The History of Bengal (Vol. I: Hindu Period; Vol. II: Muslim Period 1200–1757) v1.c19.s3.4

v1.c19.s3.4

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.”