi. His other Acharyas include Kaushik, Gautam Maharishi, Kaishorya Kaapya, Vatsya Vaijavap, and Kushri. His disciples include Kaudinya, Agnivesh, Vatsya Vamakakshayan, Vaishthapureya, and Bharadwaj. He was also the composer of the Śāṇḍilya Upanishad. According to the Bhagavat Puran, he was instrumental in settling certain metaphysical doubts of King Parikshit of Hastinapur and King Vajra of Dwaraka. 

Shandilya was a son of the sage Vasistha, had his hermitage in the Shāradāvanam, or forest of Sharada, of a village in the Bolair Valley of Kashmir. The village has been identified with the modern town of Sharda, on the banks of the River Kishanganga, in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, India. The goddess Sharada is said to have manifested herself to him, here, after severe penance by him, to confer upon him his yagnopaveetham, an event that was commemorated in the temple of Sharada Peeth in the town.

This is the mythological part. About history... 

The History as written by Kashmiri court bard "Kallahan" (Author of "Rajatarangini", which probably is India's earliest attempt at a written historical account) has indicated that there was a clan with a called "Shandilya" who migrated from upper delta of river swaraswati, to Janapada of Aryasthan, approximately the area in and around Kanouj. A part of this clan travelled southwards and thus you can find "Shandilyas" in Chitpavan Brahmins of Maharashtra also. But they're not our concern right now.

(Now to understand how a whole clan or for that matter a whole lot of people can claim that Sandilya Muni is a root of their paternal progeny, one just needs to look at the vedic ashrama culture and their tutorial system. The teachers were given as venerated a position as one's parents and according to some accounts even higher than that. So, it was not uncommon in those days that one took their teacher's name or rather the clan's name. As history teaches us, any agrarian society tends to be clan-ish in nature and so the people from same ancestry or same school of teachings tend to form a clan.)

Now the question arises, that these are very interesting (or boring, depending upon one's point of view) as history lessons or mythological stories. How does it relate to us? The Chakraborty clan?

As many of you know, we are one of the Kulin Brahmin families. Kulin Brahmins are the Bengali Brahmins who can trace themselves to the five families of Kanauj who migrated to Bengal. The five families were of the five different gotras (Shandilya, Bharadwaj, Kashyap, Vatsya and Sabarna). The traditional origin of both Radhi and Varendra Brahmins has been attributed to a king named Ādiśūr who is said to have invited five Brahmins from Kolancha (as per Edu Mishra and Hari Mishra) and/or from Kanyakubja, (as per Dhruvananda Mishra) so that he could conduct a yajña, because he could not find Vedic experts locally. Some traditional texts mention that Ādiśūr was ancestor of Ballāl Sen from maternal side and five Brahmins had been invited in 1077 C.E. 

They are mainly classified under two sub-groups - Rādhi (রাঢ়ী) and Vārendra. (বারেন্দ্র)

Interesting thing is, we have often heard about the axiom, that Geography and the Geology of the region affects the religion of the region. See how it is so, in our case.

Historically speaking, Bengal was divided into two major geographical  region. 

1. Radh Banga (Bengali: রাঢ়, Rāṛh) is a toponym for an area in the Indian subcontinent that lies between the Chota Nagpur Plateau on the West and the Ganges Delta on the East. Although the boundaries of the region have been defined differently according to various sources throughout history, today it is mainly coextensive with the state of West Bengal also comprising some portions of the state of Jharkhand and Bihar in India.
2. Barendra Banga was a region of Bengal, now in Bangladesh, which is said to be the origin of the Bengali Varendra Brahmins. It included the Pundravardhana or Pundra Kingdom region currently part of Rangpur and Rajshahi Division of Bangladesh.
   According to Cunningham, the boundary of Barendra was the Ganges and the Mahananda on the west, the Karatoya on the east, the Padma on the south and the land between Koochbihar and the Terai on the north.
   Loosely speaking, if you look at our current political map of West Bengal and Bangaldesh, the families settling down at the area spanning from north and north east of Bhagirathi river were known as Barendra. It is popularly believed that the Barendra Brahmins were invited to preach Hindutva, though really not the Vedic Hinduism as it is commonly believed, but more of the Pouranik Hinduism type, which evolved after Buddhism flourished. The Bhatariya, Maitreya, Satar, Gayokar, Baghshree, and Laheria villages soon gave birth to the Bengali Brahmin clans with surnames Bhaduri, Maitra/ Moitra, Sanyal, Gain/ Gayen, Bakshi/ Bagchi, and Lairi/ Lahiri.

I agree, these are over-simplification of many historical debates still raging about the topic and many areas and timelines are still to decisively settled but this should give you a general idea.

Note one fact though.. None of the surnames prevalent through our clan is mentioned over here. There are no Chakraborties, Banerjees, Chatterjees, Choudhuris, Mukherjees, Bhattacharjees and no Gangulies too.... So where did they come from?

That is for the next episode folks.