612 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [December, 1910. 



of Pandua was Pandu Raja. Either he was a descendant of 

 Pandu Sakya or that was the patronymic of the dynasty derived 

 from him. Pandua was not only the seat of a Hindu Raja, but it 

 was a strongly fortified place and was surrounded by a wall and 

 trench, five miles in circumference : the traces of the ancient 

 fortification are still found at different places. There can be 

 no doubt, therefore, that Pandua is a very ancient town in the 



district of Hughli. 



In connection with Pandua we have mentioned the name 



of Mahnad, which is four miles to the 

 Mahnad. gouth q{ p^dua. It was conquered 



by the Mahomedans along with Pandua in the middle of the 

 14th century. The word Mahnad is a corruption of Mahanada 

 which means a great noise, and the local tradition about the 

 name of the place is that once upon a time a Dahshindvartta 

 sankha, or a conch-shell with its windings to the right, fell in 

 the village, and made a great noise when the wind passed 

 through its orifice. The gods heard the noise : they came and 

 assembled here for the purpose of consulting together as to how 

 they might divert the course, or rather the sanctity of the 

 Ganges. They established the Mah&deva Jateswara, and sancti- 

 fied a tank called Basishtha-Ganga. They named the place 

 as Mahanada on account of the tremendous noise that issued 

 from the conch-shell. There is a temple at M&hnad, which is 

 curiously shaped, and is not like an ordinary temple : its style is 

 like that of the temples of Bhuvaneswara in Orissa. The temple 

 now contains a phallic image of Siva, called Jateswaranath, like 

 the other shrines of this place. The Basishtha-Ganga is said to 

 be the Jianch-kundu or Jiban-kundu of the Pandud tradition. 

 Around the temple are the Samddhis (graves) of the Buddhist 

 Sramanas (priests) who lived here during the Buddhist period. 

 The resident priest is a Buddhist, who, however, has no concern 

 with the worship in the temple, which is conducted by a Brah- 

 min. The famous fair {J at) is held in the courtyard of the 

 temple of Jateswaranath every year at the time of the Siva- 

 chaturdasi in honour of Dharma Thakura, whose worship is 

 regarded as the only vestige we have got of Buddhism in 

 Bengal. 1 It is therefore quite evident that the temple was 

 appropriated by the Brahmins after the expulsion of Buddhism 

 and devoted to the worship of Siva. The Samadhis or graves 

 of the Buddhist priests around the temple indicate that there was 

 a Buddhist monastic establishment or Sangha at this place. 



The temple of Jateswara evidently appertained to the fort 

 and palace of the Rajas, the vestiges of which still exist and 

 are called the fort of Raja Chandraketu. There is also a 

 tank close by, which is called Chandra Dighi. One or two 



n A Mahamahopftdhy4ya Haraprasad Sastri's Discovery of Living 

 Buddhism in Bengal, p. 26. 



