Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c9.s2: 2. Gauḍa as the Name of a Country

Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c9.s2

Language
English

2. Gauḍa as the Name of a Country

c9.s2.1

In modern times, the name Gauḍa is often used in Bengali literature to indicate the whole area inhabited by the Bengali-speaking people. Originally however the Gauḍa country seems to have comprised, in a narrow sense, the present District of Murshidabad together with the southernmost areas of the Malda District of Bengal. The Chinese pilgrim Hiuen-tsang who visited India in the first half of the seventh century A.D. speaks of Karṇasuvarṇa as the name of both the capital and the kingdom of king Śaśāṅka who killed king Rājyavardhana of Thānesar about 605 A.D. The king responsible for the death of Rājyavardhana is however described in the *Harṣacarita* of Bāṇa, who flourished at the court of Rājyavardhana’s younger brother and successor Harṣa, as ‘the lord of Gauḍa’. There is thus no doubt that Gauḍa was the usual name of Hiuen-tsang’s kingdom of Karṇasuvarṇa apparently so named by the Chinese traveller after the name of the capital of that kingdom. According to the Chinese account, the celebrated Buddhist monastery called Raktamṛttikā-vihāra stood on the suburbs of the city of Karṇasuvarṇa and the country of that name was about 730 or 750 miles in circuit. As the monastery in question has been located at modern Rāṅgā-māṭi (literally, ‘the red earth’, the same as Sanskrit *Rakta-mṛttikā*) about eleven miles to the south of Murshidabad, the Karṇasuvarṇa or Gauḍa country has to be located about the present Murshidabad District, although the dominions of the Gauḍa king Śaśāṅka is known to have actually comprised wide regions of Eastern India.

c9.s2.2

The above location of Gauḍa in a narrow sense is remarkably supported by a late Purāṇic tradition. An interpolated section in some manuscripts of the *Bhavisya Purāṇa* locates Gauḍa-deśa,

c9.s2.3

Radhakamal Mookerjee, *The Changing Face of Bengal*, 1938, pp. 141-2.

c9.s2.4

inhabited by the deity Gauḍeśa or Gauḍeśī, in the land between the river Padmā and Vardhamāna. Thus the Gauḍa country is placed exactly about the Murshidabad District bounded in the north by the Padmā and in the south by the Burdwan or Vardhamāna District. The same authority regards Gauḍa as only one of the seven deśas forming Puṇḍra-deśa, viz. (1) Gauḍa, (2) Varendra (Malda-Rajshahi-Bogra region), (3) Niviti, (4) Suhma-deśa (i.e., Rāḍha), (5) Jhārīkhaṇḍa (Santal Parganas District) called jāṅgala apparently meaning ‘jungly’, (6) Varāhabhumi (Barābhūm in the Manbhum District), and (7) Vardhamāna (Burdwan).¹ The localities forming the Gauḍa country according to the same tradition are : (1) Navadvīpa (in the Nadia District), (2) Śāntipura (in the Nadia District), (3) Maulapattana (Mollāi in the Hooghly District), and (4) Kaṇṭakapattana (Katwa in the Burdwan District). The tradition would thus comprise in the Gauḍa country the present Murshidabad District together with parts of the Nadia, Burdwan and Hooghly Districts of West Bengal. It may be pointed out in this connection that the Puṇḍra country in this tradition comprised Western and Northern Bengal together with some eastern districts of Bihar. Niviti is said to have included Bardhankoṭ in the Rangpur District. It is sometimes believed that the same name is found in the Trikāṇḍaśeṣa. But the Trikāṇḍaśeṣa passage Puṇḍrāḥ syur = Varendrī Gauḍa-nivṛti seems to mean that the Puṇḍra country was the same as Varendrī lying in the realm (nivṛt) of Gauḍa. The name Gauḍa is here used in a wider sense. It is however not improbable that the Bhaviṣya Purāṇa tradition is based on a misunderstanding of the Trikāṇḍaśeṣa passage.

c9.s2.5

The late medieval work entitled Ṣaṭpañcāśaddeśavibhāga which is incorporated in the Śaktisaṅgama Tantra describes the Gauḍa country as lying between the country of Vaṅga and Bhuvaneśa, i.e. Bhubaneswar in the Puri District of Orissa.¹ The same work describes Vaṅga as the land extending from the sea to the Brahmaputra.² The sea is apparently the Bay of Bengal in the south of Vaṅga, while Brahmaputra placed on the northern boundary of Vaṅga seems to indicate that portion of the river which bifurcates from the Jumna. Thus the eastern half of Bengal has been called Vaṅga and its western half together with parts of Orissa has been designated Gauḍa in the work in question. This broad division of the Bengali-speaking area into two halves, viz. Eastern Bengal called Vaṅga and Western Bengal called Gauḍa, is echoed by some Muslim historians who spoke of the country as Gaur-Bangāl, i.e. Gauḍa-Vaṅga. Vaṅgāla (Bangāl) was originally the name of the Buckergunje region of the Vaṅga country; but later the name came to be applied to the whole of Vaṅga or East Bengal and still later to the whole of the Bengali-speaking area. At present, Gauḍa, Vaṅga and Vaṅgāla are indiscriminately used to indicate the wide area of East India where the Bengali language is spoken. The major part of the country lies in West Bengal in the Indian Union and East Bengal in Pakistan; but parts of it belong to the other neighbouring states like Bihar.

