Page:The history of the Bengali language (1920).pdf/51

Rh word Vanga. I shall not be accused of giving reins to wild imagination, if I consider this non-Aryan suffix "lā" to be still persisting in our language, and that we detect this suffix in such words as "phoglā," "totlā," etc. I should, however, note that the "la" or its derivative "lā" which indicates past tense (as in karila or karilā), has nothing to do with the "lā" spoken of here. Be that as it may, we get it as a certain fact, and that is a great gain with us, that the word Bong-long or Bānglā was the name of some indefinite portion of our present Bengal, at least as early as the 7th century B. C., and the name Vanga (which originally signified a people) is of great antiquity.

We learn this good lesson from the accounts of the Vanga people, that we should not invariably make the Aryan activities in a province the sole starting point for the historic period in that province, and should not consign all pure and unmixed non-Aryan activities to the limbo of all forgotten formations, by writing the convenient term "Pre-historic time" over the events of the non-Aryan people. We see that the Vangas, previous to their being influenced by the Aryan civilisation, created a history in this world. Far from therefore being ashamed, we are rather proud of this ethnical record, that those who have to be presumed to form the bulk of our population to-day, are the Vangas, who founded once a ruling house in Annam in Farther India.

Another fact of great historical significance relating to the early migratory movements of the people of Bengal has to be narrated from the records of the Dravidians of Peninsular India. Very ancient Tamil books inform us that many Nāga-worshipping tribes proceeded from Bengal as well as from other parts of Northern India to establish their supremacy in the Tamilakam country. Of these tribes, the Marans, the Cheras and the Pangala