1870.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 121 



September 1760, and formed part of what was then called the ' Za- 

 lnindari of Bardwan.' There were formerly fortifications, and traces 

 of the old wall and ditch may still be seen at a good distance from the 

 present village. The ruins of its old mosques, and the great size of 

 its tanks with their massive ghats amply confirm the tradition that 

 Panduah was, till lately, a town of importance. Its paper manufac- 

 tories existed till the beginning of the present century : the term 

 Pandui Kdghiz is even now well known among Muhammadans. 

 The Panduah paper, I am told, was prized for its thinness and 

 durability, whilst the Amvali Kdghiz, or paper of Arwal, a town 

 and parganah in Bihar, on the right bank of the Son, is still 

 valued for its thickness. 



The inhabitants of Panduah are chiefly Muhammadans. In 

 former times Hindus had been kept out, though of late lower castes, 

 as shop-keepers, have settled there ; but even now-a-days, I am told, 

 not a single Brahmin is to be found there. The inhabitants all 

 claim to have descended from the saint whose story is given below, 

 and the nobility (shard/at) of their origin is never questioned out- 

 side of Panduah. 



With the exception of the A in, I have not found Panduah men- 

 tioned in the works of Indian Historians. Another town of the 

 same name, which the inhabitants of Panduah spoke of as the 

 ' greater Panduah' (8j£ij Ijj), occurs often in the Tarikh-i-Firuz 

 Shahi (reign of Firuz Shah ; Ed. Bibl. Ind. p. 588, &c). It lies north 

 of Maldah on the road to Dinagepore, and is generally called on our 

 maps Purrooa, instead of Panduah. the nasal n being omitted, and the 

 d changed to r. It was a mint town,* and for some time the resi- 

 dence of Ilyas Bhangrah, king of Bengal (1343 to 1358.) 



The decline of Panduah appears to be due to the epidemic for 

 which the whole district is notorious ; all whom I asked on this sub- 

 ject, unanimously attributed the decay of the town to the prevalence 

 of fevers. 



The places of historical and archaeological interest in Panduah 

 are the tower, two old mosques, of which one is in ruins, and the 



* Thomas, I. c. p. 56, note. The two mints, Mu'azzamabad and Ghiaspur, 

 mentioned by Thomas on pp. 61, 62, can perhaps be verified. The former is pro- 

 bably the same as Mu'azzampur in Sunnarganw ; the latter belongs to Lak'hnauti. 



The ruins of Great Panduah deserve to be examined. In Vol. XVI. of our 

 Journal, p. 397, the two Tanduahs are confounded. 



