Indian Antiquary Vol 62

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 51

MARCH, 1933)
BANGAL AND THE CITY OF BANGALA
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that the name Bangala 'seems in its turn to have passed in common usage from the country to the capital,' so that the objection to Yule's view seems limited to his ascription of the practice to the Arabs. As against Chittagong Mr. Dames holds also that it was only tempor. arily and imperfectly subjected to Bengal, and was thus hardly likely to be taken for the latter's principal port in Barbosa's time. Its later use by the Portuguese, under the name Porto Grande, as their chief port of entry, was, he thinks, principally because there was no strong government there to fight against. These considerations are certainly weighty, yet some may think that there is more to be said for Yule's view than Mr. Dames would allow. Thus the Cantino map of 1502 already shows Chittagong prominently as one of the two great ports of this part of India (the other being Satgaon), and the position given to it at the point where the Bay of Bengal runs up into a funnel-shaped opening in the land fits in well with Barbosa's account. It does not seem impossible that Barbosa's description may actually have been influenced by a knowledge of charts like Cantino's, for there are many indications that the notions of early writers were largely tinged by their knowledge of current maps, as well as vice versa.
"Again the Turkish sea-book, the Mohit, edited by Bittner and Tomaschek in 1897 (Jour. nal, vol. II, p. 76) which though considerably later in dato (1554) than Barbosa, has been shown by Tomaschek to have been based on earlier sources, describes precisely the same state of things, Chittagong being spoken of moreover (to use Bittner's translation) as 'der Hafen Sati. gâm, c.i. das östliche Bangala,' while the boundary of Bengal (with Rakkang, i.e., Arracan) is drawn a good way down the east coast of the gulf. That little weight can be attached to later cartographic representations, in which Bengala and Chittagong appear as distinct places, is evident if we consider Gastaldi's map of 1561, where the city of Gaur appears in four different forms (five, if Bengala stands for the same city), viz., Gaur, Scierno, Cernoven (the two last representing its name Shahr-i-nau or New City,' as noted by Yule), and Cor on one of the effluents of the mythical lake Chiamay, supposed by Mendez Pinto to be the Ganges. Nor can great importance be allowed to geographical compilations such as Heylin's Cosmography in which (ed. of 1652) Bengala is mentioned as a great city in addition to Gaur, Catigan, and Porto Grande, the writer being also ignorant of the identity of the two last named. Heylin would have it that the country took its name from the city.”
In my own edition of Varthema (1928), p. lxvi, I wrote as follows: From Tenasserim Varthema goes to Bengal, reaching his destination about the middle of March. He says frankly that this journey was undertaken out of curiosity...... Then he tells us that “having sold some of our merchandize we took the route towards the city of Banghella' as mer. chants. This term the city of Banghella-has long been, and still is, a source of trouble to scholars: where was it? This question greatly exercised Badger in 1863, it sorely troubled Dames when editing the contemporary Book of Duarte Barbosa in 1921, and it has been the cause of many researches by Indian scholars in Bengal itself. Varthema, however, evidently repeats his former practice and calls the town he visited after the province in which it was situated-Bengal. The actual site is hardly yet settled, but it may be taken, for the purpose of defining Varthema's journey, to be Satgaon on an old bed of the Hugli River. On this assumption he is right in saying that “the sultan of this place is a Moor," and that the people " are all Mahommedans," as Bengal at that time was under the Husain Shahi Dynasty.
I suggest then that the true solution of the difficulties to be confronted in identifying the * City of Bengala' is that the old travellers did not all mean the same place by that term. Some of them found their way to Bengal and reached an emporium for foreign goods, such as Chittagong, Sunargaon or Satgaon, places not necessarily near each other, and called that the City of Bangala,' which every traveller knew by reputation. I feel sure from the general trend of his travels and from his account thereof that Varthema's 'City of Bengala' was where I have placed it, whatever place other writers and travellers may have meant by that term.