Bengal has had a long history of urban growth till the 8th or 9th century. The region had a number of significant urban centres, some of which were known all over the world. These cities gradually decayed after the 8th century and, in the absence of proper documentation, have not been recorded in our history books with due importance. The cities have either completely vanished or are in a ruinous state beyond recognition.

Occasional references about these cities are found in books and travelogues that can be pieced together to form a virtual vision of ancient Bengal, which is awe-inspiring.

Nihar Ranjan Ray, the historian, has painstakingly pieced together a picture of ancient urban Bengal and his views are worth a second look in the 21st century if only to regain a sense of pride for our past achievements.

He has quoted from the Mahabharata in his Bangaleer Itihas to establish that the roots of urban Bengal are more than 2,000 years old. It is written in the Mahabharata that Bhim had gone out on a conquest with Karna and had killed the king of Munger and defeated the king of Pundra who had his kingdom by the Koshi river. Karna had conquered Sumha, Pundra, Banga and Tamralipta.

Katha Sarit Sagar, written by Somdeva, has mentioned a road that existed from Pataliputra (modern-day Patna) to the great city of Pundrabardhan. Books by Chinese travellers refer to another road connecting Bodhgaya with Tamralipta. This road is also mentioned on an 8th century stone tablet on Dudhpani hills in Hazaribagh in Bihar.

The city of Pundrabardhan was most probably in north-central Bengal around Bagura, Rajshahi, Rangpur and Dinajpur according to descriptions given by Hyuen-Tsang in his travelogue. He mentions he had crossed a river when he travelled from Pundrabardhan to Kamrup in Assam.

This river must have been the Koshi river, which finds regular mention in most of our ancient texts. Hyuen-Tsang had returned to Tamralipta from Kamrup.

From Tamralipta, he travelled to Karna Subarna (near Baharampur), Rajmahal and Champa and finally to Pataliputra. He has mentioned the existence of a large Buddhist Vihara near Karna Subarna called Lo-to-mo-chi and described it as the land with reddish soil or “Rakta Mrittika” (Rangamati in Bangladesh). Therefore, all these must have been thriving cities during those times, which foreign travellers wanted to visit.

Dashakumarcharit mentions that the port city of Tamralipta was a part of the Sumha Kingdom. From the description of the terrain, one can assume “Sumha” consisted of southern Burdwan, a large part of Hooghly and Howrah districts. Most of our Puranas and the Jataka stories mention Tamralipta as a large port city.

Ptolemy and Periplus, too, have mentioned Tamralipta in their writings. Ptolemy refers to Tamralipta as “Tamalitus” and describes a large area of which it was the capital.

The most interesting part is the mention of Pushkaran and Bardhaman as two thriving cities in the Shushunia Lipi by king Chandrabarma. There is a village called Pokhrana on the bank of the Damodar in Bankura, which may have been the erstwhile Pushkaran. Several ancient Yakshini sculptures have been found there.

There is Singhapur mentioned in the Sinhali Puran, which describes the voyage of Bijoysingha and his subsequent conquest of Sri Lanka. It mentions a certain settlement by the name of Singhapur, which existed in central Bengal. Many people think that today’s Singur may have been Singhapur during the time of Bijoysingha.

However, our real interest remains with Chandraketugarh near Barasat where an ancient capital city may have existed from the 3rd century BC. It has now been established and claimed by scholars such as Enamul Haque and Pratapaditya Pal that artefacts found in Chandraketugarh speak of a refined culture which existed in that region.

They say we have only skimmed the surface of Chandraketugarh and that “what lies beneath” may change the history of ancient Bengal forever.

(The author is an architect and urban designer)