Wednesday, 25 March 2009
Portuguese, The were first.....
Portuguese, The were first among the Europeans to come to Bengal. Since the early 15th century they had embarked upon seafaring enterprises. The arrival of Vasco da Gama at Calicut in August 1498 was followed (a couple of decades later) by the arrival of the Portuguese in Bengal. From the end of the fifteenth century, the quest for spices from Asia led to the Portuguese explorations in an attempt to bypass the Venetians and the Arab merchants. The development of the caravel ship around 1445 and the capacity of the Portuguese to use the quadrant to determine onwards latitude from 1456 helped the process that was patronised by Prince Henry and later by King Joao II.
It was after the conquest of Malacca (1511) that the Portuguese effort to move inside the Bay of Bengal succeeded from where the supply of rice and textiles could be assured. The first indirect contact with Bengal was made in 1512-13. The map of Asia, drawn in 1516 by Diego Reinel, gives an outline of the Bengal coast but not the islands and the ports, which possibly were not yet known to the Portuguese. The appointment of Lopo Soares as governor after the death of Albuquerque marked the end of state controlled commercial activities and the liberal policy that followed saw the arrival of the Portuguese in Bengal.
While a private Portuguese trader, Martin Lucena, was living at gaur, capital of Bengal, the first Portuguese merchant to have reached the Ganges was Joao Coelho, who was sent by Giovanni de Empoli, a Florentine merchant, around 1516. Soares sent a fleet of four ships commanded by Joao de Silveria, who after plundering ships from Bengal, anchored at chittagong on 9 May 1518. Intermittent war and peace with the governor's men followed. This was complicated by the help demanded by the King of Arakan from Silveira to recover Chittagong from the Bengal sultan. But Silveira preferred to leave for Ceylon and thus ended the first official Portuguese contact with Bengal.
Diego Lopes, who succeeded Soares, was far more interested in the Coromandel and Pegu. However he sent three ships to Bengal commanded by Antonio de Britto, whose unnamed interpreter has left an invaluable account of Britto's visit to Gaur from Chittagong (October 1521). Britto carried a letter from the Portuguese governor of India to the sultan of Bengal along with presents and goods for sale. His job was made difficult by the arrival of another Portuguese mission led by Rafael Prestelo a few days befor. Rafael's representative, Christovao Jusarte, an old Bengal hand, had gone to Gaur to obtain permission to reduce the customs duty to 10%. Britto sent Gonsalves Travers to the sultan with the proposal to exempt the payment of custom duties for the Portuguese in Bengal. The arrival of two embassies, both claiming official status, created confusion and finally led to an actual fight between them at Chittagong, in which the Turkish merchant Agha Khan took the side of Rafaelo.
At the court of Gaur, Jusarte had managed to persuade the officials to declare Britto's interpreter as a spy, who was finally allowed to leave Bengal with the promise that the Portuguese would be exempted from paying customs duties. This perhaps led the Portuguese to send ships regularly to Bengal. In 1526, Ruy Vaz Perceira came to Chittagong and plundered the ship of a Persian merchant, Khwaja Sahabuddin, whose friendship with the governor of Chittagong led to reprisals.
Thus from the early sixteenth century, both private Portuguese merchants as well the official Portuguese representatives had begun to come to Bengal regularly, which often led to violent conflicts between them, a hangover of the contradiction prevailing at Lisbon for sometime. The involvement of the Portuguese in local politics created further complications. In 1528, Khuda Baksh Khan imprisoned the Portuguese stranded at Chakaria district of Chittagong after a storm. The negotiations for their release by Martin Alphonso Jusart de Mello having failed, the prisoners tried to escape but were caught. After the young nephew of de Mello was put to death, the prisoners were ransomed by the merchant Sahabuddin, on condition of getting help from Goa for Sahabuddin's enterprise against the Bengal sultan nusrat shah.
The expedition from Goa of five ships led by Jusart came to Chittagong after the death of Nusrat Shah. Jusart sent a mission to Sultan ghiyasuddin mahmud shah at Gaur to obtain a treaty. But the sultan imprisoned the Portuguese members of the mission for plundering a Muslim ship while Jusart along with the other Portuguese was arrested at Chittagong. Five of them were killed and the rest were imprisoned at Gaur. Goa sent a strong expedition to obtain the release of prisoners. The negotiations at Gaur failed and Jorge Alcocorado, who was leading the Portuguse delegation, barely escaped after putting fire to the city. The appearance of sher shah in Bengal however changed the situation.
Facing the new danger, Ghiyasuddin Mahmud held talks with Diego Rabello, perhaps the first Portuguese who had advanced to Gaur by the Ganges. Mahmud released the prisoners in lieu of assured Portuguese help against Sher Shah. The encounter with Sher Shah went against Mahmud Shah despite Portuguese help. Sher Shah left Gaur soon after getting 13 lakh gold coins paid by Mahmud against the advice of the Portuguese. The sultan now permitted the Portuguese to build factories with custom houses in Bengal. Nuno Fernandez Freire was appointed to Chittagong with special power to collect rent from houses. Joao Correa took charge of the custom house of satgaon. The Portuguese prisoners were released. Sher Shah's return to Gaur saw some resistance by Mahmud, but the expected help from Goa arrived too late to save the dying sultan, whose death ended the Hussain Shahi dynasty. The custom houses of Satgaon and Chittagong remained under Portuguese control.
The Portuguese control of Chittagong port was ephemeral, as it had become the bone of contention between Arakan, Tripura, Bengal and Burma since the mid-fifteenth century. In 1559, the Portuguese viceroy of Goa concluded a commercial treaty with Parmanand Ray of Bakla, in which the Portuguese would be able to buy goods on payment of duties. They offered military help in lieu of Bakla supplying provisions to visiting Portuguese ships. Perhaps the Portuguese wanted to direct the Chittagong traffic to Bakla with monopoly concessions. Chittagong continued to be under Portuguese control. In 1569 caesar frederick saw eighteen Portuguese ships anchored at Chittagong.
While the official Portuguese efforts aimed at consolidating their foothold in Bengal with bullion and gunpowder, the Portuguese mercenaries were indulging in piracy off the Bengal and Arakan coasts. The pirates found a convenient base on the island of Sandwip, famous for its salt, where private Portuguese merchants had also begun to operate. The Afghan families living there did not look with favour either on the piracy or the Portuguese attempt to control the island, with whose chequered history the Arakanese ambition to develop it as a springboard to attack the mainland was increasingly linked up.
Thus Portuguese society in Bengal was gradually segmented into official and private merchants, adventurers and pirates, though the distinction often became blurred. The gradual disintegration of the Hussain Shahi dynasty saw the emergence of the Arakan and Orissan powers in coastal Bengal, often penetrating inland; the segmented Portuguese groups, without any central control, began to establish their individual sway based on slave trading.
The first Portuguese settlement on the Bhagirathi was at Satgaon, and not at Bandel, founded by Affonso de Mello. It seems that the Portuguese were not permitted to establish a factory at Satgaon, which was, in reality, a customs shed. By 1554, the Portuguese called Satgaon Porto Pecquono (small port) in contrast to Chittagong, which was called Porto Grandoi (grand port). In the seventeenth century, Abdul Hamid Lahori suggested that some Portuguese from Sandwip had come to Satgaon where they had erected some buildings with fortifications. After the decline of Satgaon, they got some land around hughli at low rent. Their settlement at Triveni or perhaps at Bansberia, whose eighteenth century temple still bears the memory of the Portuguese in their wall sculptures, would thus pre-date Akbar's farman of 1579. The narrative of Frederick showed that the Portuguese settlement was not at Satgaon proper and was located between Adi Saptagram station and the now dry bed of the settled Saraswti River. There was no Portuguese settlement at Hughli ie on the Bhagirathi, prior to 1565, since the Portuguese used to transfer the goods from Bettore (opposite Howrah) by smaller boats to Satgaon. One of the reasons of the Portuguese use of Bettore instead of Triveni on the Bhagirathi was perhaps the occupation of Triveni by the Orissa King between 1560 and 1567.
