Kali Puja became widespread in Bengal through patrons in which century?

Kali Puja became widespread in Bengal through patrons in the eighteenth century.

The festival’s wider popularity is associated especially with King Krishnachandra of Nadia, an eighteenth-century ruler and zamindar whose religious and cultural patronage helped establish Kali worship more firmly in Bengal. This expansion built on older Shakta and Tantric traditions rather than beginning from nothing.

Kali had appeared in Bengali devotional literature by the seventeenth century, including the vernacular mangalkavya tradition. The eighteenth century therefore marks the period when elite sponsorship helped transform existing worship into a more broadly established festival.

A common mix-up is the nineteenth century: Kali Puja did experience another major surge then, particularly alongside the prominence of the Kali devotee Sri Ramakrishna and the sponsorship of affluent landowners. That later growth increased its scale, but the question asks when it first became widespread through patrons.