Milarepa, 1040–1143, saint and poet of Tibetan Buddhism. He was the second patriarch of the Kargyupa sect, the first being Milarepa's guru Marpa (1012–97), who studied under Naropa, the Bengal...

Chatterjee, Bankim Chandra, 1838–94, Indian nationalist writer, b. Bengal. He popularized a Bengali prose style that became the vehicle of the major nationalist literature of the region. Born ...

Tagore, Sir Rabindranath, 1861–1941, Indian author and guru, b. Calcutta (now Kolkata). Tagore came from a wealthy Bengali family. He went abroad in 1877 to study law in England but soon retur...

Barakpur, city (1991 pop. 137,261), West Bengal state, NE India, on the Hugli River. The city is a military station. Fifteen miles (24 km) from Kolkata (Calcutta), it was formerly the suburban...

Kolkata, formerly Calcutta, city (1991 pop. 10,916,272), capital of West Bengal state, E India, on the Hugli River. It is the second largest city in India and one of the largest in the world. ...

Bhattacharya, Bhabhani, 1906–, Indian novelist, journalist, and translator. Bhattacharya was educated in India and England and has taught and traveled in many parts of the world. The themes of...

Krishna [Sanskrit,=black], one of the most popular deities in Hinduism, the eighth avatar, or incarnation of Vishnu. Krishna appears in the Mahabharata epic as a prince of the Yadava tribe and...

Rakhine State, formerly Arakan, state (1983 pop. 2,045,891), 14,194 sq mi (36,762 sq km), W Myanmar, extending along the Bay of Bengal. It lies at the foot of the Arakan Yoma mountain range, w...

Tripura, state (2001 provisional pop. 3,191,168), 4,036 sq mi (10,453 sq km), NE India, bordered by Bangladesh on the north, west, and south, and on the east by the states of Assam and Mizoram...

Assam, state (2001 provisional pop. 26,638,407), c.30,000 sq mi (77,700 sq km), extreme NE India. Dispur is the capital. Almost completely separated from India by Bangladesh, Assam is bordered...