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Foreword
I'am proud to dedicate to the Bengali people a historic research document prepared by our Institute of Language Studies and Research (ILSR) under the Higher Education Department of the Government of West Bengal, establishing the classical antiquity of the Bengali language to around 3rd-4th century BCE. An expert team, consisting of in-house experts of ILSR as well as eminent scholars from the fields of archaeology, anthropo-history, linguistic and cultural studies, has prepared this comprehensive document spanning 4 volumes.

The first volume of this set looks into the evidences of earliest settlements in Bengal right from the pre-literate past (pre-5th to 3rd century BCE) in order to establish the ancestry of the speech-community called the Bengali. It further goes on to clearly establish the presence of a community called the Bengali at different geographical sites of the present-day Bengal from the pre-historic to the historic times through archaeological and historical evidences.

Preface
Language involves the question of the collective. To borrow the well-known German philosopher Martin Heidegger, Language is the house of Being, and therefore both the ontic and the epistemic soul of Bengal is encapsulated through the Bangla language, spoken by all Bengalis for more than thousand years. As a province and a culturally enriched region of India, Bengal is known for its literary and artistic excellence and all these heightened aesthetic and intellectual accomplishments have been animated through the ontological effervescence of the Bengali mind and the robust strength of the Bangla language for centuries. The sonorous mellifluousness, multitudinous depth and endearing cadence of the Bangla language evolved through centuries, having its originating anchorage in the fifth century. Any historiographic or genealogical study of the Bangla language and Bengali culture offers a fascinating cartography of linguistic and cultural infusion and heterodox flexibility, ensuring the emergence of a language that lends itself to be enriched through community interactions, quotidian singularity, geographic inflexions and through the everyday commerce of life and living. Bengal has been aptly described by scholars as the "Poyar chhonder desh" (a land of harmonious cadence and metrical symmetry), it has always blended differences, while retaining autonomy and subjective specificities. This simultaneous retention of harmony and cultural dissonance, unity amidst heterogeneity is the hallmark of both the Bengali mind and the Bengali language. This tradition of more than thousand years needs to be comprehensively archived and documented. In fact, the ancestry and historicity of the Bengali language and Bengali cultural striving requires greater projection and wider recognition. While Bengal's thousand years old heritage of linguistic and cultural marvel is common knowledge, for posterity and for formal record keeping, the vigorous archive of the Bangla language and Bengali cultural artifacts needs immediate documentation for formal and official recognition and everlasting projection. Keeping that in mind, the Institute of Language Studies and Research, ILSR, Kolkata, a nodal center of research of the Department of Higher Education, Government of West Bengal, was entrusted with the task of preparing a detailed report on the classical ancestry of the Bangla language. Such an act of documentation is a herculean task, involving consistent research and meticulous documentation to affirm and to substantiate the classical anchorage of the Bangla language. Under the visionary tutelage of our Hon'ble Chief Minister Smt Mamata Banerjee, who dreams of reawakening of a resurgent Bengal, I am happy to present a monumental report which corroborates the already known fact about the classical status of the Bangla language. This report has been prepared by a scholarly team of experts of the Institute of Language Studies and Research (ILSR), Kolkata. I am also elated to note that this report is now being tabled to the right forum for the consignment of official recognition of the classical status of the Bangla language. This report has been prepared through archeological, historicist and scholarly substantiation which establishes quite firmly the classical nature of Bangla in terms of its ancestry, excellence and growth. Being the Chairperson of ILSR.. I thank the ILSR scholarly team for their efforts and expertise and I am more than sure that their erudite exercise will bear fruits and Bangla will be granted the classical status which is long overdue.