বাংলা 
English 
In the second century AD, several small islands can be seen in the basin of the Ganges river on the map of the famous geographer Ptolemy. This cluster of small islands is considered to be the Kushtia region. It is presumed that the Pundra, or Pod, people from southern Bengal and people of other communities from the surrounding areas came in groups and settled on this fertile land of islands that rose from the bed of the Ganges or other watery expanses, hoping to farm or to catch fish in abundance. The Bharat Kosh says about the Kushtia region: 'Situated on the flat plain formed by silt in the Ganges delta region washed by rivers, its soil is extremely fertile and suited to agriculture. Therefore the presumption that farming and fishing communities came to this region, drawn by these two attractions - land fit for cultivation and abundant fish in countless rivers, streams, canals and marshes - is reasonable.'
The history of the Kushtia region is not known for the late third century and the early part of the fourth century AD, when the kingdom of Samatata stood in eastern Bengal and Pushkarana in western Bengal, or for the Gupta rule of the fifth century. The history of the region is unknown even in the eighth century AD. During the rule of the three kingdoms of Samatata, Vanga and Gaur in Bangladesh, the Kushtia region was at one time under Samatata and at another time under the rule of Gaur. Historians have not been able to agree on determining the boundaries of these three kingdoms.
From the account left behind by the Chinese traveller Yuan Chwang, who visited Bangladesh during the reign of King Shashanka, it is known that the then kingdom of Vanga was divided into five parts: Kamrupa, Pundravardhana, Karnasuvarna, Samatata and Tamralipti. The Kushtia region is presumed to have belonged to Shashanka's kingdom in the seventh century. Shashanka's capital, Karnasuvarna, was located in Murshidabad district, a few miles from the border of Kushtia's Meherpur. No king is found to have established his capital on the frontier of his kingdom. The kingdom of Samatata was made up of areas including Jessore, Khulna, Barishal, Faridpur and Dhaka. From the inscription discovered at Kotalipara in Faridpur district it is known that in the sixth century AD three kings - Maharajadhiraja Gopachandra, Dharmaditya and Narendraditya Samachara - ruled in southern Bengal. One copperplate inscription of Dharmaditya tells us that during his reign the king of a part of Gaur was Sthanudatta. This 'part of Gaur' is presumed to have been the Kushtia region.
In the fifties decade of the eighth century, when the rule of the Buddhist Pala dynasty was being established in Bengal, disorder broke out in Bangladesh as a result of foreign invasions and the struggle of feudal kings to seize power. After Gopala of the Pala line established Pala rule in 750, the Kushtia region came within his kingdom. The region remained part of the Pala kingdom until the end of Pala rule (the closing years of the tenth century).
At the close of the tenth century and the beginning of the eleventh, during the decline of Pala rule, several feudal kings gained special power. At this time the Kushtia region was ruled for a while by the Chandra dynasty kings of Vikramapura-Harikela. From the Idilpur copperplate discovered at Kedarpur village in Faridpur district it is known that the Chandra dynasty king Srichandra of Vikramapura-Harikela made a grant of land in the 'Kumaratalaka mandala' and the 'Samatata Padmavati vishaya'. Dr. Nihar Ranjan Ray meant by the 'Kumaratalaka mandala' the region along the Kumar river. 'Padmavati too is known as the Padma river'; therefore his presumption is well reasoned. The Kumar river flowed through Kushtia district; as soon as it left the Kushtia region, its name was Madhumati. Therefore the view that the Kushtia region was ruled by the Chandra dynasty kings of Vikramapura-Harikela before the establishment of Sena rule in Bengal is acceptable.
In the second decade of the tenth century, the Chandra-lineage Kshatriya king Samanta Sen, who had come from Karnataka in India, founded the Sena royal dynasty in Bengal. During the nearly two hundred years of Sena rule in Bengal, the Kushtia district area was under their rule. The Bharat Kosh states: 'In earlier times it (Kushtia) was under the rule of the Sena kings.' The independent kingdom that the Kaivarta leader Divyak established for some time in northern Bengal at the start of Sena rule did not include Kushtia. Lakshmana Sen, the last king of the Sena dynasty, moved the capital from Gaur to Nadia. He ruled for nearly thirty years. During Lakshmana Sen's reign, in 1201 or, according to others, 1203, a Turkic Muslim general named Ikhtiyar Uddin Muhammad Bakhtiyar Khalji, with only seventeen horsemen, captured Lakshmana Sen's capital, Nadia. Bakhtiyar had an army behind him, but only seventeen horsemen were able to come swiftly with him. Forty years after Bakhtiyar's capture of Nadia, in the 'Tabakat-i-Nasiri' written by Minhaj-us-Siraj it is stated that when merely eighteen horsemen entered the city of Nadia, no one stopped them, taking them for Turkic horse-traders. Bakhtiyar attacked as soon as he appeared at the royal palace. At that moment 'Ray Lakhmania' was seated at his meal. Hearing of the Muslim attack, he abandoned his sons and womenfolk, his treasures, jewels and wealth, his slaves and maids, and fled by boat to eastern Bengal through the door of the inner palace. Rakhaldas Bandyopadhyay harboured doubts about Bakhtiyar Khalji's conquest of Nadia, but no other historian has supported his view. On this A.B.M. Habibullah said: For Bakhtiyar's occupation of a portion of the Sena kingdom following his raid on Nadia is undisputed fact. Though Bakhtiyar seized Lakshmana Sen's royal palace at Nadia with merely seventeen soldiers, it was his army that captured the city of Nadia. The neglect of state affairs caused by Lakshmana Sen's old age, together with the various intrigues and corruption of his ministers and the chief queen, probably weakened the structure of the state, as a result of which the Turkic attack became irresistible.
After ruling eastern Bengal for a few years, Lakshmana Sen fell to his death. After his death, his sons Kesava Sen and Vishvarupa Sen ruled in turn for nearly thirty years. After them the dynasty declined. Bakhtiyar, after capturing Nadia, went to Gaur. From there he led an expedition to Tibet; when it failed, he barely escaped with his life, and in 1206 he was killed by one of his followers named Ali Mardan Khalji. Bakhtiyar's conquest of Nadia could not give Muslim rule any permanence; fifty years after his conquest of Nadia, Mughisuddin Yuzbak captured Nadia again. Following Bakhtiyar Khalji's conquest of Nadia, the Kushtia region came under Muslim rule. The beginning of the first Muslim rule in Bengal, at Nadia, lasted nearly six hundred years. Bakhtiyar Khalji's conquest of Nadia is an especially important event in the establishment of Muslim predominance in Bangladesh. No particular relic of the Sena period has been discovered in the Kushtia region. A pillar of a temple of this period was discovered in the field of Amdaha in Meherpur subdivision. However, from a reading of the book 'Nadiyar Puratattva' (The Archaeology of Nadia) written by Mohit Ray (published in 1975) it is learnt that quite a few relics of the Sena period have been discovered in present-day Nadia.
Sources:
Bharat Kosh, Vol. 2, 1st edition, Bangiya Sahitya Parishad, Calcutta, 1373 (BS), page 378
Banglay Bhraman (Travels in Bengal), Vol. 1, bound with Vol. 2, 1940, page 2
Rakhaldas Bandyopadhyay: History of Bengal, Vol. 1, 1971, page 240
Dr. Nihar Ranjan Ray: Banglar Nad-Nadi (The Rivers of Bengal), page 28
