Talk:Akananda and Bakananda

Deprod

First of all, this article definitely needs some attention because it is not clearly distinguishing between legend and actual history. But that in itself is not reason for deletion, it is reason for improvement.

I've removed the proposed deletion on this because I would like to understand better how people are coming to the conclusion that the sources are self-published. Of the four sources historyofbengal.com looks the most dubious to me, but even that is clearly not a one-person website. The other three are all published books in Bengali, so quite difficult for me to assess. Two of the publishers seem to be very small and apparently now defunct, but [Dey's publishing seems to still be with us, but without a functioning website. They claim the company "ranks among the top Bengali publishing houses of India." I'm not seeing a pirma facie case for any of these books being self-published.

English language sources for this subject are hard to come by, but it is covered in one book; Enamul Haque, ‎Enāmulahaqa, Chandraketugarh: A Treasure House of Bengal Terracottas ISBN 9848140026. The book Folklore Tradition Urbanity ISBN 8189620673 does not discuss the topic of our article, but it does mention Chakraborty's book in another context. Folklore seems to me to be a scholarly work, examining carefully the origins and motivations of folklore. Chakraborty is discussed in this context leading me to mark his book as reliable without evidence to the contrary. SpinningSpark 10:58, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Satish Chandra Mitra's volume was written over 100 years ago. Drafted as a nationalist response to then-dominant British perceptions of Indian History, Mitra made many claims that have failed to stand the test of time. We cannot use such old writings as sources without paying due regard to the contexts of production. Dey's reprinted the work in 2001 - that proves or disproves nothing.

The issue with historyofbengal.com is not whether it is a one-person website. Even if a hundred were involved, appropriate standard of historical scholarship is not met with. Likewise, Bangiya Loksanskriti Kosh is published by a local publisher who does not have any record of publishing decent scholarship in social sciences, and the work is hardly cited by anybody. Paschimbanger Sanskriti by Binoy Ghosh appears to be an acclaimed work.

Chandraketugarh: A Treasure House of Bengal Terracottas mentions the subject in the most trivial fashion, within a single page.TrangaBellam (talk) 12:04, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

I still don't think that is convincing enough to delete as a prod. The difference between your perspective and mine on this is that you are treating this article as alleged history that has no foundation. I am treating it as an article on mythology which gives the impression of historical fact through in-universe writing style. The first is a deletion case, the second is a cleanup case. Your belief that this was made up for political reasons does not change that. A vast swathe of Ancient Roman mythology is similarly a product of political considerations and national pride; see Aeneas for example. The truth is that much of mythology around the world has similar foundations. That does not stop mythological stories being notable. SpinningSpark 16:11, 21 November 2021 (UTC)