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Upapuranas
The Upapuranas played a significant role in the history of Bengal: they propagated and established Brahminic ideals in the hitherto-impure fringes of Aryavarta and accommodated elements of the vernacular culture to gain acceptance among masses. In the process, they became evidence of sociocultural negotiations that transpired in late-medieval Bengal.

The Brihaddharma Purana (Brh. P.; c. 13th century) was the earliest document to chronicle a hierarchy of castes in Bengal,  and it became the standard text for popular negotiations of caste status. It does not mention the Baidyas as a separate caste but identifies the Ambasthas as the clan born of a Brahmin father and a Vaishya mother who were considered equivalent to Baidyas due to their profession as physicians. In this mythical episode Brahmins have conferred upon them a monopoly to practice Ayurveda. In contrast, the Brahma Vaivarta Purana (Bv. P.) —notable for a very late Bengali recension (c. 14/15th c.)— separates Ambastha from Baidya and describes Baidya as being begotten by a Brahmin woman and Ashwini Kumara, the healing deity of the Gods. In any case, the Baidyas were branded as Sat-Shudras according to the tradition of Bengal, where only two varnas existed.

According to Ryosuke Furui, the Varnasamkara myth and the subsequent ordaining of Samkaras in Brh. P. reflected and reinforced the existing social hierarchy of ancient Bengal — that is, even in pre-Brahminized Bengal, the Baidyas had an eminent position and practiced medicine — while allowing the Brahmin authors to conform an alien society to orthodoxic standards, and establish themselves at the top. Ramaprasad Chanda had supported such a reading as early as 1916. Nripendra Kumar Dutt held these Upapuranas as tools for Brahmin law-makers to deprive Vaidyas of its mixed-caste privileges such as a sacred thread.