An archaeological study of the district of Murshidabad in pre-muslim period

Abstract

The title of the Ph.D. work is ‘An Archaeological Study of the District of Murshidabad in pre-Muslim period’. The work is actually based on the scholar’s day to day field survey of Murshidabad District on the religious icons and the non-religious sculptures, epigraphy, numismatics and the architectural fragments which are lying in the fields of this district as well as preserved in the different museums, police stations and the block offices of the district. The present thesis is divided into seven chapters. The chapters contain the main archaeological sources which help us to reconstruct the history of the pre-Muslim period of this district. The scholar tries to high light the documents that are available and the archaeological materials and tries to analyze them. Archaeologically Murshidabad is a resourceful zone. River Bhagirathi equally divides the district into two parts. The western part of the district is Radha (earliest land formation, prominently the part of Uttara Radha) and the land on the eastern part of the river is known as the Bagri (later land formation). Maximum source material is collected from that region. In our surveying period we found the numbers of the fragmentary part of the artifacts are scattered in this area, basically we are surprised that the huge number of temple ruins are lying in different regions but not a single standing temple are seen in our study period. Huge numbers of Brahmanical icons basically Vishnu images of different variety are noticed in this region. Not only Vishnu we find Surya, Saiva images, and the few numbers of Buddhist and the Jaina images are found in this region. All the images are discussed elaborately. Sometimes we find the artifacts of our study period in the Bagri region because of the change of the course of the main river Bhagirathi The details of the chapterization are discussed in this paragraph. Chapter I is the Introduction. Here we discussed in details the location of the district in the present West Bengal map. The historical background of this study area, the river which flows through this district mainly the Bhagirathi River and geographical division of the district. Chapter II discussed the iconography which is detail documented and the analytical discussion the icons which is discovered this district in different ways or the icons which are displayed in different museums. The 3rd chapter covered the non-religious sculpture which is sub divided into the human figures, animal figures, and the sculptural designs. In Chapter IV is discussed the architectural remains in Murshidabad district which contain mainly the temple ruins, scattered on the different archaeological sites of this district or displayed in different museums. In Chapter V is discussed the epigraphy which is detail discussion the inscriptions depicted on the land grants, the seal sealings, icons and the coins or sometimes in the temple ruins. Here we try to discuss how the inscription is used to reconstruct the regional history. The chapter VI is on numismatics. Here we discuss in details of the coins of pre-Muslim period and we discuss the coins which are mainly recovered in this district and at present displayed or preserved in different museums. We noticed huge number of coins from the different sites of this region. We discussed here the coins which is discovered recently. We observe the coin hoard of Ahiron under Jangipur sub-division. The numbers of Gupta gold coins have been discovered from this region. The Chapter VII is conclusion. Here we discuss in detail the further work which the scholars can undertake.