Top ten tourist places in Bangladesh

On the road to ancient Srihatta

 Two ages-old statues found in Sylhet temple open new avenue of study

Tarun Sarkar

Photo: Tarun Sarker, Sagar Das Chowdhury

As per the record, Panchakhanda Basudeva Angan, a millennium-old temple in Supatala village of Sylhet's Beanibazar, housed only a Basudeva statue.  

Beyond public knowledge, however, two more unrecorded ancient statues are kept in the historic temple.

During a visit to the temple in late June, the statues of a Dhyani (meditating) Buddha and a Garudashin Vishnu (Lord Vishnu sitting or riding on Garuda, a mythical bird-like creature) were found.

The Basudeva statue, depicting Lord Vishnu in Samapadasthanak posture in which the feet are firmly arid squarely planted, was mentioned in various journals while the two other statues remained unheard of.

In Achyut Charan Choudhury's book "Srihatter Itibritta", some publications of Bangladesh Asiatic Society, and a memorandum published by the temple in 2006 state that there is only the Basudeva statue in the temple.

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.Click here to read the original story from The Daily Star of 11th Oct 2020 published from Dhaka, Bangladesh.

How Chattogram narrowly missed becoming East India Company’s Bengal headquarter

Had the British claimed the port city for carrying out East India Company’s operations, Chattogram might not have been what it is today

The East India Company convoy. Illustration: Nicholas Pocock/Wikimedia Commons

"The most famous and wealthy city of the Kingdom of Bengal" - these are the words Portuguese historian João de Barros used to describe Chattogram in the 16th century.

From ancient times, this port city has been a center of attraction for the traders due to its natural harbour. No wonder that the East India Company initially wanted it as its Bengal headquarter.

Chattogram could have been the Company's Bengal headquarter, if Job Charnock had not chosen Kolkata. After all, unlike Charnock, many English agents had their eyes on the city for a long time.

However, establishing the Bengal headquarter in Kolkata was not a simple event. In fact, a chain of events prompted it.

For a long time, the East India Company, a British joint stock company "...headquartered in a small office, five windows wide, in London and managed in India by an unstable sociopath--Robert Clive," as described by historian William Dalrymple, had its eyes set on Bengal, the richest province in Mughal India. Bengal province or Subah Bangalah provided 50% of Mughal India's GDP so it was natural that the company felt the necessity of forming a headquarter in Bengal.

Bengal province was the wealthiest and industrially the most developed place in the world. It was known globally for producing exquisite textiles, and shipbuilding. Bengal subah was a major exporter of silk and cotton textile, steel, saltpeter (a principal ingredient of gunpowder) and agriculture and industrial produce in the world. Bengal subah's capital Jahangirnagar, modern day Dhaka, was inhabited by more than a million people. So it was natural that trading nations would be very interested to set up business in this province and try to be the exclusive traders in the region.

Unfortunately, the Mughal Emperor kept on wiping out the British agents from Bengal, time and time again.

However, luck favoured them when Gabriel Boughton, a former surgeon of the Company, saved Emperor Jahangir's severely burnt daughter in January 1644.

A grateful Jahangir permitted East India Company to establish a factory at Pipili, Odisha, as stated in "The Illustrated History of the British Empire in India and the East Vol 3."

Subsequently, the company was allowed to establish factories in Balasore, Odisha and Hooghly, Bengal completely waiving customs duty when Boughton visited the capital at Rajmahal and treated another lady of the palace.

Around 1682, Emperor Aurangzeb provided a special firman to the Company to permanently do business in Bengal. However, disputes soon started to grow between the English and the governor as the parties did not exactly see eye to eye when it came to interpreting the various aspects of the Firman.

Additionally, Shaista Khan, the then-governor of Bengal, imposed an additional tax of 3.5% on the trade of the Company, notwithstanding the Firman obtained earlier. Another incident with the Faujdar of Cossimbazar eventually forced the company to leave Bengal without obtaining cargo.

These events enraged the English and with permission from King James II, Admiral Nicholson was sent with a naval force to attack the port at Chattogram. Their plan was to make Chattogram a fort city for the Company in the eastern region.