It was after the conquest of Malacca (1511) that the Portuguese effort to move inside the Bay of Bengal succeeded from where the supply of rice and textiles could be assured. The first indirect contact with Bengal was made in 1512-13. The map of Asia, drawn in 1516 by Diego Reinel, gives an outline of the Bengal coast but not the islands and the ports, which possibly were not yet known to the Portuguese. The appointment of Lopo Soares as governor after the death of Albuquerque marked the end of state controlled commercial activities and the liberal policy that followed saw the arrival of the Portuguese in Bengal.
While a private Portuguese trader, Martin Lucena, was living at gaur, capital of Bengal, the first Portuguese merchant to have reached the Ganges was Joao Coelho, who was sent by Giovanni de Empoli, a Florentine merchant, around 1516. Soares sent a fleet of four ships commanded by Joao de Silveria, who after plundering ships from Bengal, anchored at chittagong on 9 May 1518. Intermittent war and peace with the governor's men followed. This was complicated by the help demanded by the King of Arakan from Silveira to recover Chittagong from the Bengal sultan. But Silveira preferred to leave for Ceylon and thus ended the first official Portuguese contact with Bengal.
Diego Lopes, who succeeded Soares, was far more interested in the Coromandel and Pegu. However he sent three ships to Bengal commanded by Antonio de Britto, whose unnamed interpreter has left an invaluable account of Britto's visit to Gaur from Chittagong (October 1521). Britto carried a letter from the Portuguese governor of India to the sultan of Bengal along with presents and goods for sale. His job was made difficult by the arrival of another Portuguese mission led by Rafael Prestelo a few days befor. Rafael's representative, Christovao Jusarte, an old Bengal hand, had gone to Gaur to obtain permission to reduce the customs duty to 10%. Britto sent Gonsalves Travers to the sultan with the proposal to exempt the payment of custom duties for the Portuguese in Bengal. The arrival of two embassies, both claiming official status, created confusion and finally led to an actual fight between them at Chittagong, in which the Turkish merchant Agha Khan took the side of Rafaelo.
At the court of Gaur, Jusarte had managed to persuade the officials to declare Britto's interpreter as a spy, who was finally allowed to leave Bengal with the promise that the Portuguese would be exempted from paying customs duties. This perhaps led the Portuguese to send ships regularly to Bengal. In 1526, Ruy Vaz Perceira came to Chittagong and plundered the ship of a Persian merchant, Khwaja Sahabuddin, whose friendship with the governor of Chittagong led to reprisals.
Thus from the early sixteenth century, both private Portuguese merchants as well the official Portuguese representatives had begun to come to Bengal regularly, which often led to violent conflicts between them, a hangover of the contradiction prevailing at Lisbon for sometime. The involvement of the Portuguese in local politics created further complications. In 1528, Khuda Baksh Khan imprisoned the Portuguese stranded at Chakaria district of Chittagong after a storm. The negotiations for their release by Martin Alphonso Jusart de Mello having failed, the prisoners tried to escape but were caught. After the young nephew of de Mello was put to death, the prisoners were ransomed by the merchant Sahabuddin, on condition of getting help from Goa for Sahabuddin's enterprise against the Bengal sultan nusrat shah.
The expedition from Goa of five ships led by Jusart came to Chittagong after the death of Nusrat Shah. Jusart sent a mission to Sultan ghiyasuddin mahmud shah at Gaur to obtain a treaty. But the sultan imprisoned the Portuguese members of the mission for plundering a Muslim ship while Jusart along with the other Portuguese was arrested at Chittagong. Five of them were killed and the rest were imprisoned at Gaur. Goa sent a strong expedition to obtain the release of prisoners. The negotiations at Gaur failed and Jorge Alcocorado, who was leading the Portuguse delegation, barely escaped after putting fire to the city. The appearance of sher shah in Bengal however changed the situation.
Facing the new danger, Ghiyasuddin Mahmud held talks with Diego Rabello, perhaps the first Portuguese who had advanced to Gaur by the Ganges. Mahmud released the prisoners in lieu of assured Portuguese help against Sher Shah. The encounter with Sher Shah went against Mahmud Shah despite Portuguese help. Sher Shah left Gaur soon after getting 13 lakh gold coins paid by Mahmud against the advice of the Portuguese. The sultan now permitted the Portuguese to build factories with custom houses in Bengal. Nuno Fernandez Freire was appointed to Chittagong with special power to collect rent from houses. Joao Correa took charge of the custom house of satgaon. The Portuguese prisoners were released. Sher Shah's return to Gaur saw some resistance by Mahmud, but the expected help from Goa arrived too late to save the dying sultan, whose death ended the Hussain Shahi dynasty. The custom houses of Satgaon and Chittagong remained under Portuguese control.
The Portuguese control of Chittagong port was ephemeral, as it had become the bone of contention between Arakan, Tripura, Bengal and Burma since the mid-fifteenth century. In 1559, the Portuguese viceroy of Goa concluded a commercial treaty with Parmanand Ray of Bakla, in which the Portuguese would be able to buy goods on payment of duties. They offered military help in lieu of Bakla supplying provisions to visiting Portuguese ships. Perhaps the Portuguese wanted to direct the Chittagong traffic to Bakla with monopoly concessions. Chittagong continued to be under Portuguese control. In 1569 caesar frederick saw eighteen Portuguese ships anchored at Chittagong.
While the official Portuguese efforts aimed at consolidating their foothold in Bengal with bullion and gunpowder, the Portuguese mercenaries were indulging in piracy off the Bengal and Arakan coasts. The pirates found a convenient base on the island of Sandwip, famous for its salt, where private Portuguese merchants had also begun to operate. The Afghan families living there did not look with favour either on the piracy or the Portuguese attempt to control the island, with whose chequered history the Arakanese ambition to develop it as a springboard to attack the mainland was increasingly linked up.
Thus Portuguese society in Bengal was gradually segmented into official and private merchants, adventurers and pirates, though the distinction often became blurred. The gradual disintegration of the Hussain Shahi dynasty saw the emergence of the Arakan and Orissan powers in coastal Bengal, often penetrating inland; the segmented Portuguese groups, without any central control, began to establish their individual sway based on slave trading.
The first Portuguese settlement on the Bhagirathi was at Satgaon, and not at Bandel, founded by Affonso de Mello. It seems that the Portuguese were not permitted to establish a factory at Satgaon, which was, in reality, a customs shed. By 1554, the Portuguese called Satgaon Porto Pecquono (small port) in contrast to Chittagong, which was called Porto Grandoi (grand port). In the seventeenth century, Abdul Hamid Lahori suggested that some Portuguese from Sandwip had come to Satgaon where they had erected some buildings with fortifications. After the decline of Satgaon, they got some land around hughli at low rent. Their settlement at Triveni or perhaps at Bansberia, whose eighteenth century temple still bears the memory of the Portuguese in their wall sculptures, would thus pre-date Akbar's farman of 1579. The narrative of Frederick showed that the Portuguese settlement was not at Satgaon proper and was located between Adi Saptagram station and the now dry bed of the settled Saraswti River. There was no Portuguese settlement at Hughli ie on the Bhagirathi, prior to 1565, since the Portuguese used to transfer the goods from Bettore (opposite Howrah) by smaller boats to Satgaon. One of the reasons of the Portuguese use of Bettore instead of Triveni on the Bhagirathi was perhaps the occupation of Triveni by the Orissa King between 1560 and 1567.