c9.s2.6

¹ See above, p. 92.

c9.s2.7

² Cf. above, p. 84.

c9.s2.8

We have seen that the Chinese pilgrim Hiuen-tsang describes Karṇasuvarṇa or Gauḍa as a small tract. It is to be noticed that he distinguishes the above country from Puṇyavardhana or Puṇḍravardhana in North Bengal, Samaṭaṭa in South-East Bengal and Tāmralipti in South-West Bengal. In Indian literature also Gauḍa is likewise separated from other tracts of Bengal. The Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra (Chs. 32-33) mentions the textile products of Vaṅga and Puṇḍra and the silver of Gauḍa. Varāhamihira’s Bṛhatsaṃhitā (XIV) mentions side by side Suhma, Samaṭaṭa, Lauhitya (the Brahmaputra valley), Gauḍaka (i.e. Gauḍa), Pauṇḍra (i.e. Puṇḍravardhana), Tāmraliptika (i.e. Tāmralipta) and Vardhamāna. There is reason to believe that the northern and south-eastern parts of Bengal were Aryanised considerably earlier than the western part of the country including Gauḍa. The mention of Gauḍa in the Arthaśāstra, which in its present form has to be assigned to about the third century A.D., points to the growing importance of the country in the economic life of Eastern India. In the fourth century A. D., the Gauḍa region became an integral part of the Gupta empire; but, with the decline of the imperial power of the Guptas, the Gauḍas established an independent monarchy in the sixth century. The importance of Gauḍa became established in the social and cultural life of India during the days of these independent monarchs of Gauḍa. We have already referred to king Śaśāṅka of Gauḍa, who flourished about the first quarter of the seventh century A.D. and ruled over extensive territories in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. An earlier king of Karṇasuvarṇa was Jayanāga. Three other kings of Gauḍa appear to have been Dharmāditya, Gopacandra and Samācāradeva who ruled in sixth century A.D. Under the vigorous rule of these monarchs, Gauḍa appears to have extended its power over the neighbouring territories. One of the above kings of Gauḍa fought with the Maukhari king Iśānavarman about the middle of the sixth century and another conquered and annexed Kāmarūpa to his empire about the close of that century.

c9.s2.9

The Maukhari court-poet, while referring to the struggle between the Maukharis and the Gauḍas, speaks of the latter as having been compelled to be *samudr-āśraya*, *i.e.*, a people whose shelter is the sea, owing to their defeat at the hands of the Maukhari king.¹ This shows that in the sixth century A.D. the Gauḍas had already become famous as a sea-faring people. That the Gauḍa country about this time produced many sea-faring merchants is suggested by the discovery of an inscription² of *Mahānāvika* (i.e. Captain) Buddhagupta of Raktamṛttikā (near the Gauḍa capital) in the Wellesley District of the Malay Peninsula. The Dubi inscription of Bhāskaravarman of Kāmarūpa seems to refer to the Gauḍa army as specially strong in naval warfare.³

c9.s2.10

¹ Cf. *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XIV, p. 7, text line 3; *J.R.A.S.B.*, Letters, Vol. XI. p. 69. note 4.

c9.s2.11

² Chatterjee and Chakravarti, *India and Java*, Part II, p. 7.

c9.s2.12

³ *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XXX, pp. 293 ff.

c9.s2.13

It may be mentioned in this connection that, besides Gauḍa in Bengal, some other tracts in different parts of India were also known by this name. One such Gauḍa was the modern Gonda District of Uttar Pradesh, in which the celebrated city of Śrāvastī was situated.⁴ It is, however, possible to think that Gauḍa as the name of Goṇḍa was a later modification of the older name of the area in imitation of the famous land of East India. The name of the Goṇḍ people of Central India was often Sanskritized as Gauḍa and the land inhabited by the Goṇḍs came also to be known by this name. Kannaḍa Gauḍa or Gavuḍa meaning ‘a village headman’ has nothing to do with Bengal. The same is the case with Oriya Gauḍa meaning ‘a milkman’ and written as Gokuṭa in some inscriptions.

c9.s2.14

⁴ Cf. *Kūrma Purāṇa*, I, 20, 19. For a controversy on this point, see *History of Bengal*, Dacca University, Vol. I .p. 579, note.

Linked texts (10)