They assumed that if the plan was successful, the governor would abandon the city and, additionally, a peace treaty would be offered that would ensure free trade and other economic benefits for the Company.

Job Charnock's folly changed the course of history

In a bid to seize Chattogram, Job Charnock from the Madras division of the Company was ordered to join the expedition with 400 troops.

But in a twist of events, the arrangement went amiss.

Job Charnock. Photo: Collected

Instead of landing in Chattogram, few ships from Charnock's division mistakenly showed up at Hooghly and anchored off the factory in Hooghly. They were later joined by the other troops from Madras. 

Upon the arrival of such large troops, Shaista Khan got uncomfortable. He immediately offered a truce.

However, the peace did not stay long as the truce was broken again in October 1686.

Considering Hooghly unsafe, Charnock decided to move downstream to Sutanuti - a small hamlet on the bank of the river Hooghly.

The ships required repairs and their overall situation in Bengal, too, was vulnerable. Consequently, they decided to continue to hold their current position, instead of desiring Chattogram, as Charnock now thought of it as a far-fetched dream.

Charnock and his troops, instead, pleaded for forgiveness and another peace was made at the end of 1686.

In 1687, Shaista Khan's soldiers, however, arrived at Hooghly to drive the Company out of Bengal.

By this time, the English realised the odds well as they were counting the cost of Charnock's lethargy in occupying Chattogram in the first place.

With further realisation that there would be no business until they had a fort in Chattogram, In December 1688, Captain Heath was sent to attack.

But their forays ended in failure. After all these failed attempts, the English agents decided to abandon Bengal as their trading location in the eastern region.

However, one might wonder why they tried to conquer Chattogram so many times.

Professor Muntasir Mamoon opines, "The seaport had been famous for trading since the Portuguese settlement in Chattogram. Forming the Bengal headquarter here would have greatly benefited them."

He continued, "First of all, this would have given them auto access to the port. Secondly, the trade route which was till Arakan or Burma could be expanded further. Additionally, they could use some help from the Magh people and the Portuguese for defense."

Bengal was once again open to the English when Ibrahim Khan invited Charnock after Shaista Khan's retirement. With some negotiation, Charnock returned to Sutanuti on August 24, 1690, to set up headquarters in the place he called Calcutta.

The Chattogram we have today might have looked different if any of the attacks were successful.

It could either have been entirely wrecked or could have all the things the British built in Kolkata. It could have been the capital of British India and history would have been different.

Either way, the saga of Chattogram indeed could have been interesting had the British conquered it for their gains.

Sources used: Da Almeida, Hermione. Indian Renaissance: British Romantic Art And the Prospect of India, H E Busteed Echoes from Old Calcutta (Calcutta) 1908, Bangiya Sabarna Katha Kalishetra Kalikatah by Bhabani Roy Choudhury, Manna Publication.

.Click here to read the original story from The Daily Star of 27th Aug 2020 published from Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Providing permanent support to the people of Tanguar Haor

 

Same spot in Tanguar Haor photographed in April (left) and August (right) 2016. Photo: Haseeb Md Irfanullah

Haseeb Md Irfanullah

I always wanted to take two photographs of the same spot of Tanguar Haor—one in the driest month of the year and one in the wettest. I was successful in doing so in 2016. It was just remarkable to see how two-thirds of a 12,655-hectare waterbody gets dried up in Chaitra (April), but again becomes so full, like a sea, in Sraban (August), year in, year out! 

To the readers of The Daily Star, Tanguar Haor is quite well-known as a wintering ground of a huge number of migratory water birds coming from the colder north, like China and Mongolia. In January 2019, Bangladesh Bird Club, Bangladesh Forest Department, and International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) counted about 150,000 migratory birds belonging to around 40 species—the highest count since 2012—in this wetland.

The migratory birds make our Tanguar Haor a "Wetland of International Importance". Recognising this fact, on July 10,2000, this freshwater ecosystem was designated as Bangladesh's second Ramsar Site (Our first Ramsar Site is, of course, the Sundarbans mangrove forest).