(To be continue.....)
Monday, 23 March 2009
Danes, The started their eastern trading activities
Danes, The started their eastern trading activities in the early seventeenth century. King Christian IV of Denmark founded the Danish Company of the Indies by a letter patent issued on 17 March 1616. Till 1640, only 18 Danish ships were sent to India that brought back spices, porcelains, diamonds etc. Rolald Grappe, the chief of the company, set up a factory at Pipli in 1625, followed by another at Balasore. The Danes did not have a farman and hence their relation with the local officials began to deteriorate soon. In 1642, local inhabitants ransacked the Pipli factory and the Danes had to leave both Pipli and Balasore. The situation worsened when a Danish ship, St. Jacob, wanted to anchor at Pipli in a violent storm. The faujdar refused permission and the ship was scuttled with loss of sixteen persons. The faujdar rejected the demand for compensation and the Danes began to seize ships and boats on the Bengal coast. Between 1638 and 1645, the Danes had captured seven ships. Excepting one of 180 tons, the rest were sampans, which hardly produced the result the Danes were looking for. Other Europeans, particularly the dutch, were against such attacks.
In 1645 shah shuja, the subahdar of Bengal, offered to pay Rs 80,000/- as compensation, which was refused by the Danes. Till the end of 1646, the piracy and the negotiations continued. A settlement was probably reached at the end of 1647. With the death of King Christian IV in 1648, the company got into difficulties in Denmark.
Meanwhile Danish piracy was continuing on the Bengal coast. In 1661, they captured a Bengal ship laden with rich cargo. The crew and the passengers were sold as slaves at Achen. Even Dutch mediation did not bring any settlement. By 1670, thirty Bengal ships were captured or scuttled by the Danes. By 1676, an agreement was reached allowing the Danes to settle at Pipli, Balasore and Hughli. The Mughal emperor approved of it and fixed the payment of 2BD % as custom duties. The Danes now began to plan for the purchase of silk, opium and saltpetre from Bengal. They would sell Tranquebar salt, European copper, iron and spirits in Bengal. The settlement did not last and the Danes began their piracy after evacuating Balasore.
While the demand for Bengal sugar, saltpetre and textile was increasing in Denmark, the company began negotiations with Bengal authorities from 1690. AndrE9 Andras could sign the accord in 1698 by which the company would forsake all claims for compensation and enjoy earlier commercial privileges. They were permitted to set up a factory near Chandernagore, which was called Danemarknagar. The warehouse and other buildings were enclosed by a wall and the number of personnel was nearly forty. The company however never received the promised farman.
It appears that the freight trade from Bengal to Tranquebar did not bring any profit. The project of the Bengal factor, Jean Jonchim, who had bought a big ship, was unsuccessful. Some of the factors acted so highhandedly with the local inhabitants, often maltreating the Bengali employees, two of whom died as a result, that serious problems arose. Wolf Ravn, one of the factors, was condemned by the company and was imprisoned for life. The report of the Danish governor, Erasmus Hansen Attrup, who came as governor in 1711, found the factory without stock and without credit while the local inhabitants were determined to drive the Danes away.
The Danish settlement in Bengal, about one and half mile from Chandernagore, had been receiving immigrants, and the Danes had begun to settle people in nearby villages before any permission was received from the subahdar. After several years, the Bengal government demanded rent from these villages, including arrears. In October 1714, on the refusal of the Danes to pay, the Karori Ramkrishna Ray led an attack, which was easily repulsed. Another attack by him in December also failed. By that time the Danes had no funds as no ship had come for several years. Their complaint to murshid quli khan was turned down. The Danes then evacuated their settlement and seized a big Moor ship rich in cargo, in front of Baranagar. They then collected about 350 Christian mercenaries and moved towards the mouth of the river. Attempts by the English and the French to mediate failed.
As a result the settlement of Danemarknagar was plundered by the faujdar of Hughli. Before leaving the Ganges, Attrup had declared war on the Mughals and accused Ramkrishna Karori of having received Rs 30,000 for the farman which he never delivered. Peace however came by the end of 1716 and the Danes again took possession of their settlement, in which there was no commerce. Without funds and without commerce, the factors ceased to have any noticeable existence. In 1721, the Danes sold their factory to the portuguese. The local authorities however took possession of the factory on the plea that the required payment had not been made.
Till 1744, the Danes made unsuccessful efforts to re-establish their settlement at Danemarknagar. However, in 1755, Alivardi Khan permitted the Danes to settle at Serampore, thanks to the mediation of the English, who were interested in sending money accrued from their private commerce to Europe through the Danes. Englishmen like robert clive, warren hastings, robert orme and others had collaborated with the Danes through country trading in the pre-Palashi period by sending Danish bills of exchange, prepared at Tranquebar, to Europe. As a result, the Danes never lacked cash for their trading venture in Bengal.
After 1757, the Danes like other non-English Europeans, found difficulties in freighting non-English ships, while the English monopolised the saltpetre and opium trade. In 1777, the Danish King took over the company and allowed Danish private merchants to trade in Asia. During the American war of Independence, the Danish company could increase their export from Bengal as a neutral country. With the peace in 1783, the situation changed and the Danes began to face stiff competition from other European nations. From 1785, Serampore was receiving American ships and missionaries. From the 1790s, Serampore became a centre of proselytisation and literary activities. The serampore mission, serampore mission press and serampore college had a far reaching effect on the social, religious and cultural life of Bengal. [Aniruddha Ray]
In 1645 shah shuja, the subahdar of Bengal, offered to pay Rs 80,000/- as compensation, which was refused by the Danes. Till the end of 1646, the piracy and the negotiations continued. A settlement was probably reached at the end of 1647. With the death of King Christian IV in 1648, the company got into difficulties in Denmark.
Meanwhile Danish piracy was continuing on the Bengal coast. In 1661, they captured a Bengal ship laden with rich cargo. The crew and the passengers were sold as slaves at Achen. Even Dutch mediation did not bring any settlement. By 1670, thirty Bengal ships were captured or scuttled by the Danes. By 1676, an agreement was reached allowing the Danes to settle at Pipli, Balasore and Hughli. The Mughal emperor approved of it and fixed the payment of 2BD % as custom duties. The Danes now began to plan for the purchase of silk, opium and saltpetre from Bengal. They would sell Tranquebar salt, European copper, iron and spirits in Bengal. The settlement did not last and the Danes began their piracy after evacuating Balasore.
While the demand for Bengal sugar, saltpetre and textile was increasing in Denmark, the company began negotiations with Bengal authorities from 1690. AndrE9 Andras could sign the accord in 1698 by which the company would forsake all claims for compensation and enjoy earlier commercial privileges. They were permitted to set up a factory near Chandernagore, which was called Danemarknagar. The warehouse and other buildings were enclosed by a wall and the number of personnel was nearly forty. The company however never received the promised farman.
It appears that the freight trade from Bengal to Tranquebar did not bring any profit. The project of the Bengal factor, Jean Jonchim, who had bought a big ship, was unsuccessful. Some of the factors acted so highhandedly with the local inhabitants, often maltreating the Bengali employees, two of whom died as a result, that serious problems arose. Wolf Ravn, one of the factors, was condemned by the company and was imprisoned for life. The report of the Danish governor, Erasmus Hansen Attrup, who came as governor in 1711, found the factory without stock and without credit while the local inhabitants were determined to drive the Danes away.
