Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c10.38

c10.38

² It has been pointed out that Ortelius places Bengala in the same place where Hommanus places Chatigam or Chittagong. Yule refers to a chart of 1743 and concludes that Chittagong is probably identical with the City of Bengala. Campos also identifies Chittagong and Bengala. Ovington places Bengala to the south of Chittagong. In Blaev's map and Sausson's chart the city is located on the southern bank of the Karṇaphuli near about the place where Broucke places Dianga. This location is supported by Vignorla's map of 1683. But in an old map in Thevenot, the city is placed above Xatigan or Chittagong. Hosten and Majumdar think that Dianga, opposite Chittagong, represents the site of Bengala. It is also suggested that originally both Dianga and Chittagong were included in the city. Hosten identifies Dianga with a place now called Bandar on the left bank and near the mouth of the Karṇaphuli river. He also takes Dianga to have been the Porto Grande. Blochman identifies Dianga with Dakhiṇ-ḍāṅgā or Brāhman-ḍāṅgā bath on the Sāṅgu river to the south of Chittagong (I.H.Q., *op. cit.*, pp. 231-32 and notes). Blochman may be right, as the foreign name seems to correspond to the Bengali word *ḍāṅgā* which is pronounced in East Bengal as *ḍāṅgā*, with the first vowel sounding like the English *a* in *man*.