Despite being a significant hub of global biodiversity with mesmerising scenic beauty, Tanguar Haor has a very depressing past. Since the 1930s till the end of the last century, Tanguar Haor was captured by powerful elites through leasing system that caused rampant exploitation of its fisheries resources.

Over those seven decades, Tanguar Haor became a painful example of violating people's rights. With power, money, and muscle, the leaseholders harshly stopped the poor haor-dwellers from accessing the resources of their haor. Tanguar Haor's condition deteriorated so much that in 1999 the government had to declare it an "Ecologically Critical Area" (ECA).

2001 was a significant year for Tanguar Haor—the harmful leasing was stopped and, from the Ministry of Land, the management of the wetland was brought under the then Ministry of Environment and Forests. A couple of years later, the government put its resources, through Sunamganj district administration, to guard and to protect Tanguar Haor, which continued until the end of 2006.

The National Conservation Strategy Implementation Project in the mid-1990s was the first-ever conservation initiative in Tanguar Haor undertaken by the government. But it was the "Community Based Sustainable Management of Tanguar Haor" project (Tanguar Haor Project), which began a new era of conserving Tanguar Haor.

In December 2006, the Ministry of Environment and Forests started this three-phase project with technical support from IUCN and financial support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). Other national and international NGOs, namely BELA, CNRS, ERA, GUS, and HELVETAS, also got involved in this initiative. That project came to an end in August 2016.

Over a decade, a number of major changes were seen in Tanguar Haor. A people-centric system was introduced to sustainably manage Tanguar Haor. There was a three-tier community organisation—at village, union and haor levels—and an inclusive supporting authority led by the district administration.

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Click here to read the original story from The Daily Star of 17th Aug 2020 published from Dhaka, Bangladesh.

In search of a millenium-old higher-learning centre

A photograph of The Paschimbagh copperplate inscription, whreabouts of which are currrently unknown. Photo: Courtesy

Archaeology department to start looking for Chandrapur; historians say it hosted an educational complex with nine mathas

Dwoha Chowdhury

Ancient Bengal was a land of knowledge where institutional education flourished through vihara (monastery), mahavihara (monastic complex of viharas) and matha (cloister, institute or college). Thousand-year-old heritages like Nalanda, Shalban, Somapura, Vikramshila, Jagaddala and many others stand tall as a testament to our glorious past.

These ancient higher-learning institutions eventually laid the foundation of what later came to be known as universities.

Srihatta (present day Sylhet division) is home to such an institution, which is older than Jagaddala, as disciplined as Nalanda and was built in the early 10th century, according to historians.

King Srichandra of Chandra dynasty of south-eastern Bengal patronised constructing nine mathas at Chandrapur of Srihatta.

Details of these mathas were inscribed in a copperplate grant (historical legal records engraved on copper plates) found in Paschimbhag of Rajnagar upazila in Moulvibazar in 1958, which was later decoded and translated.

And after 62 years of this historical finding, the Department of Archaeology is all set to explore and excavate the long-lost heritage of the land, which lies beneath the ground -- once known as Chandrapur.

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CHANDRAPUR, 9 MATHAS, CONCEPT OF UNIVERSITY

Following his study and research, Kamalakanta Gupta believed that Chandrapur was a town in the Chandrapura Vishaya (subdivision) of Srihattamandala or Srihatta and the vishayapati (ruler) used to live there and the mathas were situated in the town.

The Chandra dynasty was of Buddhist monarchy and most Buddhist kings granted land for vihara in the name of Buddha.

Srichandra granted all land in the name of Buddha; these lands were granted to Brahmans and mostly to study Brahmanya (devoted to sacred knowledge) based on Chaturveda (collection of religious texts).

As a Buddhist monarch, he included only the grammar of Chandragomin and the main matha's upadhyaya was the teacher, as mentioned in the inscription, decoded by historians.

"The inscription and all the evidence lead us to believe that there was a large educational institute in the land, which was mainly a religious education centre, like Nalanda or Odantapuri," said Dr Zafir Setu.