The Danish settlement in Bengal, about one and half mile from Chandernagore, had been receiving immigrants, and the Danes had begun to settle people in nearby villages before any permission was received from the subahdar. After several years, the Bengal government demanded rent from these villages, including arrears. In October 1714, on the refusal of the Danes to pay, the Karori Ramkrishna Ray led an attack, which was easily repulsed. Another attack by him in December also failed. By that time the Danes had no funds as no ship had come for several years. Their complaint to murshid quli khan was turned down. The Danes then evacuated their settlement and seized a big Moor ship rich in cargo, in front of Baranagar. They then collected about 350 Christian mercenaries and moved towards the mouth of the river. Attempts by the English and the French to mediate failed.
As a result the settlement of Danemarknagar was plundered by the faujdar of Hughli. Before leaving the Ganges, Attrup had declared war on the Mughals and accused Ramkrishna Karori of having received Rs 30,000 for the farman which he never delivered. Peace however came by the end of 1716 and the Danes again took possession of their settlement, in which there was no commerce. Without funds and without commerce, the factors ceased to have any noticeable existence. In 1721, the Danes sold their factory to the portuguese. The local authorities however took possession of the factory on the plea that the required payment had not been made.
Till 1744, the Danes made unsuccessful efforts to re-establish their settlement at Danemarknagar. However, in 1755, Alivardi Khan permitted the Danes to settle at Serampore, thanks to the mediation of the English, who were interested in sending money accrued from their private commerce to Europe through the Danes. Englishmen like robert clive, warren hastings, robert orme and others had collaborated with the Danes through country trading in the pre-Palashi period by sending Danish bills of exchange, prepared at Tranquebar, to Europe. As a result, the Danes never lacked cash for their trading venture in Bengal.
After 1757, the Danes like other non-English Europeans, found difficulties in freighting non-English ships, while the English monopolised the saltpetre and opium trade. In 1777, the Danish King took over the company and allowed Danish private merchants to trade in Asia. During the American war of Independence, the Danish company could increase their export from Bengal as a neutral country. With the peace in 1783, the situation changed and the Danes began to face stiff competition from other European nations. From 1785, Serampore was receiving American ships and missionaries. From the 1790s, Serampore became a centre of proselytisation and literary activities. The serampore mission, serampore mission press and serampore college had a far reaching effect on the social, religious and cultural life of Bengal. [Aniruddha Ray]
Sunday, 22 March 2009
Gaur (City of) one of the largest medieval cites
Gaur (City of) one of the largest medieval cites in the Indian subcontinent, was the capital of Bengal from c. 1450 AD to 1565 AD. Located on the eastern strip of land between the Ganges and the Mahananda rivers, in lat. 24°52' N. and Long. 88°10' E., south of the present town of Malda, its ruins spread over nearly twenty miles in length and four miles in breadth.
It has been postulated that the earlier city of Laksmanavati (later Islamised as lakhnauti) was located at the same site. Alexander cunningham, however, placed Laksmanavati to the north of the ruins of Gaur on the basis of Hindu place names and the existence of the ruins of a fort traditionally associated with vallalasena. It has also been held that laksmanasena had transferred his capital to nadia in order to spend his last days on the bank of the Ganges, which is difficult to accept since the Ganges was flowing past the city of Laksmanavati as well. MM Chakrabarty held that at an earlier period the Ganges was flowing through the Mahananda but had gradually begun to detach itself from the Mahananda to move towards the west. james rennell has recorded its westward movement at the end of the eighteenth century as he found the Ganges nearly ten miles west of the ruins of Gaur. The existing palaeo-channels clearly mark such movements. In that case, Laksmanavati would be located on the western side of the Ganges-Mahananda channel, whose memory was perhaps embodied in the sketches of Lopo Homes (1519) and Gastaldi (1548), showing Gaur on the west of the river. One could surmise that Laksmanavati was abandoned by the Sena king due to the westward movement of the Ganges that might have washed away his capital. The remains of the sandy soil over a long area in palaeo-channels can still be seen. However, the pre-Muslim artifacts, both Buddhist and Hindu, are found only in the higher ground located to the south of the medieval Gaur fort.
The first inscription of Gaur, dated December 1457, during the reign of Sultan Nasiruddin Mahmud I (1435-1459), on a bridge erected by him on the road from the kotwali darwaza (gate) in the south to the north of the city, suggests the date of transfer of the capital from pandua. One may not, therefore, accept abm habibullah's view that the capital was transferred in the early part of the fifteenth century during the reign of Sultan Jalaluddin. The visiting Chinese delegates during his reign clearly mentioned going to Pandua, then the capital of Bengal.
Gaur remained the capital of Bengal till 1565 when sulaiman karrani transferred it to tandah in the west. The Mughal general munim khan brought it back to Gaur in 1575 and was perhaps instrumental in constructing the lukochuri darwaza the eastern side of the fort, which is generally ascribed to shah shuja, subahdar of Bengal in the first half of the seventeenth century. But Shah Shuja had never lived at Gaur. Gaur was finally abandoned in 1575 due to the outbreak of plague.
Minhaj-us Siraj, visiting the renamed capital forty-five years after its conquest in 1205 by bakhtiyar khalji, saw mosques and madrasas built by him, which are not extant today. Since the embankments protecting the city were constructed in 1227, these buildings could not have been washed away by the river.
Apart from the Kotwali gate, ascribed to the fourteenth century on the basis of design, there were no other architectural remains of the 13th-14th centuries. Abid Ali, in the early twentieth century, identified the northwest area of the big Sagar Dighi between the Durbhasini and Phulwari gates (now disappeared) as the commercial centre of the old Laksmanavati, with the port of Gaur served by a canal. This seems highly unlikely since no pre-Muslim artifact has been found there. Ziauddin Barani in the fourteenth century had given the description of a long market with rows of shops on both sides stretching nearly two miles and leading to the old palace of the Senas. The Phulwari fort, two miles north of the present ruins of the fort of Gaur, has been termed a Hindu fort by Cunningham, and was used, according to Barani, by the son of Balban. However, excepting some black basalt stone slabs, no pre-Muslim artifact has been found there. On the other hand, while according to local tradition the fort was used by Shah Shuja, glazed bricks, broken pieces of clay pipes, inscribed porcelain pieces as well as coarse pottery found inside the walled fort (there is a ditch) would suggest its use in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
From the early fifteenth century, Gaur and Pandua were becoming populous. Perhaps it was the pressure of population that led Sultan Nasiruddin Mahmud to shift the capital to Gaur from Pandua. The rise of the overseas port of Saptagram/satgaon took place around the same time. Since then, the immigration to Gaur continued at a brisk pace while other towns on the Bhagirathi also began to grow, mostly acting as suppliers of textile to Saptagram and Gaur. It is significant that the city of Gaur began to grow towards the south beyond the wall, whose remains have been recently explored by a Bangladesh team.
Henry Creighton, an indigo planter living near Gaur, gave a description of the morphology of the city in 1786, including a sketch of the place and superb drawings of its monuments. He found the ruins of the city extending up to ten miles in length and one and half mile in breadth, lying between the Ganges and the Mahananda; the latter became a lagoon by the end of the fifteenth century, as Castenhada de Lopez noted, and was named by Abul Fazl as Chatia Patia. The city had two big paved roads, parallel to the river, in the north-south direction, crisscrossed by smaller lanes and canals, some of which still exist.
Creighton's description was modified by James Rennell, Alexander Cunningham and JH Ravenshaw, who found the ruins extending up to twenty miles in length and four miles in breadth (later confirmed by aerial survey and explorations), thus extending beyond the boundary wall to the south.
