The Rise and Fall of a Monastic Network in Colonial Bengal

Combining textual analysis and site-specific field study, this paper explores the extension into southwestern Bengal of the Dasnami Sampraday in the early 17th century, mapping the emplacement of a network of satellite monastic sites in relation to a new principal “seat” (gaddi) at Tarakeshwar, and charting the rapid deterioration of these sites beginning in the late colonial period.