"The educational concept, the land grant structure based on the level of labour distribution of around 25 types of professionals point that this was a planned and disciplined institute -- functioning almost like a modern university," he added.

"It makes me wonder how such an institution could be forgotten from history," he said.

WHERE IS CHANDRAPUR?

Many say the place is situated in the Dighirpar area of Juri upazila in Moulvibazar. The archaeology department is planning to start their survey works from the spot.

Historians, however, never agreed on a specific spot till to date.

According to the "Paschimbhag Copperplate", Chandrapur Vishaya was bounded by the Mani-Nadi (present day Monu river) in the south, Kosiyara-Nadi (present day Kushiyara river) in the north, large Kouttali in the east and Jangakhataka-Kastanyakhataka-Betraghanginadi in the west.

Kalamakanta Gupta believed that the Kouttali is a large garh or fort in the east and the west's Betraghanginadi is present day Ghungi river and he always gave emphasis to the original location where the copperplate was found.

Writer and researcher Prof Nripendralal Das said, "There are many possibilities where the town and the educational institute might be."

"The copperplate was found in Rajnagar upazila but there are many other places nearby like Nidhanpur or Kalapur where copperplates of other dynasties were found. It proves that the land holds many histories and mysteries, waiting to be unearthed."

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SEARCH FOR CHANDRAPUR BEGINS FINALLY

On July 15, the archaeology department asked the regional director of Sylhet-Chattogram to look into the matter and file a detailed report after visiting the possible location at Juri upazila in Moulvibazar.

The regional director said, "Following the instruction, I've already started studying about the matter and am very excited to look for the historical educational institute."

Hannan Miah, director general of the department said, "If we find the heritage, it could be one of the greatest archaeological findings of recent decades in the country. Now, we're planning for research and survey at the first phase; if the result is promising, we will start a large scale excavation soon." 

Click here to read the original story from The Daily Star of 24th Jul 2020 published from Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Into the nuances of history: The Battle of Plassey

Shamsuddoza Sajen

Sudeep Chakravarti is an eminent commentator and author whose narrative non-fiction and fiction have been translated into Bangla, Hindi, Spanish, Portuguese, German and more. In January 2020, his book—Plassey: The Battle That Changed the Course of Indian History (Aleph Book Company, India)—sought to parse through the history and the myths surrounding the topic. This week we brought together the author and our Commercial Supplements Editor Shamsuddoza Sajen to discuss the book and the battle, fought 263 years ago on June 23.

Shamsuddoza Sajen (TDS): Why did the British want to capture the throne of Bengal? Was the Battle of Plassey inevitable?

Sudeep Chakravarti: Bengal was a major Asian trade hub. Here cottons and silks were legendary, there was jute, lac, saltpetre for making gunpowder and preserving foods. Finance was relatively easy. The rivers and waterways ensured excellent transportation and communication networks. And Bengal was rich: its revenues helped to sustain Mughal coffers and armies. Even with the disintegration of the Mughal Empire, both French and British Company sources verify as to how Bengal sustained their Indian trade. The

British East India Company couldn't afford to lose Bengal, and they couldn't afford French

ascendancy in Bengal and India either. Siraj and the French were both perceived as great threats. The British wanted both to be removed from the chessboard.

A make-or-break conflict with Siraj-ud-daulah became a priority for John Company in early 1757. Robert Clive and Charles Watson had already helped recover Calcutta from Siraj's forces in January. Meanwhile, the Seven Years' War was breaking out in Europe, in which Britain and France were the main combatants. That hostility carried over to Bengal, and weakened the so-called 'Neutrality of the Ganges', a tenuous understanding by which Europeans attempted to insulate the Bengal trade. When Siraj's outreach to the French began to increase from February, the die was cast.

First the French settlement of Chandannagar north of Calcutta was attacked and destroyed by the British in March 1757. The elites of Murshidabad who had meanwhile been conspiring against Siraj now formally conspired with John Company against the nawab. The stage was set for what came to be called the Battle of Plassey, fought on June 23, 1757. But the outcome of the battle was far from certain. Indeed, despite his bravado Clive was a nervous wreck, and Company officials in Calcutta were fully prepared to dump Clive if the gambit went wrong—and Clive knew it! It's all in my book.

