Ancient period of Bangladesh: July 2010

Home

Bangladesh, being the middle of lots of cultures is one of the most renowned places in the world. Many historical places are well preserved in Bangladesh such as the ruins of monuments & its wonderful cities. The country's ancient heritage appeared to stay in the heart of Bangladesh even today. Though Bangladesh has many well-known historical places like Shait Gombuj Mosque, Lalbagh Fort, Mainamati, Ahsan Manzil, Sonargaon.

Shait Gombuj Mosque in Bagerhat

The most wonderful and largest brick mosque in Bangladesh is the Shait Gombuj Mosque. It is located in Bagerhat district. The World Heritage team of UNESCO inscribed Bagerhat in the World Heritage record and it got the status of the second World Heritage site in Bangladesh after Paharpur. As there were a large number of mosques, the Historian, a French monthly termed it a city of mosques. The earliest torchbearer of Islam in the south, he came from Delhi to settle a Muslim colony in this swampland in the early-15th century AD. The natural beauty of the area had such an effect upon him that he spent the rest of his life there. Record says that he constructed about 360 mosques and as many freshwater tanks, as well as palaces, mausoleums and other public buildings in a very short space of time.

At sunrise when the rays of the sun go through the eastern entrances, the interior comes to life. There is slight adornment to this building other than the carved stone decoration to the central mihrab at the western end of the prayer hall. The exterior facades, with a little 'battered' walls, have discernible curving cornices a concession to the local style.

Lalbagh Fort

Lalbagh Fort, an incomplete Mughal area fortress in Dhaka stood on the banks of the river Buriganga in the southwestern part of the old city. The river has now moved to south and flows at Quite a distance from the fort. The structure of the fort was commenced in 1678 AD by Prince Muhammad Azam during his 5 month long vice-royalty of Bengal.

For a long time the fort was considered to be a grouping of three buildings (the mosque, the tomb of Bibi Pari and the Diwan-i-Aam), two gateways and a portion of the partly damaged fortification wall. Of the three surviving gateways, the southern one is the very imposing. Seen from the front it is a three-storied arrangement with a fronton, bordered with slender minarets. From inside it gives the impression of a two-storied formation.

A water channel with fountains at regular intervals connects with the three buildings from east to west and two similar channels run from south to north. The building in the center, the tomb of Bibi Pari, is the most impressive of the surviving buildings of the fort. Eight rooms surround a square room, containing the mortal remains of Bibi Pari, which is covered by a false dome. The shape is octagonal, and wrapped by brass plate. The entire inner wall of the middle room was covered with white marble. While the four side middle rooms had stone skirting up to a height of one meter. The wall in the four corner rooms was skirted with good-looking glazed floral tiles. The tiles have very soon, been restored; two of the original tiles have been retained. The corner room contains a small vital, popularly known to be of Shamsad Begum, possibly a relative of Bibi Pari.

Mainamati in Comilla

It is known as the Seat of Lost Dynasties. About 8 km to the west of Comilla city, situated 114 km southeast of Dhaka, lies a range of low hills known as the Mainamati-Lalmai ridge, which was an extensive centre of Buddhist culture. On the slopes or these hills lie spread a treasure of information about the early Buddhist culture (7th-12th Century AD.). At Salban in the center or the ridge, excavations have laid bare a big Buddhist Vihara (monastery) with an imposing central shrine. It has revealed costly information about the rule of the Chandra and Deva dynasties which Flourished here from the 7th to the 12th century AD. The total range of hillocks runs for about 18 km and is studded with more than 50 sites. A place museum houses the archaeological finds which include terra cotta plaques, bronze statues and caskets, coins, jewellery, utensils, pottery and votive stupas embossed with Buddhist inscriptions.

Ahsan Manzil

It is located at Kumartoli in old Dhaka on the bank of the river Buriganga. It was the residential area and the kachari of the nawabs of Dhaka.The construction of the area was begun in 1859 and completed in 1872. The founder of Ahsan Manzil is Nawab Abdul Ghani. Ahsan Manzil is one of the important architectural monuments of the country. It is established on a raised stage of 1 meter, the two-storied palace measures 125.4m by 28.75m. The ground floor high is 5 meters and that of the first floor 5.8 meters. An open stair has come down from the southern portico, extending up to the bank of the river through the front garden.

Internally, the area is divided into two symmetrical halves on either side of the dome. There is a large drawing room in the east branch of the first floor. On its northern side one is a library and other is a card room, and in the eastern side there are four square rooms. On the western division of the first floor there is a spacious jalsaghar with a Hindustani room on the northern side and four square rooms in the western side. On the ground floor there is a big dining room and six square rooms in the eastern part. There are good-looking wooden stairs in the room that is attached to the north of the domed room. The bauisters were decorated with vine leaves made of iron along the railing of the stairs.

Sonargaon- the oldest capital of Bengal

Sonargaon's importance in the pre-Muslim time is borne out by its very old name of Suvarnagrama (the golden village), from which it is obvious how the Muslim version of the name is derived, as well as by the existence of Langalbandh and Panchamighat, the two traditional holy bathing places of the Hindus, in this tract of land on the west bank of the old Brahmaputra. Sonargaon rose to be the place of an independent ruler under Ghiyasuddin Bahadur Shah, and after his fall it was the head office of the eastern province of Bengal under the Tughlaqs till 1338. Sonargaon emerged as the center of an independent Sultanate under Fakhruddin Mubarak Shah (1338-1349). In the middle betwwen nineteenth and twentieth century Panam Nagar was developed in a part of medieval Sonargaon.

By the fourteenth century AD Sonargaon had developed into a commercial city. Ibn Batuta describes Sonargaon as an significant port city, which had direct commercial relations with countries like China, Indonesia and the Maldives. Muslin produced in Sonargaon, especially its luxury variety called khasa, had a worldwide reputation. With the loss of political status in the seventeenth century AD Sonargaon slowly lost its commercial importance as well. It again rose to some distinction in the nineteenth century AD when Panam Nagar was built up as a trading centre in cotton fabrics, chiefly English piece goods. Sonargaon developed into a seat of Islamic culture under the deferent scholar Maulana Sharfuddin Abu Tawwamah of Bokhara who came to Sonargaon sometime between 1282 and 1287 and established a Khanqah and madrasa wherein all branches of Islamic learning as well as secular sciences were taught and studied.