Creighton's chief credit lies in sketching the fort and the palace, with the principal gate in the north, called the dakhil darwaza, probably built in the early part of the fifteenth century and later added to by successive rulers till nusrat shah in the early sixteenth century. From this gate an anonymous Portuguese interpreter who has left a valuable memoir went straight to the darbar hall of Nusrat Shah in 1521, who was then watching a game of polo being played on the plains below.
On the basis of the writings of Creighton and Francklin, Ravenshaw divided the palace into three compartments. The palace was enclosed by a high wall, called Baishgazi. A ditch enclosed the three sides of the palace and was connected to the Ganges, which guarded the western side of the fort. According to a contemporary Vaisnava poet, Sultan Alauddin husain shah saw a procession led by chaitanya on the opposite bank of the river.
It is clear that the first compartment from the north was the darbar, so clearly described by the Portuguese interpreter in 1521. Halfway from the Dakhil Darwaza there was a gate under which flowed a channel of water to supply a fountain, as recorded in the inscription of Sultan ruknuddin barbak shah (1466). According to the testimony of the Portuguese and the celebrated Bengali poet, Krittivasa, the road from the Dakhil Darwaza to the darbar had nine well-guarded gates at least two of which could be identified today.
The second compartment from the northern side is termed the living quarter of the sultan, where the multi-coloured tiled floor, described with admiration by humayun's companion, reminds one of the rich lifestyle of the pre-Mughal sultans of Bengal. The third compartment has been termed as Haram Sara or zenana mahal, as was attested by the visiting Frenchman Vincent Le Blanc in 1575. While from the third compartment nothing worth speaking has been found, the other two compartments have yielded extensive deluxe artifacts including multi-coloured bricks and porcelain pieces inscribed in Chinese, the first such find in Bengal of the period. Ruins of a building in the northeastern part of the first compartment have been called a treasury, but this cannot be confirmed.
The citadel wall in the east has two gates. The earlier, called gumti gate, has been dated from the reign of Alauddin Husain Shah, while the latter one, called Lukochuri, is generally ascribed to Shah Shuja, but possibly was built by munim khan after his victory over daud karrani in 1575. North of this gateway, among a group of buildings, the first one, a Bangla type low building, has been identified, on the basis of legends, as the tomb of Fath Khan (son of Dilir Khan), who allegedly died here in pursuit of Shah Shuja. The next building, kadam rasul, where the footprint of the Prophet (Sm) has been kept, was earlier thought to be a mosque. Close by this building, there are a number of ruins with pavilions. This is the graveyard of the Sultans of Gaur. Henry Creighton saw the black stone tombs of Alauddin Husain Shah and Nusrat Shah, which have disappeared, allegedly carted away by the English.
Further north, outside the citadel, there is a tower, probably used as a watchtower. There is another such tower opposite Malda. The Portuguese interpreter in 1521 saw that the entry from that side to the Dakhil Darwaza was barred for ordinary people by a heavy iron chain. He also mentioned a big mosque round the corner, obviously bara sona mosque, identified so long by an inscription (not in situ) which gives 1526 as the date of construction. The reference of the Portuguese clearly indicates its construction prior to 1521, during the reign of Alauddin Husain Shah, who had constructed a similar mosque (chhota sona mosque) on the southern side beyond the Kotwali gate.
Inside the citadel, in a straight line to the west of the Gumti gate, is a building, generally called chika building. Although the ground plan resembled that of the eklakhi mausoleum at Pandua, it is not a mausoleum, as no grave has been found. It is not a mosque either and figures of Hindu deities in relief were used on the lintels inside the building. According to the account of the Portuguese, it seems to be the Diwan-i Mazalim, where the Portuguese was tried as a spy. It was not used as a prison after Sanatan, a prisoner during the reign of Alauddin Husain Shah, had bribed the guards and jumped to the river Ganges to escape. From here, there is no direct access to the river.
The citadel area is strewn with ruins of black basalt stone slabs. Some of these are still standing, giving the impression of offices with the ruins of a gate in the south. Big basalt stone slabs lie embedded, giving an impression that it was part of old Laksmanavati.
Local legends identified the high area south of the citadel, from where Buddhist and Hindu icons have been found, as the commercial centre of Gaur. Traditionally it is termed Lal Bazar, while a section of it is called Mahajan Tala. Contiguous to the citadel and of one mile in square area, where cowries and coarse pottery are found in profusion, the ruins indicate the existence of several mahallas or wards dating from pre-Islamic days. The Portuguese found the streets well mapped out and arranged. Certain types of goods, like weapons or sweetmeats or food, were sold on separate streets, as in other large medieval cities of the Indian subcontinent. The Portuguese favourably compared this city with Lisbon.
The city seems to have been densely populated. The Portuguese interpreter in 1521 speaks of a high density of population. He found it difficult to move through the crowded streets while the nobles used to employ a number of retainers to clear the way. Fariya Y Sousa, and following him others, put the number of inhabitants at twelve lakhs while the visiting Frenchman put the population at forty thousand hearths. Taking five persons per family, the population would come to two lakhs, quite close to two lakh twenty-thousand of contemporary Fathepur Sikri. The density at Gaur would however be over two thousand persons per square mile in an eighty square mile area. The analysis of revenue data, given by Abul Fazl in 1595-96, obviously based on earlier revenue figures, would give an idea of the tremendous draw of the Gaur area and its high density of population.
Castenhada de Lopez left a description of the houses. The buildings were low-lying, wrought with gold and bluish tiles and they had numerous courtyards and gardens. The floors of each house were covered with ornamental tiles. Humayun's companion, author of the Waquiyat-i Mustaqui stated that Humayun was struck by the Chinese tiles, which were used on the floors as well as walls of the rooms. There is no mention of any double-story house at Gaur, although the Portuguese interpreter has described the underground room of the darbar hall.
Between the citadel and the eastern embankment, a ruined structure, alleged to be the house of a legendary merchant, Chand Saudagar, has been identified as the belbari madrasa, the only one found so far within the walled city. Beyond the southern wall the darasbari madrasa has been excavated by the Bangladesh Archaeological Survey. East of the Belbari Madrasa lies a big tank, the Chhota Sagar Dighi, connected to canals winding through the different areas of the city. One can still see the parallel double canals running towards the Ganges, one carrying the waste.
As seen on the survey map of 1849-52, the canal cuts the Nawabganj-Pandu road twice, with bridges on them. The three-arched bridge over the canal flowing past the Belbari Madrasa is still intact. Since the eastern part of the land is higher than the city, the water of the lagoon flowed through holes in two embankments to supply water to the city; the Chhota Sagar Dighi served as the reservoir. The principal canal runs in front of the Chamkathi (leather cutter) Mosque. The bridges, having one to seven arches, would indicate the volume of water flowing by. That there was a sewerage system, mostly of clay pipes under the ground, could be seen in one of the ruined houses of the area between the Ganges and the Bara Sona Mosque. The raised land on both sides of the canal from the Belbari Madrasa to the west, where fine ceramics have been found, would suggest that it was an area inhabited by upper class people. The frontal area of the land gradually slopes down to the canal. The area from the Chhota Sagar Dighi to the eastern embankment seems to have been occupied by marginal people as no ruins or artifacts have been found.
Coming closer to the citadel from the east, one finds mosques situated in close proximity. The earliest mosque, Chamkathi, built in 1475, was followed by two others, lattan mosque and Tantipada (weavers' locality) mosque, both built in 1480. The names would suggest association with manufacturing groups. The brief span of time of the building of these mosques, within a radius of two miles, would suggest a rapid growth of population after 1470. This acceleration of urbanisation began to take place during the reign of Sultan Ruknuddin Barbak Shah (1459-1474) and continued till the end of the second decade of the sixteenth century. The Portuguese interpreter witnessed the problems of the immigrants in 1521, and found people lying dead in the streets in the winter mornings. He also saw the distribution of both vegetarian and non-vegetarian food on certain occasions by the sultan, which would indicate the presence of homeless and jobless people of both communities at Gaur.
