Anandamath Abbey of Bliss" (literally Anand=Bliss and Math=Abbey). "Vande Mataram", "Hail to the Mother", first song to represent Bengal - or India, which is almost synonymous at that time as far as nationalism is concerned - as the Mother (the goddess Durga) was published in this novel. The book is set in the years during the famine in Bengal in 1770 CE. It starts with introduction to a couple, Mahendra and Kalyani, who are stuck at their village "Padachina" without food and water in the times of famine. They decide to leave their village and move to the next closest city
Vande Mataram recommended the adoption. The entire song was not selected by Hindu leaders in order to respect the sentiments of non-Hindus, and the gathering agreed that anyone should be free to sing an alternate "unobjectionable song" at a national gathering if they do not want to sing Vande Mataram because they find it "objectionable" for a personal reason. According to the gathered leaders, including the Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, though the first two stanzas began with an unexceptionable evocation of the beauty of the motherland, in later stanzas there are references to the Hindu goddess Durga. The Muslim League and Muhammad