Bangamata

Baṅgamātā (Bengali: বঙ্গমাতা), Bangla Maa (Bengali: বাংলা মা), Mother Bengal or simply বাংলা/ Bangla, is a personification of Bengal created during the Bengali Renaissance and later adopted by the Bengali nationalists. In Bangladeshi Bengali and Indian Bengali poetry, literature, cultural and patriotic song, she has become a symbol of Bangladesh and India's West Bengal & Tripura and considered as a personification of the People's Republic of Bangladesh. The Mother Bengal represents not only biological motherness but its attributed characteristics as well – protection, never ending love, consolation, care, the beginning and the end of life.

Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, a writer, poet and journalist from Bengal, composed an ode to Mother Bengal called Vande Mataram around 1876 as an alternative to the British royal anthem.

In Amar Sonar Bangla, the national anthem of Bangladesh, Rabindranath Tagore used the word "Maa" (Mother) numerous times to refer to the motherland, i.e. Bengal. Despite her popularity in patriotic songs and poems, her physical representations and images are rare.