Vol. VI, No. 11.] History of the District of Hughli. 615 



[N. 8.} 



manta, resided at Basudevapura, Bansberia (Bansabati), Krish- 

 napura,Nityanandapura,Sibpura, Sambachora and Baladghati, 

 on the bank of the Saraswati, and these seven villages were 

 collectively called Saptagrama. Whether these villages were 

 included in Saptagrama or not, there can be no doubt that the 

 town was of immense size and was situated on the east bank 

 of the river Saraswati, through which once flowed the main 

 stream of the Ganges. l Large vessels sailed up to Saptagrama 

 till the middle of the 16th century so long as the river did not 

 get silted up, and it was known to the Romans under the name 

 of Ganges Regia! 1 The Periplus of the ErythrceanSea, which was 

 written in the first or second century of the Christian era, evi- 

 dently mentions it under the name of Gange. It says : " There 

 is on it [the Ganges] a mart called after it, Gange, through which 

 passes a considerable traffic, consisting of betel, the Gangetic 

 spikenard, pearl and the finest of all muslins — those called the 

 Gangetic." a According to Ptolemy Gange was the capital of 

 the Gangarides or the Ganga-Radis. Saptagrama was a royal 

 city, where the kings of the country resided. 4. It was visited 

 by Nityananda, the great disciple and companion of Chaitanya- 

 deva, about the middle of the 16th century. 6 In 1570 it was 

 visited by Fredericke, who states : "In the port of Satgaon 

 every year they lade 30 or 35 ships, great and small, with rice, 

 cloth of bombast of divers sort, lacca, great abundance of sugar, 

 pepper, oil zerzeline and other sorts of merchandise." Kavi- 

 kankana, who wrote the Chandi in 1577 A.D., describes it as a 

 very opulent town, to which merchants from all parts of India 

 and also from Ceylon used to come with their merchandise. He 

 says : " But the Saptagrama merchants never go out of their 

 town. They command the wealth of the world, as also such com- 

 forts at home as are procurable in Paradise. Their place is a 

 holy seat of pilgrimage, incomparable in sanctity. It is called 

 Saptagrama, because it was under the rule of its seven patron 

 Rishis." 6 It was conquered by the Mahomedans under Zaffar 

 Khan in the 14th century A.D. : he came with Shah Sufi, the con- 

 queror of Pandua, and is said to have been the governor of Sapta- 

 grama for fifteen years after its conquest. 7 It became a royal 



1 Asiatic Researches, vol. v ; Rennell's Memoir of the Map of 

 Hindoostan. 



* Wilford : Asiatic Researches, vol. v, p. 278. 



* McCrindle's Commerce and Navigation of the Erythraean Sea, 



p. U6. 



Trunk Road — its Localities, by the 



9— 



Rev. J. Long : C.R., vol. xxi, p. 181. 



6 Chaitanya-Bhagavata. 



« C.R., 1891, p. 374. 



' S. P. Patrika, vol. xv, p. 23— Saptagrama ; J.A.S.B., 19' 

 grama or Satganw, by Babu Rakhal Das Bandopadhyaya. *or the 

 life of Zaffar Khan see J.A.S.B., vol. xv (1847), p. 393—An Account of 

 the Temple of Triveni near Hughli by D. Money. It is difficult to recon- 

 cile the statement in the Kursinama (J.A.S.B., xv, 3U5) that Zaffar 



