12. Contributions to the History and Ethnology of 



North-Eastern India — I. 



By H. E. Stapleton, B.A. B.Sc, Inspector of Schools, 



Dacca Division, and Honorary Secretary to the Coin 



Committee, Eastern Bengal and Assam. 



A. — The Antiquity of Dacca. 



At the recent 125th Anniversary meeting of the Society, 

 the writer exhibited a rubbing of a mosque inscription from 

 Dacca town, dated in the year 863 A.H. (A.D. 1459), as an 

 indication that Dacca is considerably older than the date of its 

 reputed foundation by Islam Khan in A.D. 1608. Since then 

 an interesting find of coins of a Gupta type has come to light 

 which lends a certain amount of additional support to the sug- 

 gestion that Dacca is a place of considerable antiquity. The 

 town itself stands at the southernmost point of the raised land 

 occupying the centre of Eastern Bengal, and the shrine of its 

 patron goddess, Dhakeswari, is situated on the highest ground 

 at the western side of the town, half a mile distant from the river 

 Burl Ganga. A mile away to the north-west is the Pil-khana, the 

 former headquarters of the Kheddah Department, and just 

 beyond this (still to the north-west) we come to a large stretch 

 of arable land which, though now split up into fields, continues 

 to bear the name of Nawab Rashid Khan ka Bagicha. 1 An old 

 tank, breached at the southern end, lies close to the road lead- 

 ing from the Pil-khana, and it was here, 100 yards to the south 



1 The former owner of this garden seems to have been the Rashid 

 Khan who was appointed Faujdar of Kamrup by Auraogzeb in 1662 

 (Blochmann, Koch Bihar and Asam, J.A.S.B., 1872, pp. 92 and 96). 

 Ho accepted the post unwillingly and resigned after holding it for 3 or 

 4 years, being succeeded by Saiyid Firuz Khan who was captured and 

 killed by the Assamese in 1667. During 13haista Khan's expedition in 

 16<i~> for the conquest of Chittagong, Rashid Khan's brother, 'Abdul 

 Karlm, was placed in charge of the captured island of Sondlp {'Alamgir- 

 namah, quoted by *Abdu-s-Salam on p. 230 of his translation of the 

 Riyazu-8-Salatin). Later, in 1669, Rashid Khan accompanied Raja 

 Ram Singh in his expedition to recover Gauhati from the Assamese, 

 but he quarrelled with Ram Singh and was ordered out of the camp 

 (Gait, History, p. 149). The last reference to him occurs in the 

 Ma'asir-i-'Alamglri, when he is found reporting (apparently from Dacca) 

 on the expenditure incurred in connexion with the "conquest" of 

 Gauhati in 1679 (Blochmann, op. cit., p. 99). Rashid Khan is nowhere 

 recorded to have been given the title of Nawab, but it is possible he 

 may have obtained it in connexion with this u temporary re-oeeupation of 

 (iauhati during the Viceroyalty of Prince Muhammad 'Azam (1678 

 1679). 



