This is the fourth seminar volume brought out by the Institute of Bangladesh Studies. The Institute has successfully organised so far six seminars on different themes which were participated by eminent scholars in their respective fields of specialization. The proceedings of three seminars have been published by the Institute in three volumes. The present volume-The District of Rajshahi: Its Past and Present-is the outcome of the seminar organised by and held at the Institute from 9 to 11 December 1981. Out of 27 papers presented at the seminar, 23 have been incorporated in the present volume whose con-tents have been divided into four groups cultural, historical, economic and educational aspects of the district of Rajshahi.
The district of Rajshahi is situated in an area known as the Varind and extends over 3,652 sq. miles in area. It has four sub-divisions, thirty thanas and 6,192 villages with a total population of 42,68,417. The educational and cultural tradition of Rajshahi is not only rich but old as well. Long before the district came under British administration, it had been, as the part of Varendri Mandala and Pundravardana-bhukti, successively ruled by the Mauryas, Guptas, Palas and Senas, and subsequently by the independent sultans of Bengal and the imperial Mughals. The district came in close contact with Jain-ism, Buddhism and Aryan Hinduism in the ancient period when it absorbed much of the Aryan civilization and culture. Similarly, following the conquest of Gauda by Iktiyar-ud-Din Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khalji, the inhabitants of this district came in close contact with Islam and Islamic civilization and culture. Both in the pre-Islamic period and afterwards, Rajshahi was almost always in close proximity to the administrative centres of Bengal-Pundranagara or Mahasthan, and Lakhnauati. Ramavati, the capital of Ramapala was situated somewhere in this district, while Vijayanagara, identified by R.P. Chanda as Vijayapura, the capital of the Senas, is situated only 12 miles away from Rajshahi town. The temple of Siva Pradyumnesvara mentioned in Vijayasena's inscription dis-covered at Deopara, only 16 miles from Rajshahi, had been set up on the banks of Padumsar tank in the same village. It was from this tank that the Varendra Research Society re-covered in 1919 as many as 129 examples of Hindu, Buddhist and Jain sculptures among which the 5' 7" tall and three-dimensional image of Ganga deserves special mention. The numcrous examples of sculptures and highly decorated architectural members collected from the Godagari, Tanor, Manda and Niyamatpur police station areas would possibly let us presume that the poet Umapati Dhar, composer of the Deopara Inscription, and its scribe Ranaka Sulapani, who bore the title of the crest-jewel of the artist's guild of Varendri, as well as Dhiman, and his son Bitapala, mentioned by the Tibetan historian Lama Taranath as the founder of the school of sculpture and painting in Varendri, were inhabitants of this district. The overwhelming number of sculptures and their wide range and variety, the panchmarked silver coins of pre-Christian era discovered at Fetgram under Manda police station, the large number of epigraphs, stone as well as copper, point towards the rich state of civilization and culture of the district in the past. Similarly, the beautiful but impressive mosque architecture of Bagha, Kusumba and Gauda, several dozens of Arabic inscriptions and numerous gold and silver coins not only testify to the generous patronage of the Sultans of Bengal to the arts, they also indicate the expansion as well as the flourishing state of the Muslim religion and culture in Rajshahi district situated in close proximity to Gauda.
The district of Rajshahi has witnessed
Hindu (935)
Agriculture (118)
Ancient (1086)
Archaeology (753)
Architecture (563)
Art & Culture (910)
Biography (702)
Buddhist (544)
Cookery (167)
Emperor & Queen (565)
Islam (242)
Jainism (307)
Literary (896)
Mahatma Gandhi (372)
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