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The History of Bengal (Vol. I: Hindu Period; Vol. II: Muslim Period 1200–1757) v1.c19.s3: III. Urban Settlements or Towns

The History of Bengal (Vol. I: Hindu Period; Vol. II: Muslim Period 1200–1757) v1.c19.s3

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English

III. Urban Settlements or Towns

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Although Bengal was primarily a land of villages, towns or urban settlements were by no means rare. Reference has already been made to a large number of these towns as known from epigraphic and literary evidence.¹ The factors which contributed to the growth of these towns were various. It is possible, for instance, to trace the growth of Puṇḍravardhana to three principal causes: first, it was a place of pilgrimage; secondly, it was the seat of a court or the capital of a province; and finally, it was advantageously situated along the main trade-route of North Bengal. Tāmralipti, again, seems to have owed its long-continued prosperity to its strategical location in relation to the contemporary routes of trade,² and the accessibility of a productive hinterland. It is not impossible that a few towns might have been primarily brought into being by administrative or political reasons; but contemporary evidence proves that they were often emporiums of trade besides being political centres. Further, an analysis of the sites and positions occupied by the ancient towns of Bengal shows that they were of such a geographical character that they could be utilised as ‘nodes’ or ‘centres of routes’ by land or by water.

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¹ Supra pp. 29 ff.

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² Hiuen Tsang, who visited this town, says that it lay near an inlet of the sea, “where land and water communications met” (Watters, II. 189-90).

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The chief features which distinguished urban from rural settlements seem to have been much the same in Bengal as elsewhere in the ancient or mediaeval world. Both literary and epigraphic evidences make it clear that whereas the rural population was mainly dependent on the soil and its produce, the towns, although not perhaps wholly divorced from agricultural activity, tended to serve some or all of a wide variety of functions, commercial, industrial, political, judicial and military. But in contemporary estimation the most distinctive characteristic of the towns was their comparative richness and luxury. The *Rāmacarita* (III. 31-32) refers to Rāmāvatī, founded by Rāmapāla, as “a city of rows of palaces” and as possessing “an immense mass of gems.” The *Rājatarangiṇī* (IV. 422) speaks of the “wealth of the citizens” of Puṇḍravardhana. The Deopārā inscription of Vijayasena draws pointed attention to the simplicity of the (village-dwelling) Brāhmaṇas in contradistinction to the luxury of the townsfolk. “Through the grace of Vijayasena,” runs the epigraph, “the Brāhmaṇas versed in the Vedas have become the possessors of so much wealth that their wives have to be trained by the wives of the townspeople (to recognise) pearls, pieces of emerald, silver coins,¹ jewels and gold from their similarity respectively with seeds of cotton, leaves of *śāka*, bottle-gourd flowers, the developed seeds of pomegranates and the blooming flowers of the creepers of pumpkin-gourd.”

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¹ The word here in the original in *rūpya*. N. G. Majumdar translates it as ‘silver coins’ (*IB*. 54). But as *rūpya* is contrasted with the white flower of bottle-gourd, I presume the author meant no coin, but plain silver.

Cites (4)