Page:Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, a story of his life and work.djvu/38



Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar was born on the 26th day of September, in the year 1820, corresponding with the twelvthtwelfth [sic] of Asvin, 1227, Bengali Era, of a poor, but respectable Brahman family, at Birsingha, a small village in the district of Midnapore, in the lower provinces of Bengal. His father's name was Thakurdas Bandyopadhyay. Isvar Chandra was his first-born son. The village Birsingha is 52 miles to the west of Calcutta, the metropolis of India, and is only 5 miles from Ghatal, which is one of the subdivisions of the Midnapore district. But Birsingha was not the original home of the family. Vidyasagar's grandfather had removed there from Banamalipur, where the family had been living for several generations. Banamalipur is a village in the Hugli district, lying