The Geographical Dictionary of Ancient and Mediaeval India c5.s2.237

c5.s2.237

Champānagara is also traditionally the abode of Chānd Sadāgar, the story of whose son Lakhindara and his wife Behulā is so graphically related in the poem called Manasār Bhāsān. The place where he was bitten by the snake and the Ghāṭ where his dead body was launched are still pointed out close to the East Indian Railway bridge. It is still called Behulā Ghāṭ and is situated at the junction of the Ganges and the Chandan, where Behulā is said to have put the corpse of her deceased husband on a raft and carried it to different places till it was miraculously restored to life. A great fair is held here every year in the month of Bhādra in honour of Behulā, the devoted wife of Lakhindara. The Ganges flowed by the side of the town, but, within the course of the last fifty years, it has receded about a mile to the north. Of all the places claimed as the residence of Chānd Sadāgar, (as Champā in the district of Burdwan near the river Gangur or Behulā-nadī and Chandnīa or Chandmaya in the district of Bogra), this place has the most preferential claim, inasmuch as it is situated on the Ganges, on which the story and the tradition place the Champānagara of Chānd Sadāgar, and there was, according to the Hindu and Buddhist works, no other Champānagara on the Ganges except the Champānagara near Bhagalpur. At the time of Buddha, Champā was one of the six great cities of India, for Ānanda exhorted him to die in one of these great cities : Champā, Rājagṛiha, Śrāvasti, Sāketa, Kauśāmbī and Benares, and not in the insignificant town of Kusinārā (Mahāparinibbāna-suttanta, ch V). Subhadrāṅgī, the mother of Aśoka, was born at Champā. Her father was a poor Brāhman, who took her to Pāṭaliputra and presented her to Bindusāra called also Amitraghāta, king of Magadha (347 to 319 B.C.), in consequence of a prognostication that she would be a great queen. The jealous queens, however, employed her in menial work, but she attracted the attention of the king, who made her his queen. She became the mother of Aśoka and Vîtâśoka. The artificial lake excavated by Queen Gaggarâ mentioned in Buddhist works, containing groves of Champaka trees on its banks, where wandering monks (Pabbajikas) used to reside at the time of Buddha (Rhys Davids' Buddhist India; Mahâvagga, IX, 1; Sonadaṇḍa Sutta, I, with Dr. Rhys Davids' notes), may be identified with the large silted-up tank now called Sarovara, from the depth of which Buddhist statues were recovered. Champâ was surrounded by groves of Champaka trees even at the time of the Mahâbhârata (Anuśâsana P. ch. 42). The king of Champâpuri had two beautiful palaces, one called Gaṇḍalatâ, at Kuruchattar, now called Karpat, seven miles east of Bhagalpur at the confluence of the Ganges and the Jamuna near the Gogha-nâlâ, and the other called Krîḍâsthalî near Pâtharghâṭâ was situated at the confluence of the Ganges and the Kosi [Francklin's Site of Palibothra, pp. 28, 29. See my "Notes on Ancient Aṅga" in JASB., X (1914)].