Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c9.s1: 1. Gauḍa as the Name of a City
Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c9.s1
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1. Gauḍa as the Name of a City
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Gauḍa (usually written *Gaur* in English) was the residence of several dynasties of the Muslim rulers of Bengal for many centuries from the establishment of Muhammadan rule in the country about the close of the twelfth century A.D. The ruins of the city lie in lat. 24° 52′, long. 88° 10′ to the north or left bank of the Ganges and south of the modern town of Malda, headquarters of the District of that name in West Bengal. The traces of the ruined city with some buildings of Muhammadan times extend over an immense area now chiefly covered with jungle. As late as the middle of the sixteenth century, a European traveller gives the following account of the city of Gauḍa: "It is situated on the banks of the Ganges and is said to be three of our leagues in length and to contain 200000 inhabitants. On the one side it has the river for its defence and on the landward faces a wall of great height......the streets are thronged with the concourse and traffic of people......that they cannot force their way past......a great part of the houses of this city are stately and well-wrought buildings."¹ In 1683, another European traveller who visited the old city in ruins says, "We spent 3 hours in seeing the ruins especially of the palace which has been......in my judgment considerably bigger and more beautiful than the Grand Seignor's seraglio at Constantinople or any other palace that I have seen in Europe."¹
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¹ See *Hobson-Jobson*, s. v. *Gour*.
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In Muslim times, the city of Gauḍa was also known by the name Lakhnautī no doubt a corruption of Sanskrit *Lakṣmaṇāvatī*. This name was apparently coined after that of king Lakṣmaṇasena (circa 1189-1206 A.D.) of the Sena dynasty, who was ousted from the western and northern districts of Bengal by the Muhammadans. The Senas thus appear to have had at least one of their secondary capitals at Gauḍa. The city of Rāmāvatī (called Rāmautī by the Muslim writers), named after the Pāla king Rāmapāla (circa 1077-1120 A.D) and the capital or a secondary capital of the Later Pālas of Bengal and Bihar, was probably also situated in the vicinity of the present site of Gauḍa. Thus Gauḍa flourished as an important city of Eastern India for a considerable period of time before the establishment of Muslim rule, and pre-Muslim rulers of the country often built new cities named after them in the vicinity of the site of the old city.
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The Aṣṭādhyāyī of Pāṇini who flourished in North-Western India about the fifth century B.C. speaks of a city called Gauḍapura. But the rule pure prācām (6, 2, 99) which immediately precedes the rule ariṣṭa-gauḍa-pūrve ca (6,2,100) suggests that both the cities, viz., Ariṣṭapura and Gauḍapura referred to in the Aṣṭādhyāyī, were situated outside the eastern part of I ndia¹ in a region which was more or less fully Aryanised before the composition of the grammatical work in question. There is again no reason to believe that the Aryanisation of Western Bengal (in which the Gauḍa country was situated) made any appreciable progress in the age of Pāṇini.² Thus the identification of Pāṇini's Gauḍapura with the city of Gauḍa in Bengal is highly improbable. The name Gauḍa is supposed to be derived from the word guḍa meaning 'sugar'. The country, of which Gauḍa was the chief city, was also known by the same name possibly because it was famous in ancient times for its production of sugar. But whether the name of the city was applied to the country or that of the country to its chief city cannot be dertermined in the present state of our knowledge. The fact however that, in the seventh century A.D., the capital of the Gauḍa country was called Karṇasuvarṇa (modern Rāṅgāmāṭi, about eleven miles to the south of Murshidabad, headquarters of the District of that name to the south of the Ganges and Malda) seems to suggest that the city was named after the country. This fact also indicates that the city of Gauḍa was built in its present site to the south of Malda some time after the seventh century probably in the age of the Pālas. It is interesting to note in this connection that all the *jaya-skandhāvāras* (i.e. residences or temporary capitals) of the Pāla kings, including Rāmāvatī-nagara (in the vicinity of the site of Gauḍa) were situated on the Ganges. Urged by their preference for a city on the main course of the river, the Pāla kings may have transferred the headquarters of the Gauḍa country from Karṇasuvarṇa to the present site of Gauḍa in the Malda District. This seems to have been done after the main current of the river had begun to pass through the Padmā and the Bhāgīrathī (the original Ganges), on which Karṇasuvarṇa was situated, had begun to be gradually less important as a watercourse. There is moreover reason to believe that originally the Ganges flowed by a route through the middle of the present District of Malda so that the city of Gauḍa lay on its southern or right bank.¹
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¹ Cf. S. Sen, Vāṅgālā Sāhityer Itihāsa, Vol. I, 2nd ed., p. 4.
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² See my 'Spread of Aryanism in Bengal,' in Journal of the Asiatic Society, Letters, Vol. XVIII, 1952, pp. 171 ff.
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¹ Cf. *Hist. Beng.*, Dacca University, Vol. I, p. 3.
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About the ancient course of the Ganges, a distinguished writer says, ‘The tract between Malda and Murshidabad was the ancient Ganges delta where the river split up into numerous spill channels, the most important of which appear to be the Sarasvatī, the Bhāgīrathī and the Bhairab. Leaving the hills of Rajmahal, the Ganges seems to have passed northwards through the modern Kalindri, and then southwards into the lower course of the Mahānandā, east of the ruins of ancient Gaur. There was also the south-eastern branch of the Ganges (modern Padmā), the bifurcation being pretty old and shown in Ptolemy’s map. In the oldest of modern maps, De Barros’ (1550) and Gastaldi’s (1561), Gaur is shown on the west of the Ganges. Leaving Gaur, the main waters of the Ganges turned southward and flowed through the channel of the Bhairab (as Kṛttivāsa, the reputed author who flourished in the fourteenth century, indicated) and, from at least the twelfth to the sixteenth century, through the Sarasvatī into the Bay, while the ancient eastern branch of the Ganges is traceable in the *jhils* and morasses which extend from Purnea to the sea. The Ganges thus forsook this course in favour of the channel through which the Bhāgīrathī now passes.”¹ The situation of the Gauḍa capital Karṇasuvarṇa on its banks seems to suggest that the present Bhāgīrathī carried the main current of the Ganges as late as the seventh century A.D.
Linked texts (1)
- Aṣṭādhyāyī — Pāṇini, Sanskrit