Baidya
Baidya or Vaidya is a Bengali Hindu community located in the Bengal region of Indian subcontinent. A caste of Ayurvedic physicians, the Baidyas have long had pre-eminence in society alongside Brahmins and Kayasthas. In the colonial era, the Bhadraloks were drawn primarily, but not exclusively, from these three upper castes, who continue to maintain a collective hegemony in West Bengal.
Etymology
The terms Baidya means a physician in the Bengali and Sanskrit languages. Bengal is the only place where they formed a caste or rather, a jati.Origins
The origins of Baidyas remain surrounded by a wide variety of overlapping and sometimes contradictory myths, and are heavily contested. Aside from Upapuranas and two genealogies, premodern Bengali literature does not discuss details of the caste's origins, nor do any old and authentic Smritis. The community claims a descent from the semi-legendary Ambashthas, mostly believed to be of Kshatriya origin in Hindu scriptures, but such connections are tenuous.It is plausible the Baidyas had some link with Vaidyas of South India; inscriptions of the Sena dynasty mention migrations from Karnat and other places. The Talamanchi plates of Vikramaditya I were drafted by one Vajravarman, described as an "illustrious Vaidya"; besides, three South Indian inscriptions of the Pandyas note the Vaidya-kula to be Brahmins, famed for expertise in music and Sastras, and one of them was noted to have served in the dual roles of War-General and Prime Minister.
Scriptural narratives
The Upapuranas played a significant role in the history of Bengal: they propagated and established Brahminic ideals in the hitherto-impure fringes of Aryavarta and accommodated elements of the vernacular culture to gain acceptance among masses. In the process, they became evidence of sociocultural negotiations that transpired in late-medieval Bengal.Brihaddharma Purana was the earliest document to chronicle a hierarchy of castes in Bengal and it became the standard text for popular negotiations of caste status. It mentioned the Baidyas as an occupational caste, equivalent to the Ambasthas, deriving from a well-known mythical episode where Brahmins had them ordained to be the highest of Shudras and conferred a monopoly to practice Ayurveda. In contrast, the Brahma Vaivarta Purana —notable for a very late Bengali recension — treats the Baidyas as separate to Ambasthas but notes both to be Satsudras.
According to Ryosuke Furui, the Varnasamkara myth and the subsequent ordaining of Samkaras in Brh. P. reflected and reinforced the existing social hierarchy of ancient Bengal — that is, even in pre-Brahminized Bengal, the Baidyas had an eminent position and practiced medicine — while allowing the Brahmin authors to conform an alien society to orthodoxic standards, and establish themselves at the top. According to Sircar, the Baidya community mentioned in the Bv. P. was a group of degraded Brahmins called Vaidya or Pandita, who resided in the Ganjam district of Odisha and may have served as a link between the Vaidyas of South India and the Baidyas of Bengal.
Kulajis
Kulajis — a form of literature endemic to Bengal — were essentially immutable genealogical registers but actually, texts in flux, reflecting the needs and anxieties of contemporary society; they primarily served to establish social hierarchy vis à vis others. Of the two extant pre-modern Baidya genealogies, Chandraprabha constructs a descent from the semi-legendary Ambasthas whereas the slightly older Sadvaidyakulapnjika did not. Further, both of them hold Adi Sura and Ballāla Sena to be among their ancestors; this is agreed upon by some Brahmin kulanjis but rejected by Kayastha ones.History
Gupta Bengal (c. 400 C.E. - 550 C.E.)
Sedentary agrarian societies had formed in western regions of Bengal by c. 1000 BCE. The growth of states were roughly simultaneous with the rise of the Gupta Empire and by then, cultural contacts with North India were gradually flourishing. Written records predating the Guptas do not survive.Copper Plate Inscriptions from the Gupta Era point to a complex society with different professional classes having little socioeconomic homogeneity. Many of these classes had their own hierarchies corresponding to differential geospatial levels or economic conditions but there exists no evidence of inter-class hierarchy; rather, there were frequent collaborations at the local levels in bureaucratic affairs. It does not appear that varna played any role in the society — the Brahmins were the only group to be referred to by their caste-identity and were revered but still classed as one among the peasant landholder class.
