The Geographical Dictionary of Ancient and Mediaeval India c5.s9.79

c5.s9.79

Kaṭadvīpa—Kaṭwa in the district of Burdwan in Bengal (McCrindle’s Ancient India as described by Megasthenes and Arrian, p. 187; Wilford in Asia. Rev., V, p. 278). It is a sacred place of pilgrimage to the Vaiṣṇavas, where Chaitanya at the age of 24 embraced Daṇḍism after leaving his father’s home, being initiated into its rites by a Gossain named Keśava Bhāratī. The hairs cut off from his head on the occasion have been preserved in a little temple. Kaṭwa was called Murshidganj after the name of Murshid Kuli Khan, Nawab of Murshidabad. The old fort of Katwa where Ali Verdi Khan defeated the Mahrattas, was situated on a tongue of land between the Ajai and the Bhāgīrathī (Bholanauth Chunder’s Travels of a Hindoo, vol. I; Chaitanya-Bhāgavata, Madhya Kh.). Chaitanya’s autograph is preserved in a village called Dadur, 14 miles to the south of Katwa. Same as Kaṇṭakanagara and Kaṇṭaka-dvīpa, the gradual corruptions of which are Kaṭa-dvīpa, Kāṭadīa, and Kāṭwā. Kṛiṣṇadās Kavirāj, the author of the Chaitanya-charitāmṛita lived at Jhāmatpur, 4 miles to the north of Kāṭwā; Nānnur, 16 miles to the south-west of Kāṭwā in the district of Birbhum, was the birth-place of the Vaiṣṇava poet Chaṇḍīdās.