The city was extending to the south, although one of the mosques, gunamanta, probably built by jalaluddin fath shah (1481-1486), was located on the bank of the river (now there is only a palaeo-channel) near Mahdipur village. The extensive exploration work done by the Bangladesh team shows the existence of several mosques and tombs of saints as well as a tahkhana, supposed to have been built by Shah Shuja. This confirms the statement of the Portuguese on the expansion of the city, possibly in the south, since nothing has been found in the north beyond the Bara Sona Mosque. It seems that a second wave of expansion started from the early sixteenth century under Alauddin Husain Shah(1494 -1519), whose construction of the Chhota Sona Mosque suggests such growth.
The Bangladesh team has identified Jahaz Ghata, southwest of the citadel on the river, beyond the walls. Although tome pires had called Gaur a port city, yet the area seems to be part of an inland port, where the Portuguese interpreter saw about 130 boats of varying sizes at anchor, including the one which looked like a Portuguese galley.
Most scholars have referred to the shifting of the river course to the west as the reason for the decline of Gaur. Although the capital was finally transferred from Gaur to Tanda in 1575 after Munim Khan's death in the plague, the Bengali poet Mukundaram Chakrabarty's merchant-cum-zamindar had gone to Gaur, which was a city of pleasure as well as of artisanal manufactures. Since this was written at the end of the sixteenth century, it may be presumed that the city lingered for sometime after the transfer of the capital.
James Rennell found that the river had shifted nearly ten miles to the west of Gaur at the end of the eighteenth century. The two European travellers, Father manrique (1648) and Robert Hedges (1687), did not mention the shifting of the river and clearly described their anchoring of boats in front of the palace, which the latter found to be bigger than that of Constantinople. Besides, there was no reason for Sulaiman Karrani or the Mughal authorities a decade later to shift the capital to Tanda, towards the west in the same direction in which the river was moving. The description of ralph fitch at the end of the sixteenth century would suggest that the river had started moving towards the west, which had perhaps prompted man singh to shift the capital to rajmahal on the eastern bank.
The principal reason of the decline of Gaur appears to be political instability. While the port of Chittagong had become the bone of contention between Arakan, Tripura and Bengal, later joined by the Portuguese adventurers, the Bhagirathi area, particularly its upper part, had become unstable with the conquest and plunder of Gaur by sher shah from the end of 1538. Humayun, whose life of pleasure for three months made him term the city Jannatabad, while the Husain Shahi dynasty was being extinguished. Then came the invasion from Orissa, whose ruler seized Saptagram. While the Portuguese merchants had settled first at Saptagram and then at hughli, their adventurous countrymen began their depredations in the coastal areas affecting the trade route. The final onslaught came in the wake of the Mughal-Pathan contest, which practically devastated the northern part of Bengal.
Such continuous anarchy resulted in the neglect of the maintenance of the overcrowded city. The canals linking the lagoon and the Ganges and serving as the lifeline of the city had to be properly maintained. In 1575, Vincent Le Blanc saw waterlogging in parts of the city, which would suggest that the canals were not properly maintained. This resulted in the outbreak of a severe plague, which carried away three hundred persons per day, in which Munim Khan also lost his life. It is possible that the connection between the Mahananda and the Ganges through the canals of the city had snapped due to lack of maintenance as much as due to the beginning of the westward movement of the Ganges.
The Portuguese occupation of Malacca from the early sixteenth century created problems for the Muslim merchants carrying on trade between Gaur-Saptagram and the southeast. It may be presumed that the trade links between the Bhagirathi and southeast Asia were being controlled by the Portuguese and this affected the flow of silver into Bengal. Coupled with political instability and anarchy, the commercial and financial world of Gaur was gradually declining. The Mughal conquest and the shifting of the capital from Tanda to Rajmahal to the east of the river signified a new situation putting a stamp on the fall of Gaur.
From the late nineteenth century, Bengali nationalistic writings focussed on Gaur as a symbol of independent Bengal. akshay kumar maitreya, ramaprasad chanda, rakhaldas bandyopadhyay, Rajani Kanta Chakrabarty, Charu Chandra Mitra and others dwelt on the political history of pre-Mughal Bengal focussing on Gaur as a symbol of Bengal's independent entity and not as a part of regional history. With the exception of a few, the ruins as well as the city remained beyond the purview of historians, making Jannatabad of Humayun a lost and forgotten city. [Aniruddha Ray]
Bibliography Henry Creighton, Ruins of Gaur, London, 1817; JH Ravenshaw, Gaur, Its Ruins and Inscriptions, London, 1878; M Abid Ali Khan, Memoirs of Gaur and Pandua (ed & revised by H Stapleton), Calcutta, 1986 (reprint of 1924 ed.); Aniruddha Ray, "Archaeological Reconnaissance at the City of Gaur: A Preliminary Report", Pratna-Samiksha (Calcutta), 1995, No 2-3, 245-63; ABM Hussain (ed), Gawr-Lakhnawti, Dhaka, 1997.
It has been postulated that the earlier city of Laksmanavati (later Islamised as lakhnauti) was located at the same site. Alexander cunningham, however, placed Laksmanavati to the north of the ruins of Gaur on the basis of Hindu place names and the existence of the ruins of a fort traditionally associated with vallalasena. It has also been held that laksmanasena had transferred his capital to nadia in order to spend his last days on the bank of the Ganges, which is difficult to accept since the Ganges was flowing past the city of Laksmanavati as well. MM Chakrabarty held that at an earlier period the Ganges was flowing through the Mahananda but had gradually begun to detach itself from the Mahananda to move towards the west. james rennell has recorded its westward movement at the end of the eighteenth century as he found the Ganges nearly ten miles west of the ruins of Gaur. The existing palaeo-channels clearly mark such movements. In that case, Laksmanavati would be located on the western side of the Ganges-Mahananda channel, whose memory was perhaps embodied in the sketches of Lopo Homes (1519) and Gastaldi (1548), showing Gaur on the west of the river. One could surmise that Laksmanavati was abandoned by the Sena king due to the westward movement of the Ganges that might have washed away his capital. The remains of the sandy soil over a long area in palaeo-channels can still be seen. However, the pre-Muslim artifacts, both Buddhist and Hindu, are found only in the higher ground located to the south of the medieval Gaur fort.
The first inscription of Gaur, dated December 1457, during the reign of Sultan Nasiruddin Mahmud I (1435-1459), on a bridge erected by him on the road from the kotwali darwaza (gate) in the south to the north of the city, suggests the date of transfer of the capital from pandua. One may not, therefore, accept abm habibullah's view that the capital was transferred in the early part of the fifteenth century during the reign of Sultan Jalaluddin. The visiting Chinese delegates during his reign clearly mentioned going to Pandua, then the capital of Bengal.
Gaur remained the capital of Bengal till 1565 when sulaiman karrani transferred it to tandah in the west. The Mughal general munim khan brought it back to Gaur in 1575 and was perhaps instrumental in constructing the lukochuri darwaza the eastern side of the fort, which is generally ascribed to shah shuja, subahdar of Bengal in the first half of the seventeenth century. But Shah Shuja had never lived at Gaur. Gaur was finally abandoned in 1575 due to the outbreak of plague.
Minhaj-us Siraj, visiting the renamed capital forty-five years after its conquest in 1205 by bakhtiyar khalji, saw mosques and madrasas built by him, which are not extant today. Since the embankments protecting the city were constructed in 1227, these buildings could not have been washed away by the river.
