Raja Krishnachandra
Raja & Zamindar of Nadia
Raja of Nadia
Reign1728 – 1783
PredecessorRaja Raghuram Ray
SuccessorŚiva Chandra Roy
Bornc. 1710
Krishnanagar, Nadia Raj (now in West Bengal, India)
Diedc. 1783 (aged 72–73)
Nadia Raj (now in West Bengal, India)
Names
Krishnachandra Roy
HouseKrishnanagar Rajbari
FatherRaghuram Ray
ReligionHinduism

Raja Krishnachandra (born Krishnachandra Ray; 1710–1783) was a raja[1][2] and zamindar in Nadia[a] from 1728 to 1782.[3] He belonged to the Nadia Raj family and Shakta Hindu tradition. He is credited not only with his resistance to the Mughal rule, but with his expansion and patronage of the arts in his kingdom.[3]

Reign

According to Atul Chandra Roy, Krishnachandra was “the most important man of the period in the Hindu society of Bengal.”[4] During his reign, Krishnachandra was highly influential for Hindu religious practices, for which reason Raja Rajballabh Sen of Bikrampur sought the assistance of Krishnachandra's pandits in supporting the overturning of the prohibition on widow remarriage after his own daughter was widowed young.[5] However, Krishnachandra strongly opposed the measure. To illustrate his feelings, legend relates, he had the visitors served the meat of a buffalo calf. Offended, they rejected the food on their honor as orthodox Hindus, and when challenged indicated that though it was not explicitly prohibited it was not practice nor custom. Krishnachandra's courtiers pointed out that they had taken umbrage at being presented something not forbidden but against custom, but that they expected Krishnachandra to accept their own unorthodox proposal.[5] With the opposition of Krishnachandra, Rajballabh failed to achieve the change he sought.[6]

Another legend connected to Krishnachandra involved the conflict between his diwan, Raghunandan, and Manikchandra, then diwan of Burdwan but in future to become raja himself.[7] After Raghunandan and Manikchandra quarreled, Manikchandra accused the other man of theft and had sufficient power to order and see to his execution. John McLane speculates that the root of the disagreement may have been Manikchandra's well-known resentment of Krishnachandra's patronage of the poet Bharatchandra, who had insulted the Burdwan raj family in a poem in retaliation for their depriving him of his own family estate.[7]

Krishnachandra is also legendarily associated with the popularization of the worship of the goddess Jagaddhatri.[8] According to the story, Krishnachandra had been imprisoned by Muslims, causing him to miss the celebration of Durga Puja. Durga appeared to him in the form of Jagaddhatri and ordered him to worship her in one month, which he did, commissioning a sculptor to create a statue of the goddess. Bharatchandra Ray is said to be the court poet of Krishnachandra.[9] He was also the patron of Sadhak Ramprasad Sen.

Krishna Chandra was part of the group, which included Jagat Seth, Mir Jafar, Omichund, Ray Durlabh and others, which conspired against Siraj ud-Daulah and colluded with Robert Clive, which lead to defeat of Siraj ud-Dullah in Battle of Plassey and eventual foundation of British rule in India.[10][11] It is arguable that Krishnachandra or other members of the conspiracy group had no particular intention to found British rule in India, rather they were purely interested in their own political futures.[12] Krishnachandra remained on friendly terms with the British and especially with Robert Clive. This relationship served him well in the 1760s when Bengal Nawab Mir Qasim ordered Krishnachandra's execution, for Clive not only overruled it but gifted Krishnachandra five cannons, the title maharaja, and governance as zamindar of the area of Krishnanagar.[13]

In popular culture

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Raja Krishnachandra features in all stories depicting the wit of the famous court jester Gopal Bhar. While it is debated whether Gopal Bhar was real or fictitious, the corpus of stories paint a vigorous portrait of Krishnachandra, as a ruler who was whimsical but humble, sometimes eager to display his punitive power and at other times accepting the lessons that Gopal taught him through his jokes. His depiction also shows character depth in the sense that, while the king is clearly in awe of Gopal's wit, he is also jealous and seeking revenge due to past embarrassments caused by Gopal's scathing remarks, and this dichotomy often creates comic situations.

Notes

  1. ^ now in West Bengal

References

  1. ^ A. F. Salahuddin Ahmed; Aly Fouad Ahmed (1965). Social Ideas and Social Change in Bengal 1818-1835. Brill Archive. p. 14.
  2. ^ Kumkum Chatterjee (2009). The Cultures of History in Early Modern India: Persianization and Mughal Culture in Bengal. Oxford University Press. p. 100. ISBN 9780195698800. Maharaja Krishnachandra Roy of Nadia, one of the most powerful zamindars of eighteenth century Bengal.
  3. ^ a b Rodrigues, Hillary (2003). Ritual Worship of the Great Goddess: The Liturgy of the Durga Puja with Interpretations. SUNY Press. p. 20. ISBN 978-0-7914-8844-7.
  4. ^ Roy, Atul Chandra (1968). History of Bengal: Mughal period, 1526-1765 A.D. Nababharat Publishers. p. 362.
  5. ^ a b Bidyāsāgara, Īśvaracandra (13 August 2013). Hindu Widow Marriage. Columbia University Press. pp. 14–15. ISBN 978-0-231-52660-9.
  6. ^ Pruthi, R.K. (1 January 2004). Brahmo Samaj and Indian Civilization. Discovery Publishing House. p. 43. ISBN 978-81-7141-791-9.
  7. ^ a b McLane, John R. (25 July 2002). Land and Local Kingship in Eighteenth-Century Bengal. Cambridge University Press. p. 169. ISBN 978-0-521-52654-8.
  8. ^ Charleston, June McDaniel Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies College of (9 July 2004). Offering Flowers, Feeding Skulls : Popular Goddess Worship in West Bengal: Popular Goddess Worship in West Bengal. Oxford University Press. p. 220. ISBN 978-0-19-534713-5.
  9. ^ Roy, Tapti (13 November 2018). Print and Publishing in Colonial Bengal: The Journey of Bidyasundar. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-429-67351-1.
  10. ^ The Calcutta Review. University of Calcutta. 1874. p. 97. Retrieved 4 April 2017.
  11. ^ Banu, U. A. B. Razia Akter (1992). Islam in Bangladesh. BRILL. p. 26. ISBN 90-04-09497-0.
  12. ^ Ray, Rajatkanta (1994). Palashir Sharajantra O Sekaler Samaj.
  13. ^ Chatterjee, Pranab (2010). A Story of Ambivalent Modernization in Bangladesh and West Bengal: The Rise and Fall of Bengali Elitism in South Asia. Peter Lang. p. 166. ISBN 978-1-4331-0820-4.
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