Malda: Encyclopedia II - Malda - History

Malda - History

Malda is called the gateway of North Bengal. It was once the capital of Gour-Banga with its 3456 km² lay of the land classified into Tal, Diara, and Barind awaits the advent of tourists and people of archeological interest with its wealth to be enjoyed and its huge potential to be explored.

Malda region is washed by the waves of the rivers Ganges, Mahananda, Fulahar and Kalindri. Panini mentioned a city named Gourpura, which by strong reason may be identified as the city of Gouda, ruins of which are situated in this district. Examples are legion of the relic of a predecessor kingdom being used in the monuments of the successor kingdoms.

It had been within the limits of ancient Gour and Pandua (Pundrabardhana). These two cities had been the capital of Bengal in ancient and medieval ages and are equidistant, north and south, from English Bazar town (once known as Engelzavad established by the British rulers).

The boundary of Gour was changed in different ages since 5th century BC and its name can be found in Puranic texts. Pundranagar was the provincial capital of Maurya Empire. Gour and Pundrabardhana formed parts of the Mourya empire as is evinced from the inscriptions, Brahmi script on a seal discovered from the ruins of Mahasthangarh in the Bogura District of Bangladesh. Hiuen Tsang saw many Asokan stupas at Pundrabardhana.

The inscriptions discovered in the district of undivided Dinajpur and other parts of North Bengal along with the Allahabad pillar inscriptions of Samudragupta clearly indicate that the whole of North Bengal as far east as Kamrup formed a part of the Gupta empire.

After the Guptas in the beginning of 7th century AD Sasanka, the king of Karnasubarna as well as the king of Gour ruled independently for more than three decades. From the middle of 8th century to the end of 11th century the Pala dynasty ruled Bengal, the kings were devoted to Buddhism. It was during their reign that the Jagadalla Vihara (monastery) in Barindri flourished paralleling with Nalanda, Vikramshila and Devikot.

The Pala Dynasty yielded to the emergence of Sen Dynasty, the Sen rulers were Hindus, and in the habit of moving from place to place within their kingdom. At the time of Lakshman Sen Goud was known as Lakshmanabati. The Sen kings ruled Bengal till Bakhtiyar Khilji conquered Bengal in 1204 AD.

Thereafter the Muslim rule lasted for about five hundred years before Sirajuddaulah was defeated by Lord Clive at the Battle of Plassey in 1757 whence the British rule started. From ancient period different rulers with assorted origin, religion, and dynasty had left the imprints of their kingdom /dynasty on the earth in this district, most of them have failed to win over the tide of time as history has lifted one kingdom and later cast it down, sometimes into total oblivion. Those, which still stand on the earth in the form of ruins and relics, nevertheless reminds the past pomp and grandeur and are able to make the tourists and people of archeological interest sneak in.

This district was formed out of some portions of outlying areas of Purnia, Dinajpur and Rajshahi districts in 1813. At the time of Dr. B. Hamilton (1808 –09) ,the present thanas of Gazole, Malda, Bamongola, and part of Habibpur were included in the district of Dinajpur and the thanas of Harischandrapur, Kharba, Ratua, Manikchak, and Kaliachak were included in the district of Purnia. In 1813, in consequence of the prevalence of serious crimes in the Kaliachak and Sahebganj thanas and also on the rivers, a Joint Magistrate and Deputy Collector was appointed at Englishbazar with jurisdiction over a number of police station centering that place and taken from the two district. Thus the district of Malda was born. The year 1832 saw the establishment of separate treasury and the year 1859 the posting of a full-fledged magistrate and collector.

Upto 1876, this district formed part of Rajshahi Division and between 1876 and 1905, it formed part of Bhagalpur Division. In 1905, it was again transferred to Rajshahi Division and till 1947 Malda remained in this division. In August 1947 this district was affected by partition. Between 12 August]]] and 15 August 1947 the fate of the district as to which side it should go, to Pakistan or to India, was undecided because the announcement of the partition award of Sir Radcliffe did not make this point clear. During these few days the district was under a Magistrate of East Pakistan, when the details of the Radcliffe award were published, the district came over to West Bengal on 17 August 1947.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki