Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c24: XX. Dacca
Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c24
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XX. Dacca
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Dacca is the Anglicised form of the name of the capital of East Pakistan (East Bengal). It is written in Bengali as Dhākā (cf. the same word literally meaning ‘covered’). The principal deity worshipped there is called Dhākeśvarī. The name Dacca is also applied to a District and a Division of the Province. The real meaning of the name Dhākā (Dacca) has not been satisfactorily determined, although ‘Dacca Muslin’ was famous in the medieval world and Dhākā (apparently derived from the name in question) was the name applied to all muslins, imported through Kābul, throughout Central Asia. Prior to 1801, the annual advances for the Dacca muslin are said to have amounted to £250,000. According to the Hobson-Jobson by Henry Yule and A. C. Burnell, the name is derived from the tree called Dhāk or Palās, and means ‘the wood of Dhāk trees.’¹ But nobody has taken the explanation seriously. According to some writers, Dacca is a corruption of the name of the ancient state of Davāka mentioned in the Allahabad pillar inscription of Samudragupta as a pratyanta, i.e. a state bordering on the Gupta empire, about the middle of the fourth century A.D.² Unfortunately the theory was always viewed at with a considerable amount of doubt and recent writers on the subject believe that the ancient kingdom of Davāka lay actually about the Dabokā region in the valley of the Kapili river running through the Nowgong District of Assam.³
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¹ Ed. W. Crooke, London, 1903, p. 290.
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² J.P.A.S.B., 1910, p. 144.
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³ Cf. Select Inscriptions, p. 258, note 1.
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It is usually believed that the fame and prosperity of Dacca are not older than the days of the Great Mughals. We know that the city is not mentioned in any record of the pre-Muslim period of Indian history. For a few centuries before and after the Muslim conquest of West Bengal in the beginning of the thirteenth century, the celebrated city of Vikramapura was the administrative headquarters of East Bengal. There is difference of opinion as regards the location of this city ; but some authors appear to be right in holding that it was washed away in the early medieval period by the waters of the Padmā whose erosive activities in the neighbourhood of Dacca have earned for her the name Kirtināśā, literally meaning ‘destroyer of fame (i.e., the fame-producing works of men)’. Nothing is known about the existence of the city of Dacca even long after the expansion of Muslim rule over East Bengal. During this period the neighbouring city of Suvarṇagrāma or Sonārgāon became the political centre of East Bengal. In the early years of the seventeenth century, during the reign of the Mughal emperor Jahāngīr, Sheikh ’Alāuddīn Islām Khān (1608-13 A.D.) was appointed governor of the Subah of Bengal. Islām Khān transferred the provincial capital from Rājmahal to Dacca where he built a brick fort and a palace. It has been said that Islām Khān’s desire to subdue the Portuguese and Arakanese pirates, who were ravaging South-East Bengal about that time, was the main cause of the transference of the provincial headquarters to Dacca. The new capital of the province was styled Jahāngīr-nagar after the reigning Mughal emperor. The fame and prosperity of Dacca began from this time.
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Although Dacca thus seems to have become a great city only in the early years of the seventeenth century, there is reason to believe that it enjoyed some amount of political importance even in the early Muslim and pre-Muslim periods. This is not only indicated by Islām Khān’s choice of the place as the provincial capital,¹ but also by the very name of Dacca itself.
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¹ For some pre-Mughal and even pre-Muhammadan relics in the Dacca area and other interesting observations, see ‘An Enquiry into the Origin of Dacca’ by N. K. Bhattasali, *J. R. A. S. B.*, Letters, Vol. V, pp. 447-53.
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Stewart regards Dacca as a modern town since he could not trace its name in Abul Fazl’s *Ain-i-Akbarī* which gives an exhaustive account of Akbar’s dominions ; but H. Blochman pointed out that the Mahall to which it belonged is actually mentioned in the *Ain-i-Akbarī* as Dhakkā Bāzū, although in Gladwin’s translation of the work the name is spelt as *Dukha Bazoo*.¹ Blochman further points out that *Ḍhākā* also occurs in Abul Fazl’s *Akbarnāmah* composed in 1584 A.D. and that A. Phayre refers it to 1400 A.D.²
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¹ See *J. A. S. B.*, 1873, Part I, p. 216, note ; Blochman’s *Ain-i-Akbari*, text, p. 407.
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² Cf. *J.A.S.B.*, *op. cit.*, p. 53.