One Gunaighar Inscription, dated to Vainyagupta, demarcated agricultural tracts that were to be collectively owned by Baidyas. The reference was, in all likelihood, to the profession of physicians who probably drew people from various varnas including Brahmins.
Medieval Bengal (c. 600 C.E. - c. 1400 C.E.)
With the rise of sovereign kingships centered around Vanga, Radha, and Pundravardhana, the relatively well-off sections among the landholder class gained eminence and split into several sub-classes depending on economic power. Inscriptions referred to people from these classes alongside the villages they owned and above other professional classes — thus, economic affluence, rather than varna, appears to have been the operating norm in these societies. North-eastern Bengal which saw aggressive encroachment upon tribal tracts via royal settlement of Brahmins witnessed a less egalitarian society; yet, notwithstanding rulers claiming to a Brahmin pedigree etc, the social groups in inscriptions did not have anything to do with varna.With increasing urbanization in Pala territories, stratification became ingrained into the social structure and Brahmins —probably with state patronage— ascended to the top, overshadowing the landed magnates. Pala grants frequently enlist a detailed social hierarchy from the Brahmins to the Chandalas, encompassing many professional classes. In contrast, largely-agrarian societies in the east, ruled by the Chandras, exhibited no such radical developments though rudimentary notions of ranks were under development. The Paschimbhag copperplate inscription of Sri Chandra allotted the Baidyas with the largest share of land per se —even exceeding the Brahmins— pointing to the yet-insignificant roles played by varna.
Beginning the 11th century, kinship based organization was increasingly evident across all classes — sects of Brahmins claimed greater authority deriving from the illustriousness of their ancestors and networked among themselves, literate classes entered into practicing endogamy etc. Inscriptions increasingly point to the hereditary nature of a range of professions from merchants to engravers to scribes. In the words of Furui, proto-jatis were forming across these spans which would be legitimized into a Brahminic social order by the Upapuranas etc. The Bhatera Copper Plates mention the aksapaṭalika of King Isandeva to be of Baidya lineage, on whose advice a parcel of land was granted to the family of a dead prince. Kumkum Chatterjee feels that the Baidyas had probably crystallized into a jati long before the Sultanate rule, sometime around these times.
Sultanate and Mughal Bengal
In Sultanate, Mughal, and Nawabi Bengal, Baidyas often branched out into fields other than medicine and comprised a significant percentage of the elites. They were reputed for their proficiency in Sanskrit, which they needed to read treatises of medicine. By the end of sixteenth century, Baidyas were occupying a position of preeminence in the Bengali social hierarchy alongside Brahmins and Kayasthas; marriages between Baidyas and Kayasthas were commonplace.Around the late fifteenth century, Baidyas became intricately associated with the Caitanya Cult alongside Brahmins. Murari Gupta, a childhood friend of Caitanya, was a famed physician of Navadwip and went on to compose Krsna Caitanya Caritamrta, his oldest extant biography in Sanskrit. Narahari Sarkara, another Baidya devotees, composed Krsna Bhajanamrta, a theological commentary. Sivananda Sena, an immensely wealthy Baidya, organize the annual trip of Caitanya devotees to Puri, and his son wrote several devotional Sanskrit works. As the Caitanya cult shunned doctrines of equality after his death, the associated Baidyas began enjoying a quasi-Brahminic status as Gaudiya Vasihnava gurus.
Multiple Baidya authors partook in the Mangalkavya tradition, the foremost being Bijaya Gupta. Besides, two Chandi Mangalkavyas were penned by Jaynnarayana Sen and Muktarama Sen, two Manasa Mangalkavyas by Sasthibara Datta and one by Dbarik Das. Bharatamallika, a physician and an instructor of a tol, wrote numerous commentaries on Sanskrit texts like Amarakosha, and produced miscellaneous works on grammar and lexicography.