Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c9.s1.8

c9.s1.8

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.