What is the Origin of the word Namassej?

Answer 1

Most probably the word means a community .In Indian mythology there is a story of two sages or Rishis named as Namas and Swanak .They were brothers .The minstrels of Namasudra community in the early nineties spread the story that they are descendants of this sage .The story is found in Many Bengali Little Magazines also .

According to Bengali language Sreej is a verb meaning to originate,to create , to generate so Namas + Sreej to Namassreej to Namassej meaning originated from Namas .

In this context it would not be out of place to mention that Sut in Bengali language means son .So Namas + Sut to Namassut i.e. son or descendants of Namas but most probably the Hindu Society did not accept this AND sut was replaced by sudra thus leading to the documentation as Namasudra.

The other meaning that must be mentioned is that they are of respectable origin. Namasya ( meaning respectable in Bengali ) + sut ( son ) ( changed to sudra ) i.e. respectable sudra .The alternate hearsay is that every hymns in Hindu mythology starts with a Nama(s) and since due to some fault this community has been degraded to sudra , their name should be preceded by a Nama(s) . Namassej in that sense means Namasya + sreej ( transfoemed to ssej) means Respectable Origin ( since sreej means to originate ).

Some recent opinion confers them the status of Khanda ( degraded or mixed or lost purity ) Khsatriya( warrior class ).Their inherent upright nature and the fighting spirit also convinced some people to cast doubt on their low social status and think of Kshatriya origin .

It seems the most convincing answer is descendants of Namas. The original name found on web page one decade ago is Namaswej. Since in Banglabhasha " w or wa" after consonant doubles it in pronunciation so later it got modified as Namassej and the meaning was interpreted as above.But it should be Namas + Swajan ( kins or descendants or closely related people) > Namasswajan > Namaswajan >Namaswej . So Namassej means the descendants of Namas .