Apart from the Kotwali gate, ascribed to the fourteenth century on the basis of design, there were no other architectural remains of the 13th-14th centuries. Abid Ali, in the early twentieth century, identified the northwest area of the big Sagar Dighi between the Durbhasini and Phulwari gates (now disappeared) as the commercial centre of the old Laksmanavati, with the port of Gaur served by a canal. This seems highly unlikely since no pre-Muslim artifact has been found there. Ziauddin Barani in the fourteenth century had given the description of a long market with rows of shops on both sides stretching nearly two miles and leading to the old palace of the Senas. The Phulwari fort, two miles north of the present ruins of the fort of Gaur, has been termed a Hindu fort by Cunningham, and was used, according to Barani, by the son of Balban. However, excepting some black basalt stone slabs, no pre-Muslim artifact has been found there. On the other hand, while according to local tradition the fort was used by Shah Shuja, glazed bricks, broken pieces of clay pipes, inscribed porcelain pieces as well as coarse pottery found inside the walled fort (there is a ditch) would suggest its use in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
From the early fifteenth century, Gaur and Pandua were becoming populous. Perhaps it was the pressure of population that led Sultan Nasiruddin Mahmud to shift the capital to Gaur from Pandua. The rise of the overseas port of Saptagram/satgaon took place around the same time. Since then, the immigration to Gaur continued at a brisk pace while other towns on the Bhagirathi also began to grow, mostly acting as suppliers of textile to Saptagram and Gaur. It is significant that the city of Gaur began to grow towards the south beyond the wall, whose remains have been recently explored by a Bangladesh team.
Henry Creighton, an indigo planter living near Gaur, gave a description of the morphology of the city in 1786, including a sketch of the place and superb drawings of its monuments. He found the ruins of the city extending up to ten miles in length and one and half mile in breadth, lying between the Ganges and the Mahananda; the latter became a lagoon by the end of the fifteenth century, as Castenhada de Lopez noted, and was named by Abul Fazl as Chatia Patia. The city had two big paved roads, parallel to the river, in the north-south direction, crisscrossed by smaller lanes and canals, some of which still exist.
Creighton's description was modified by James Rennell, Alexander Cunningham and JH Ravenshaw, who found the ruins extending up to twenty miles in length and four miles in breadth (later confirmed by aerial survey and explorations), thus extending beyond the boundary wall to the south.
Creighton's chief credit lies in sketching the fort and the palace, with the principal gate in the north, called the dakhil darwaza, probably built in the early part of the fifteenth century and later added to by successive rulers till nusrat shah in the early sixteenth century. From this gate an anonymous Portuguese interpreter who has left a valuable memoir went straight to the darbar hall of Nusrat Shah in 1521, who was then watching a game of polo being played on the plains below.
On the basis of the writings of Creighton and Francklin, Ravenshaw divided the palace into three compartments. The palace was enclosed by a high wall, called Baishgazi. A ditch enclosed the three sides of the palace and was connected to the Ganges, which guarded the western side of the fort. According to a contemporary Vaisnava poet, Sultan Alauddin husain shah saw a procession led by chaitanya on the opposite bank of the river.
It is clear that the first compartment from the north was the darbar, so clearly described by the Portuguese interpreter in 1521. Halfway from the Dakhil Darwaza there was a gate under which flowed a channel of water to supply a fountain, as recorded in the inscription of Sultan ruknuddin barbak shah (1466). According to the testimony of the Portuguese and the celebrated Bengali poet, Krittivasa, the road from the Dakhil Darwaza to the darbar had nine well-guarded gates at least two of which could be identified today.
The second compartment from the northern side is termed the living quarter of the sultan, where the multi-coloured tiled floor, described with admiration by humayun's companion, reminds one of the rich lifestyle of the pre-Mughal sultans of Bengal. The third compartment has been termed as Haram Sara or zenana mahal, as was attested by the visiting Frenchman Vincent Le Blanc in 1575. While from the third compartment nothing worth speaking has been found, the other two compartments have yielded extensive deluxe artifacts including multi-coloured bricks and porcelain pieces inscribed in Chinese, the first such find in Bengal of the period. Ruins of a building in the northeastern part of the first compartment have been called a treasury, but this cannot be confirmed.
The citadel wall in the east has two gates. The earlier, called gumti gate, has been dated from the reign of Alauddin Husain Shah, while the latter one, called Lukochuri, is generally ascribed to Shah Shuja, but possibly was built by munim khan after his victory over daud karrani in 1575. North of this gateway, among a group of buildings, the first one, a Bangla type low building, has been identified, on the basis of legends, as the tomb of Fath Khan (son of Dilir Khan), who allegedly died here in pursuit of Shah Shuja. The next building, kadam rasul, where the footprint of the Prophet (Sm) has been kept, was earlier thought to be a mosque. Close by this building, there are a number of ruins with pavilions. This is the graveyard of the Sultans of Gaur. Henry Creighton saw the black stone tombs of Alauddin Husain Shah and Nusrat Shah, which have disappeared, allegedly carted away by the English.
Further north, outside the citadel, there is a tower, probably used as a watchtower. There is another such tower opposite Malda. The Portuguese interpreter in 1521 saw that the entry from that side to the Dakhil Darwaza was barred for ordinary people by a heavy iron chain. He also mentioned a big mosque round the corner, obviously bara sona mosque, identified so long by an inscription (not in situ) which gives 1526 as the date of construction. The reference of the Portuguese clearly indicates its construction prior to 1521, during the reign of Alauddin Husain Shah, who had constructed a similar mosque (chhota sona mosque) on the southern side beyond the Kotwali gate.
Inside the citadel, in a straight line to the west of the Gumti gate, is a building, generally called chika building. Although the ground plan resembled that of the eklakhi mausoleum at Pandua, it is not a mausoleum, as no grave has been found. It is not a mosque either and figures of Hindu deities in relief were used on the lintels inside the building. According to the account of the Portuguese, it seems to be the Diwan-i Mazalim, where the Portuguese was tried as a spy. It was not used as a prison after Sanatan, a prisoner during the reign of Alauddin Husain Shah, had bribed the guards and jumped to the river Ganges to escape. From here, there is no direct access to the river.
The citadel area is strewn with ruins of black basalt stone slabs. Some of these are still standing, giving the impression of offices with the ruins of a gate in the south. Big basalt stone slabs lie embedded, giving an impression that it was part of old Laksmanavati.
Local legends identified the high area south of the citadel, from where Buddhist and Hindu icons have been found, as the commercial centre of Gaur. Traditionally it is termed Lal Bazar, while a section of it is called Mahajan Tala. Contiguous to the citadel and of one mile in square area, where cowries and coarse pottery are found in profusion, the ruins indicate the existence of several mahallas or wards dating from pre-Islamic days. The Portuguese found the streets well mapped out and arranged. Certain types of goods, like weapons or sweetmeats or food, were sold on separate streets, as in other large medieval cities of the Indian subcontinent. The Portuguese favourably compared this city with Lisbon.
The city seems to have been densely populated. The Portuguese interpreter in 1521 speaks of a high density of population. He found it difficult to move through the crowded streets while the nobles used to employ a number of retainers to clear the way. Fariya Y Sousa, and following him others, put the number of inhabitants at twelve lakhs while the visiting Frenchman put the population at forty thousand hearths. Taking five persons per family, the population would come to two lakhs, quite close to two lakh twenty-thousand of contemporary Fathepur Sikri. The density at Gaur would however be over two thousand persons per square mile in an eighty square mile area. The analysis of revenue data, given by Abul Fazl in 1595-96, obviously based on earlier revenue figures, would give an idea of the tremendous draw of the Gaur area and its high density of population.
