Apr 3, 2016

Ruins at Rajnagar, Ancient Capital of Birbhum District, Bengal - 1870

Ruins at Rajnagar, Ancient Capital of Birbhum District, Bengal - 1870

In the early part of the 13th century Birbhm was a Hindu state, with its capital at Rajnagar or Nagar. In the course of the century it was captured by the Pathans and formed part of the Pathan kingdom of Bengal. At the beginning of the 18th century it was a kind of military fief held under the nawabs of Murshidahad by one Asadullah Pathan, whose family had probably been its chieftains since the fall of the Pathan dynasty of Bengal in 1600. The town of Rajnagar has long since been deserted and is covered with crumbling houses, mosques and weed-choked tanks; the ancestral palace of its Rajas has fallen into ruins. The town was surrounded by a wall or entrenchment, which extended for 32 miles but this is now decaying; many of the defensive gateways and parts of the wall have been washed away by the annual rains.
Source: British Library