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The name *Ḍhākā* (Dacca) is apparently a Prakrit corruption of Sanskrit *ḍhakka* (or possibly *ḍhakkaka*). As a matter of fact, this form of the name (together with the variant *ḍhakkā*) is found in a large number of records belonging to the late medieval period. The word *ḍhakkā* is no doubt derived from Sanskrit *ḍhakka*, meaning ‘a drum’, and it is interesting to note that the celebrated Kashmir chronicle, the *Rājatarangiṇī* composed by Kalhaṇa about the middle of the twelfth century, uses the word in the technical sense of a ‘drum-station’ or ‘watch-station’.
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The *Rājatarangiṇī* (III, 227) has the following verse :
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क्रमवर्त्ताभिधाने स प्रदेशे प्राप्तवांस्ततः ।
ढक्कं कांबुक्नामानं योद्य शूरपुरे स्थितः ॥
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“Then he (poet Mātrgupta) reached, in the province of Kramavarta, the *Ḍhakka* called Kāmbuva, which is at present stationed at Śūrapura.” The same *Ḍhakka* is mentioned elsewhere (V, 39) in the following verse :
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स्वकृते पत्तनवरे तेन शूरपुराभिधे ।
क्रमवर्त्तप्रदेशस्थो ढक्कोबुद्धिनिवेशितः ॥
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“In the excellent town of Śūrapura, founded by him (*i.e.* Śūra who was a minister of king Avantivarman, 858-83 A.D.), was lodged the *Ḍhakka* of the province of Kramavarta.”
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In the same section of the *Rājatarangiṇī*, we have a third verse (V, 306) that runs as follows :
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भ्रष्टश्रीश्चक्रमार्थ निशि श्रीढक्कवासिनः ।
एकदा डामराग्रस्य संग्रामस्याविशद् गृहम् ॥
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“Then on one occasion Cakravarman (king of Kashmir, 923-37 A.D.), stripped of splendour, entered in the night in the house of Saṃgrāma who was the chief of the *ḍāmaras* (landlords) and was living at the beautiful *Ḍhakka*.”
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Scholars have suggested that there was in ancient Kashmir a famous watch-station at the village of Śūrapura (modern Hurpor). Drums must have been at the watch-station and were sounded to announce to the people things like the advent of enemies or any imminent danger. It is therefore clear that ‘the Ḍhakka called Kāmbuva’ really means ‘the watch-station that was situated at the locality called Kāmbuva’. This Ḍhakka, originally stationed at Kāmbuva in the province of Kramavarta, was transferred in the ninth century to the village of Śūrapura in the same province. The expression Kramavarta-pradeśa-stha seems to suggest that different pradeśas of the ancient kingdom of Kashmir were endowed each with a Ḍhakka.
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It seems to us that Ḍhakā (Dacca) was a similar watch-station during the days of the pre-Muslim rulers of East Bengal and thus had some political importance even in the early period. This suggestion appears to be supported by a passage in the Prākṛtānuśāsana by Puruṣottama who is said to have adorned the court of king Lakṣmaṇasena (circa 1179-1206 A.D.) of Bengal. The only manuscript of this work so far discovered is known to have been copied in the year 385 of the Newari era of Nepal, which started from 879 A.D. The date of the copy is therefore 1264 A.D. The Prākṛtānuśāsana describes several Prakrit dialects called Vibhāṣā, one of which is given the name Ḍhakka-bhāṣā, i.e. the dialect spoken in the region known as Ḍhakka. It may, however, be argued that Ḍhakka in this case does not really refer to Dacca in Eastern Bengal but is a corruption of the name of another land called Ṭakka which was situated in the Punjab. This view can hardly be accepted since the Ṭakkadeśīya-vibhāṣā, i.e. the dialect spoken in the Ṭakka country, has been separately mentioned in Puruṣottama’s Prākṛtānuśāsana.¹ As a matter of fact, we have no knowledge of any other locality called Ḍhakka excepting the place of that name, now called Ḍhakā (Dacca), in Eastern Bengal (East Pakistan).
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¹ See my Grammar of the Prakrit Language, Calcutta, 1943, pp. 114, 118.
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It may also be argued that Dacca could have hardly enjoyed so much cultural influence in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when the political centre of the country was not at this place but at the neighbouring city of Vikramapura, (and later at Suvarṇagrāma in the same neighbourhood) to stamp its name on the dialect spoken in the locality. In our opinion, however, such a possibility is not altogether out of question.
Linked texts (1)
- Rājataraṅgiṇī — Kalhaṇa, Sanskrit