Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c10.27

c10.27

We now come to the City of Bengala mentioned by the European (mainly Portuguese) writers of the 16th and 17th centuries A.D. Duarte de Barbosa, Barthema (1510 A.D.), Ovington (1639 A.D.) and several other writers refer to the city. Some authorities identify the city with modern Chittagong or locate it near about that place. It is shown in a map drawn by Gastaldi in 1651 and in another in the *Travels* of Cornelius le Bruyan (published in 1701). In these maps and works as well as in those of Blaev, Sausson, Purchas and others, the City of Bengala is indicated in the Chittagong region.² But Barbosa, one of the earliest Portuguese writers on Indian geography, says that the Bay of Bengal is ‘a gulf which enters towards the north and at its inner extremity there is a great city inhabited by Moors (Muhammadans), which is called Bengala, with a very good harbour.’¹ The expression ‘at the inner extremity’ may point to a locality far to the north of Chittagong, and Moreland suggests that the Portuguese meant Sonārgāon by the City of Bengala.² But the city apparently belonged to what the Portuguese called the Porto Grande = Portus Mangnus = Great Port, and we have to determine the location of the latter.