Historical Geography of Ancient India c8.384

c8.384

In the time of the Pālas (circa 730–1060 A.D.) Puṇḍravardhana-bhukti must have comprised a larger area, while the Senas must have ruled over a still larger division. The records of these two dynasties refer to the following sub-divisions as included in the larger division of Puṇḍravardhana-bhukti: the Koṭivarṣaviṣaya (Dinajpur), the Vyāghrataṭīmaṇḍala (Malda), the Khāḍiviṣaya (identical with the Sunderbans and the 24 Pergs.), Varendrī (roughly identical with Rajshahi, Bogra, Rungpur and Dinajpur) and Vaṅga (East Bengal, more particularly the Dacca division). That Puṇḍravardhana included Varendrī as well as Gauḍa (Malda and Dinajpur) is also proved by a reference in Puruṣottama’s lexicon (11th century A.D.), where we have ‘Puṇḍrāḥ syur Varendrī-Gauḍa-nirvṛti’, i.e., the Puṇḍras include the Varendrī and Gauḍa countries. According to the Rāmacaritam of Sandhyākaranandi (11th century A.D.) Śrī Puṇḍravardhanapura seems to have been situated in Varendrī, for it is stated there that Varendrī was the foremost place of the east and Puṇḍravardhanapura was its crest-jewel or the most beautiful ornament (Kavipraśasti, V. 1). It was the biggest province of the Gauḍa empire. According to a Damodarpur plate it extended from the Himalayas in the north to Khāḍi in the Sunderban region in the south. The Madhyapāḍā plate of Viśvarūpasena extends its eastern boundary to the sea. According to the Meher copperplate of the 13th century A.D., it comprised a portion of the Tippera district (History of Bengal, Vol. I, p. 24; for further details see Samataṭa). The Tippera copperplate grant of Sāmanta Lokanātha (E.I., XV, 301–15) refers to some feudatory chiefs ruling in the region round Tippera. A new copperplate was found while taking out mud from a tank by a villager at Gunaighar, a village about 18 miles to the north-west of the town of Comilla and a mile and a half to the south-west of the police station of Devidvāra in the district of Tippera. This is also known as the Gunaighar grant of Vainyagupta (I.H.Q., VI, 45ff.). In the Epigraphia Indica (XXI, p. 85) we find that the city of Puṇḍravardhana was the seat of a Mahāmātra in the Maurya age, but this is doubtful. According to Dr. D. R. Bhandarkar the capital of the Saṃvaṃgiyas at the time of the Mahāsthān inscription was Puṇḍranagara, which was the headquarters not of the Vaṅgiyas but of the Puṇḍras after whom it was undoubtedly called Puṇḍranagara (E.I., XXI, p. 91).