Click here to read the original story from The Daily Star of 25th June 2020 published from Dhaka, Bangladesh.

FELIDAE Cats

Copyright: Tiger Tours Limited

Panthera pardus (Linnaeus, 1758) Synonym: Felis pardus Linnaeus, 1758. English name: Leopard. 

Local names: Chitabagh, Goolbagh, Gechobagh, Lamchita. 

Description: A typical Panther from the Indian peninsula is a sleek short-haired animal. A large, powerfully built cat, with an elongated body, a long tail, and short, stout legs. Head is rather small and convex. Ears rounded, backside black, with a conspicuous white spot. Coat above is short and soft. Colour: general ground-colour of upper side bright, but varying a little in intensity from nearly golden to ochreous or orange-tawny, darker on back than on flanks. There are many solid black spots on head and for a short distance behind it, on outer side of limbs and on belly, which is heavily spotted, but elsewhere in body pattern of black spots mostly consists of definite rosettes which appear to result from coalescence of four or five small solid spots to form definite but irregularly shaped rings surrounding an area of darker tint. A fulvous or bright fulvous coat marked with small close-set black rosettes. Rosettes on mid-dorsal and loins are more elongated and show a tendency to run in longitudinal stripe-like lines. On the tail the pattern is less regular and less rosettes-like, individual rosettes being coalesced towards the end above, whereas the underside is almost unspotted. Underparts and the inner side of limbs are white. Melanistic or black panthers are also known. It is a genetic error, called melanism, that lets these animals appear black, while the animal actually is not simply black, but extremely dark in colour. If anybody carefully checks the coat of melanistic leopards, he will discover that it is more brownish than black and the rosettes-and spots-pattern still can be seen. As a very general rule, a leopard is either black or normally coloured, and cubs of the two types will be found in the same litter. Size: head-body length 160 cm; tail 100 cm; hind foot 20-27 cm (Pocock, 1939; Prater, 1980; Ghosh, 1994). 

Habits: Being more tolerant of the sun they frequently hunt by day, particularly if they have failed to secure food at night. The Panther kill and eat anything it can overpower safely including cattle, deer, hare, wild boar, langur and monkeys, the smaller beasts of prey, and larger rodents, like porcupines. Panthers living near human settlement, particularly outside forest areas, prey mainly domestic animals, calves, sheep, and goats; on ponies and donkeys, and quite commonly on dogs. It seizes its quarry from the ground or leaps on it from a height such as an overhanging branch (Prater, 1980; Arivazhagan et al., 2007). The most typical vocal communication among leopards would be the 'sawing', which sounds much like law-a-haw-ahaw', hence as if someone would be sawing a piece of wood. This soiund tends to occur early in the morning and shortly before dawn, apparently when the animal is moving. Leopards also use a wide range of facial expressions and body postures to communicate with each other, which are of importance in interaction and cooperation within a young family as well as in territorial issues. For tactile communication they perform the cattypical social licking and head rubbing (Estes, 1991; Fumagalli, 2008). Breed all the year round. In captivity, female produces the first litter when 21/2 to 4 years of age. Gestation period varies from 87 to 94 days. Normally 2 cubs per litter are born, occasionally 3 or 4. Eyes open between the 4th and 8th day after birth. Weaned at about 4 months. (Prater 1980). The females of this species tend to take care of the young but there have been reports of males helping the nursing mother and child, by bringing them kills for example (Guggisberg, 1975). Habitat: Panthers are able to live and thrive almost anywhere. They are not restricted to forests or heavy cover and thrive as well in open country as among rocks and scrub. 

Distribution: Occurs in mixed evergreen forests in Bangladesh (IUCN Bangladesh, 2003). The leopard is found across most of sub-Saharan Africa, as. remnant populations in North Africa, and then in the Arabian peninsula and Sinai/Judean Desert (Egypt/Israel/Jordan), south-western and eastern Turkey, and through Southwest Asia and the Caucasus into the Himalayan foothills, India, China, and the Russian Far East, as well as on the islands of Java and Sri Lanka (Nowell and Jackson 1996; Sunquist and Sunquist, 2002). Out of nine subspecies, Panthera pardus fusca occurs in the Indian subcontinent. 

