From the 6th century BC onwards, Buddhism and Jainism were established as a protest movement against Brahmanism religion. Buddhism and Jainism spread to different parts of India. Among these Buddhism and Jainism spread to the then ancient North Bengal. However, it can be clearly said that in ancient times there was no separate administrative division, state or province called 'North Bengal'. The name North Bengal is not found even in ancient times or medieval times. The word North Bengal was used to refer to the northern part of undivided Bengal during the colonial period. Bengal was made up of different districts.

In the ancient period Bengal used to be a seat of Buddhism. The archaeological ruins and the accounts of the foreign travelers bear testimony to the expansion and richness of this heritage in ancient Bengal. Yet it was not before long that the religion degenerated and became almost extinct. There was hardly any trace of Buddhist practices and heritage in the medieval period when Bengal was ruled by Muslim rulers. There has been a revival and resurgence of Buddhism in modern period almost all over India and it has found its reflection in Bengal as well. The Buddhists of Bengal are few in number yet the Buddhism they practice is not uniform and represent both the Hinayana and Mahayana schools of thought. Northern Buddhism as it had developed in Tibet is followed by the Tibeto Mongoloid population of Darjeeling, the northern district of Bengal . Even though Bengal had connections with Tibet in the ancient period, the Tibetan Mahayana Buddhism that the people of the this region practice was introduced from Tibet itself in the early modern period through certain particular groups of people who migrated either from Tibet or the other two Himalayan kingdoms of Bhutan and Sikkim. In contrast, the Bengalis who practice this religion in the plains of Bengal are almost universally Baruas who claim to be the original descendants of the ancient Buddhists of India. Existence of these different schools are the legacy of the different phases of history of the region and that of the religion itself. The variations in rituals and practices add to the cultural diversity of the state and highlight the different shades in the practice of the religion itself. ‘Buddhism’ survives in Bengal in another form. Buddha’s philosophy has stirred and inspired the psyche of the Bengali intellectuals irrespective of the religion they actually professed. Even this has been possible due to some historical developments in the colonial period. Interest in ‘Buddhism’ has unleashed a plethora of literature on life and message of Buddha . Foremost among those writers was Rabindranath Tagore .. There may not be many practicing Buddhists in modern Bengal but there is a deep rooted respect for “Buddhism” in Bengali psyche- not for any particular sect or school of the religion but for what Buddhadeva had originally preached and proved with his life.

This paper studies the emergence and the eventual rise of Buddhism in the Indian subcontinent. It explains the social, political and the economic factors in the subcontinent that acted as a stimulant for the emergence and eventual rise of Buddhism.

Brahmanic scholars are so proud of, and they feel this is the legacy of Aryan/Brahmanic/Vedic tradition and not of Buddhist origin, and go on congratulating each other for its survival during the Muslim onslaught, was in fact, the gift of the Siddhas, labeled by Brahmins as 'corrupt'. While referring to the activities of the saint poets of Karnataka and Maharashtra like Basaveswara and Namdeva, and of North India like Raidas, Kabir and Nanak etc. and of Sufi Muslim saints, he says: "The Buddhist message of social equality and communal harmony had left a deep impression on the mind of Indian people which continued after the transformation of the classical Buddhist movement. The task of fighting the evils of casteism and untouchability was continued by the Buddhist Siddhas-the adepts of Tantrika culture, during the early medieval centuries. A large number of these Siddhas came from lower caste families, but their greatness was assured by their success (siddhi) in esoteric culture (sadhana). This mission of social reform was then resumed by the saint poets of the bhakti movement throughout the Middle Ages. Though these saint poets (sants) were, generally speaking within the fold of the Brahmanical "Hindu" religious tradition, yet they revolted freely against many fundamental dogmas and authentic customs of traditional Brahmanism. Their social and moral teachings were more in

Since the inception of Buddhism, the people of Bengal have maintained a very close relationship with Buddhist ideologies. In fact, Bengal appeared as a dominant center of Buddhist culture in the early medieval period (sixth to twelfth century CE) both for its institutional flavour as well as for state- sponsorship. However, with the fall of royal patronage and the conversion of the Buddhists to other religious faiths, Buddhism gradually lost its prominence in Bengal. It was during the colonial period (1757 to 1947 CE), Buddhism again started reviving in different corners of Bengal principally in the early twentieth century. However, the ‘Partition of Bengal Province (in 1947) appeared as a serious setback for the fate of Buddhism in this region. The East Bengali Buddhists had started a new episode of the struggle for survival in India more precisely in West Bengal as ‘refugees’ or as ‘asylum seekers. After their migration to West Bengal, the Bengali-speaking Buddhists have aspired t...