Vol. VI, No. 11.] History of the District of Hughli. 6<)1 



[N.8.] 



curved form from Triveni to Sankrel near Howra. The Mogul 

 fort was built that very year on the site of the present Imambara 

 and the old court-houses when Hughli was declared to be a royal 

 port. The condition of Serampur and Ohandernagoie may be 

 ascertained from the writings of Captain Alexander Hamilton, 

 who speaking about the Danes of Serampur in 1723 says. 

 " The poverty of the Danes has made them desert it, after 

 having robbed the Mogul's subjects of some of their shipping, 

 to keep themselves from starving." About the French in that 

 year he says that their " chief business " was to hear mass in 

 their pretty little church. It is well known that it was not till 

 after the arrival of Dupleix as Intend ant or Director-General 

 of Chandernagore in 1730 that over two thousand brick houses 

 were built there, and before that it had always been regarded 

 as a settlement of very minor importance. 1 All these circum- 

 stances prove that these towns have no history beyond the 

 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. At the time of the Maho 

 medans the district of Hughli comprised portions of Sarkars 

 Satgaon, Mandaran, Salimabad and Sarifabad. 



The district of Hughli appertained to the ancient country 

 of Sumha. The history of the Hughli district, therefore, is the 

 history of the ancient country of Sumha, to which it apper- 

 tained. The modern province of Bengal at the time of the 

 Mahabharat comprised the countries of Anga, Banga, Kalinga, 

 Pundra, Sumha, Tamralipta, Pragjyotish and Magadha.* It 

 appears from the Vishnu Puran that Bali, a descendant of 

 Yayati of the Lunar dynasty, had five sons, Anga, Banga, 

 Kalinga, Sumha and Pundra, after whom five kingdoms were 

 named. 3 It is related in the Mahabh&rat that Sumha was con- 

 quered by Pandu, the father of Yudishfchira, and his brothers. 4 

 According to Nilakantha, the celebrated commentator of the 

 Mahabharat, who often quotes from the earlier commentator 

 Arjnna Misra, Sumha is the same as Rada 5 (pronounced Rara) ; 

 and Rada is the Lata or Lala of the Buddhists and L4da of 

 the Jainas. Rada is the western part of Bengal which lies to 

 the west of the Ganges. 6 A portion of the district of 

 Murshidabad is now its northern boundary, and in the south 

 it comprises a large portion of the district of Midnapur, includ- 

 ing Tamluk. 7 Like other kingdoms of India, however, the 

 boundaries of Sumha varied at different periods. Sometimes 

 it was an independent kingdom and it extended its limits by 



— — i M , -- ii ... __ __ ^ — «^— "'■■ ^ f^M^«^^^— ■^f^^a*- 



1 J. J. Cotton's Chandernagore. 



* Mahabharat Bhishma Parva, ch. 9 ; Sabha Parva, ch. 29 ; Adi 

 Parva, ch. 113. 



3 Vishnu Puran, part iv, ch.*18. ♦ Mahabharat, Adi Parva, ch 113. 



6 3^TT:TT?T:— see Nilakantha's commentary on v. 25, ch. 30, Sabha 

 Parva ot the Mahabharat. 



6 Tabakat i-Nasiri : Major Raverty's Translation, pp. 584, 586. 



7 Prof. Wilson's Introduction to the Mackenzie Collections, chap«. 

 138, 139. 