Status: A Critically Endangered species in Bangladesh (IUCN Bangladesh, 2003). Included on CITES Appendix I. Classified as Near Threatened (NT) on IUCN Red List (Breitenmoser et al., 2008). Protected in Bangladesh by Schedule 1 of Bangladesh Wildlife (Preservation) (Amendment) Act, 1974. 

Remarks: Greek leopardos, from leon = lion; pardos = male panther. The animal was thought in ancient times to be a hybrid of these two species. In Bangladesh, leopards are feared for their attacks on people. 

[Ghazi S M Asmat] 

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Encyclopedia of flora and fauna of  Bangladesh

Pyramid-shaped stupa sheds new light on our rich past

The site of the 1,000-year-old Buddhist stupa discovered by archaeologists in Nateshwar. 

Photo: Collected

Staff Correspondent

For the first time, a group of archaeologists have unearthed a pyramid-shaped stupa in the country.

The discovery was made at the Nateshwar archaeological site in Bikrampur. Archaeologists deduce the stupa to be from 780-950 AD, following carbon-14 dating from an American lab.

This rare pyramid-shaped stupa is not only markedly different from the usual egg-shaped variety of the Buddhist religious monuments, but also carries deep significance for understanding the region's history.

On top of this, the 44X44m stupa, which is almost 2,000 square metre in area, is Bangladesh's largest stupa, comparable in size to the globally exalted great stupas of Sanchi, Bharhut, Amaravati, Sarnath and more.

The above came to light following an almost complete uncovering of the structure's southern wing from excavations made this year.

Dr Sufi Mustafizur Rahman, professor of archaeology at Jahangirnagar University, who is the research director of this project, and Dr Nuh-ul-Alam Lenin, chairperson of Agrasar Bikrampur Foundation and director of the excavation project, unveiled the information at a press conference.

The briefing was held at Nateshwar excavation site in Munshiganj's Tongibari upazila on Wednesday, said a press release signed by the two. This excavation and research project, which started in 2010, is being supervised by Bikrampur Foundation.

Nateshwar archaeological site bears witness to the Bengal region's thousand-year-old history. Ranging from biological remains of flora and fauna, to terracotta, metal and stone artefacts and unique architecture, the archaeological findings also paint the picture of an ancient civilisation that once dwelled on this land.

While this year's excavation uncovered the 44m wide southern wing of the stupa, digging for the past two years yielded parts of the northern and eastern wings.

But what makes the excavation of the southern wing important is that it sheds light on the shape of the structure and reveals critical clues about the architecture, such as wall length and area of the central terrace.

Additionally, this discovery helps put into perspective the timeline of the area.

After carbon-14 dating, two time periods of the Nateshwar Buddhist locale has been found. The first one dates from 780 to 950 AD, starting from the Deva dynasty (750-800 AD) and lasting till the early years of the Chandra dynasty rule (900-1050 AD).

The second period stretches from 950 to 1223 AD, spanning rules by Chandra, Varman, and Sena dynasties. According to some copper-plates (tamra-shasana), Bikrampur served as the capital of these three dynasties, the press release added.

Chronologically, this stupa dates before the time of Buddhist scholar Atish Dipankar Srigyan and is believed to be a part of ancient capital city of Bikrampur, referenced in writings by Atish Dipankar as well as Chinese historian Nacuo Cuichengjiewa.

The archaeologists and researchers hope this discovery of a rare pyramid-shaped stupa will attract the eyes of tourists the world over. Not just this stupa, from 2013 to 2019, around 6,000sqkm area was excavated and many significant cultural artefacts were discovered at the site, they added.

The archaeological site of Nateshwar has the potential to become a  centre of Buddhist culture in South Asia. There is also a temple made of  brick, three octagonal stupas with mandap, 51-metre long brick roads,  multiple rooms and hall rooms, and entryway.

