Mysterious Durga Puja Festival – The Art of Sculpting in Bengal

Durga (Sanskrit: दुर्गा Durgā “Invincible”) also known as Devi Shakti (the goddess of power) in Hinduism.

I made a vacation at home and get the flavour of Durga Puja this October 18-23 in 2015. It was a quite surprise to me and I explored various unknown facts about Durga Puja festival in Bengal.

I was trying to deep dig the myth and origin behind this Bengal festival. How it becomes so grand? Bengali Durga Puja has a mysterious history, the first such Puja was organised by Raja Nabakrishna Deb of the Shobhabazar Rajbari of Calcutta in honour of Lord Clive in the year 1757. The puja was organised because Clive wished to pay thanks for his victory in the Battle of Plassey. He was unable to do so in a Church because the only church in Calcutta at that time was destroyed by Siraj-ud-Daulah. Indeed, many wealthy mercantile and Zamindar families in Bengal made British officers of the East India Company guests of honour in the Pujas. The hosts vied with one another in arranging the most sumptuous fares, decorations and entertainment for their guests. This was deemed necessary since the company was in charge of a large part of India including Bengal after the battles of Plassey and Buxar. vide Wikipedia

Albeit recently in 2011 Shobhabazar Rajbari declined this history for an unknown reason.

Personally, I took interviews of Durga puja organisers, brahmanas, and highly educated elders in the neighbourhood separately to originate the history about this grand festival. But I got no clue from them. No one able to tell about exact facts or the history of origin about Durga Puja. The question is,

1. Why Durga Puja festival becomes the grand in West Bengal?

2. When was it first started?

3. What evidence or literature we have to establish the origin of Durga Puja Festival in West Bengal?