Castenhada de Lopez left a description of the houses. The buildings were low-lying, wrought with gold and bluish tiles and they had numerous courtyards and gardens. The floors of each house were covered with ornamental tiles. Humayun's companion, author of the Waquiyat-i Mustaqui stated that Humayun was struck by the Chinese tiles, which were used on the floors as well as walls of the rooms. There is no mention of any double-story house at Gaur, although the Portuguese interpreter has described the underground room of the darbar hall.
Between the citadel and the eastern embankment, a ruined structure, alleged to be the house of a legendary merchant, Chand Saudagar, has been identified as the belbari madrasa, the only one found so far within the walled city. Beyond the southern wall the darasbari madrasa has been excavated by the Bangladesh Archaeological Survey. East of the Belbari Madrasa lies a big tank, the Chhota Sagar Dighi, connected to canals winding through the different areas of the city. One can still see the parallel double canals running towards the Ganges, one carrying the waste.
As seen on the survey map of 1849-52, the canal cuts the Nawabganj-Pandu road twice, with bridges on them. The three-arched bridge over the canal flowing past the Belbari Madrasa is still intact. Since the eastern part of the land is higher than the city, the water of the lagoon flowed through holes in two embankments to supply water to the city; the Chhota Sagar Dighi served as the reservoir. The principal canal runs in front of the Chamkathi (leather cutter) Mosque. The bridges, having one to seven arches, would indicate the volume of water flowing by. That there was a sewerage system, mostly of clay pipes under the ground, could be seen in one of the ruined houses of the area between the Ganges and the Bara Sona Mosque. The raised land on both sides of the canal from the Belbari Madrasa to the west, where fine ceramics have been found, would suggest that it was an area inhabited by upper class people. The frontal area of the land gradually slopes down to the canal. The area from the Chhota Sagar Dighi to the eastern embankment seems to have been occupied by marginal people as no ruins or artifacts have been found.
Coming closer to the citadel from the east, one finds mosques situated in close proximity. The earliest mosque, Chamkathi, built in 1475, was followed by two others, lattan mosque and Tantipada (weavers' locality) mosque, both built in 1480. The names would suggest association with manufacturing groups. The brief span of time of the building of these mosques, within a radius of two miles, would suggest a rapid growth of population after 1470. This acceleration of urbanisation began to take place during the reign of Sultan Ruknuddin Barbak Shah (1459-1474) and continued till the end of the second decade of the sixteenth century. The Portuguese interpreter witnessed the problems of the immigrants in 1521, and found people lying dead in the streets in the winter mornings. He also saw the distribution of both vegetarian and non-vegetarian food on certain occasions by the sultan, which would indicate the presence of homeless and jobless people of both communities at Gaur.
The city was extending to the south, although one of the mosques, gunamanta, probably built by jalaluddin fath shah (1481-1486), was located on the bank of the river (now there is only a palaeo-channel) near Mahdipur village. The extensive exploration work done by the Bangladesh team shows the existence of several mosques and tombs of saints as well as a tahkhana, supposed to have been built by Shah Shuja. This confirms the statement of the Portuguese on the expansion of the city, possibly in the south, since nothing has been found in the north beyond the Bara Sona Mosque. It seems that a second wave of expansion started from the early sixteenth century under Alauddin Husain Shah(1494 -1519), whose construction of the Chhota Sona Mosque suggests such growth.
The Bangladesh team has identified Jahaz Ghata, southwest of the citadel on the river, beyond the walls. Although tome pires had called Gaur a port city, yet the area seems to be part of an inland port, where the Portuguese interpreter saw about 130 boats of varying sizes at anchor, including the one which looked like a Portuguese galley.
Most scholars have referred to the shifting of the river course to the west as the reason for the decline of Gaur. Although the capital was finally transferred from Gaur to Tanda in 1575 after Munim Khan's death in the plague, the Bengali poet Mukundaram Chakrabarty's merchant-cum-zamindar had gone to Gaur, which was a city of pleasure as well as of artisanal manufactures. Since this was written at the end of the sixteenth century, it may be presumed that the city lingered for sometime after the transfer of the capital.
James Rennell found that the river had shifted nearly ten miles to the west of Gaur at the end of the eighteenth century. The two European travellers, Father manrique (1648) and Robert Hedges (1687), did not mention the shifting of the river and clearly described their anchoring of boats in front of the palace, which the latter found to be bigger than that of Constantinople. Besides, there was no reason for Sulaiman Karrani or the Mughal authorities a decade later to shift the capital to Tanda, towards the west in the same direction in which the river was moving. The description of ralph fitch at the end of the sixteenth century would suggest that the river had started moving towards the west, which had perhaps prompted man singh to shift the capital to rajmahal on the eastern bank.
The principal reason of the decline of Gaur appears to be political instability. While the port of Chittagong had become the bone of contention between Arakan, Tripura and Bengal, later joined by the Portuguese adventurers, the Bhagirathi area, particularly its upper part, had become unstable with the conquest and plunder of Gaur by sher shah from the end of 1538. Humayun, whose life of pleasure for three months made him term the city Jannatabad, while the Husain Shahi dynasty was being extinguished. Then came the invasion from Orissa, whose ruler seized Saptagram. While the Portuguese merchants had settled first at Saptagram and then at hughli, their adventurous countrymen began their depredations in the coastal areas affecting the trade route. The final onslaught came in the wake of the Mughal-Pathan contest, which practically devastated the northern part of Bengal.
Such continuous anarchy resulted in the neglect of the maintenance of the overcrowded city. The canals linking the lagoon and the Ganges and serving as the lifeline of the city had to be properly maintained. In 1575, Vincent Le Blanc saw waterlogging in parts of the city, which would suggest that the canals were not properly maintained. This resulted in the outbreak of a severe plague, which carried away three hundred persons per day, in which Munim Khan also lost his life. It is possible that the connection between the Mahananda and the Ganges through the canals of the city had snapped due to lack of maintenance as much as due to the beginning of the westward movement of the Ganges.
The Portuguese occupation of Malacca from the early sixteenth century created problems for the Muslim merchants carrying on trade between Gaur-Saptagram and the southeast. It may be presumed that the trade links between the Bhagirathi and southeast Asia were being controlled by the Portuguese and this affected the flow of silver into Bengal. Coupled with political instability and anarchy, the commercial and financial world of Gaur was gradually declining. The Mughal conquest and the shifting of the capital from Tanda to Rajmahal to the east of the river signified a new situation putting a stamp on the fall of Gaur.
From the late nineteenth century, Bengali nationalistic writings focussed on Gaur as a symbol of independent Bengal. akshay kumar maitreya, ramaprasad chanda, rakhaldas bandyopadhyay, Rajani Kanta Chakrabarty, Charu Chandra Mitra and others dwelt on the political history of pre-Mughal Bengal focussing on Gaur as a symbol of Bengal's independent entity and not as a part of regional history. With the exception of a few, the ruins as well as the city remained beyond the purview of historians, making Jannatabad of Humayun a lost and forgotten city. [Aniruddha Ray]
Bibliography Henry Creighton, Ruins of Gaur, London, 1817; JH Ravenshaw, Gaur, Its Ruins and Inscriptions, London, 1878; M Abid Ali Khan, Memoirs of Gaur and Pandua (ed & revised by H Stapleton), Calcutta, 1986 (reprint of 1924 ed.); Aniruddha Ray, "Archaeological Reconnaissance at the City of Gaur: A Preliminary Report", Pratna-Samiksha (Calcutta), 1995, No 2-3, 245-63; ABM Hussain (ed), Gawr-Lakhnawti, Dhaka, 1997.
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