In light of the numerous discoveries made in the area, Nateshwar is on the process of being announced a Unesco World Heritage Site, Prof Sufi told The Daily Star yesterday.

Before this, Bikrampur Foundation ran another project at Rampal union's Raghurampur village (ancient name "Bajrayogini") from 2010 to 2013.

Click here to read the original story from The Daily Star of 20th March, 2020 published from Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Rose Garden: A history of passion and pride

At Kamini Mohan (K.M.) Das Lane in Tikatuli of Old Dhaka, there lies a majestic mansion called “Rose Garden”. Interestingly, it was built to host parties by one of the prominent zamindars of Dhaka, named Hrishikesh Das. He built the Rose Garden in 1931 on a 22-bigha plot along with a famous garden that had various species of rare roses. Thus the compound earned the name “Rose Garden”. The central piece of the garden is the elegant building. 

The story of Hrishikesh Das

In the early 1900s, Hrishikesh Das became one of the distinguished zamindars in Dhaka. He had his residence in the area known as Hrishikesh Das Road (at present near Tanti Bazar). He led a lavish lifestyle and had a knack for lofty things. During that time, “Baldha Garden” was the place for socialites to mingle. It became an important element of the social life of the city’s wealthier Hindus as most of the jalshas (parties) were arranged there. Unfortunately, as a member of the lower caste, Hrishikesh was not welcomed.

Rumour has it that while attending one of those parties, he was insulted for being a lower caste. Reportedly, the insult came from none other than the famous Narendra Narayan Roy Chaudhury who was the landlord of the estate of Baldha and owner of the Baldha Garden. That incident offended Hrishikesh Das in such a terrible way that he decided to build his own garden which would eclipse the Baldha Garden. Hence, he went on to build one of the most beautiful buildings with a garden, which we now know as the Rose Garden.

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This historic building was the site where the East Pakistan Awami Muslim League was formed on June 2, 1949. The word Muslim was dropped from the name of the party in 1953. The premises was declared a heritage site by the Department of Archaeology on 21st December, 1989. The property has been acquired by the Government of Bangladesh by paying lawful compensation to the present owners in August, 2018 to convert it into a museum.

Click here to read the original story from The Daily Star of 20th January, 2020 published from Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Bengal through Chinese eyes

                                       Copyright: Tiger Tours Limited

A 15th century account of Bengal by the famous Chinese traveller Ma Huan

Emperor Chengzu of the Ming Dynasty, hanging scroll, ink and color on silk, 220 x 150 cm. Located at the National Palace Museum, Taibei. Chengzu is commonly called the Yung-lo Emperor. This picture shows him sitting in the ‘Dragon’ chair. He ordered Cheng Ho to go as envoy to the kingdoms in the India Ocean including Bengal.

The following account of Ma Huan was written at the commencement of the fifteenth century. It is a chapter taken from a work, bearing the title Ying-yai-sheng-lan (a general account of the shores of the ocean) compiled by Ma Huan who was an interpreter attached to the suite of Cheng Ho who was sent to the various kingdoms of the Indian Ocean by the Chinese Emperor Yung-lo. This account was translated by Geo. Phillips. The translation was originally published in The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland in its July 1895 issue. The object of the expedition was that the Emperor feared that Hui-ti, his predecessor, whom he had driven out of the throne, was concealing himself in some country over the sea; he wanted to trace him, and at the same time display his military force in foreign countries, in order to show that China was rich and strong. In 1413 Ma Huan accompanied Admiral Chengo Ho, along with the other interpreter Guo Chongli, on the fourth voyage which took the fleet for the first time to Hormuz. After that, he went on the voyage during 1421-23 and on the last voyage in 1431-33 when he journeyed to Mecca with the mission. During these three voyages the Chinese missions came to Bengal and Ma Huan acquired first-hand knowledge about the country. Back in 1416, he had prepared the first draft of his work along with a foreword. It was given its final form in 1433. His colleague Guo Chongli could print the book only in 1451, as the foreword of that year by the imperial clerk Gu Po testifies.

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