Gaur (Bengal)
 
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Location of the ruined city of Gaur |
Gaur ( Bengali গৌড় IAST Gauṛ ; also Gour , Gaud or Goud ) is a ruined city in the West Bengal district of Malda . According to descriptions by Portuguese traders, it was one of the largest cities on the Indian subcontinent and was the capital of the Sultanate of Bengal from 1453 to 1565 with interruptions .
location
Gaur is located between the rivers Ganges and Mahananda about 12 km south of the city of English Bazar at an altitude of about 30 m above sea level. d. The ruins counted as part of the city extend over a length of about 30 and a width of 6 km. Part of the former urban area is now in Bangladesh .
history
Gaur is sometimes mistaken for the older town of Lakshmanvati founded by Lakshmana ( called Lakhnauti after the arrival of Islam at the beginning of the 13th century ), but Alexander Cunningham , the founder of the Archaeological Survey of India , located Lakshmanvati north of Gaur. However, Gaur (or Gauḍa ) already existed under the Pala and Sena dynasties , i. H. from the 8th to the early 13th century.
The Islamic rulers, above all Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah , dismantled and destroyed the buildings of Gaur and built their new capital in Pandua , but in 1453 the Sultan Nasiruddin Mahmud I (r. 1435-1459) moved back the seat of government and renamed the city Jannatabad . The oldest inscription found in Gaur dates from 1457. Gaur remained the political center of Bengal even after the sacking by Sher Shah Suri's troops (around 1537/8) until that of Sulaiman Karrani (ruled 1566–1572) further west to Tanda was relocated. One reason for this is said to have been the shift in the course of the river Ganges to the west, and increasing political instability is assumed to be another reason for the city's decline. In 1575 Gaur was finally abandoned after the outbreak of a plague epidemic .
buildings
All of the city's buildings are made of bricks , which are sometimes also clad or plastered with stone slabs brought in from afar and therefore valuable. A few buildings show the drooping roofs typical of Bengal .
Firoz Minar
Mausoleum (?)
Lukachuri-Darwaja
Gate construction of the Baraduari Masjid
Lottan-Masjid
Dakhil Darwaza
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Others
Some Pashtun tribes still have the title Gaur in their tribal name , representing their ancestors who plundered Bengal, of which many of them are very proud.
literature
- Henry Creighton: Ruins of Gaur. London 1817.
- JH Ravenshaw: Gaur: Its Ruins and Inscriptions. London 1878.
- M. Abid Ali Khan: Memoirs of Gaur and Pandua. Calcutta 1986 (reprint of the 1924 edition).
- Aniruddha Ray: Archaeological Reconnaissance at the City of Gaur: A Preliminary Report. Pratna-Samiksha, Calcutta 1995, No 2-3, pp 245-63.
- ABM Hussain (Ed.): Gawr-Lakhnawti. Dhaka 1997.
Web links
- Gaur at banglapedia
Coordinates: 24 ° 52 ′ 10 ″ N , 88 ° 7 ′ 52 ″ E