Mahasthan, on the Karatoya, Bangladesh
Mahasthangarh
Citadel from about the 4th to 3rd century BC (a Brahmi order read as Mauryan, or later)
A broken Brahmi stone from Mahasthangarh orders help for a people at a place spelled Pudanagala, with oil, wood, paddy, and small coin set aside against water, fire, and parrots. The letters are read as the 3rd century BC, and also as later.
Why this is extraordinary
Mahasthangarh is a citadel on the Karatoya, north of Bogura, about 1.52 kilometres north to south and 1.37 kilometres east to west, wrapped in ramparts. A local account of the ruins gives the enclosed ground as about 1,500 by 1,400 metres and the walls as rising about 6 metres from the river level. The photograph shows a stepped brick face in the grass and the earthen bank behind it. Bricks and earth are both on the site. Which century laid which course is the argument, not a caption on the wall.
The place is called Pundranagara in texts of the 7th century CE and later. A small broken stone found at the site says the name earlier, and in a different spelling. It is a circular slab, parts missing, seven lines of Brahmi in a Prakrit that shows Magadhi. It is an order to the officer stationed at Pudanagala, to relieve people called Samvangiyas. The stores to be filled are named: oil, wood, paddy, and two small units of money, against emergency by water, by fire, and by parrots in the crop. That is a government talking about a granary and a bad year. It is the earliest inscription from Bengal in the usual reading, and the reason the city is put under the Mauryas.
The usual reading dates the letters to the Mauryan age, about the 3rd century BC, sometimes to the reign that also sent edicts across the subcontinent. A later date has been argued from the shapes of the letters. Palaeography is a comparison of hands. It can be tightened by a king’s name, and this stone does not keep the king’s name on the lines that survive. The citadel’s first mud wall is placed around the 4th century BC in the listing’s excavation summary, and the same landscape study also speaks of an urban core forming around the 5th to 4th centuries BC, on ground that had been too wet to hold a city until the river and the soils allowed it. A 4th-century wall and a 3rd-century order can both be true. A wall of the 5th century and a script of a later century can also both be argued. They are not yet one clock.
This is not Wari-Bateshwar. That town’s question is a rampart, rice dates in the 4th to 1st centuries BC, and whether pictures of boats on coins make a port. Mahasthangarh’s question is a named city and a relief order. No solstice of the rampart, and no azimuth of the brick face, is published in the sources used here. The stone is about grain, fire, water, and parrots. It is not about the sun.
Why it matters
If the script is Mauryan, this rampart is a provincial capital in the 3rd century BC, and the mud wall of the 4th is the city that received the order. If the letters are later, the name is still on the stone and the century of the empire is not.
The photograph is brick and the earthen bank. The stone is small, broken, and not in the frame. The two dates are the argument.
Photo tour
1 photograph, unedited. On a phone, swipe the row. Choose one to look closely.
- The Brahmi stone is not in the photograph of the brick and the rampart.
What is still unexplained
These sit beside the consensus account, with the same visual weight. None of them is marked solved.
Location and dating
- Location
- Mahasthangarh, on the Karatoya, about 13 kilometres north of Bogura. The pin is the citadel.
- Period label
- Current consensus — open to revision A fortified centre from about the 4th or 5th–4th century BC, an inscription read as the 3rd century BC or later, and occupation that continues through later dynasties into the medieval town. The room is the early name and the early wall.
- How this dating was done
- The wall is excavation and radiocarbon in the listing’s summary of the sequence. The stone is palaeography, a comparison of letter shapes, not a laboratory date.
- What could change it
- A king’s name on a joining fragment, or a radiocarbon sample from the mud wall published with its depth, would stop the 4th and the 3rd from sliding past each other.
What is actually there
- The citadel is about 1.52 by 1.37 kilometres in the listing.
- The stone has seven lines, names Pudanagala, and lists oil, wood, paddy, and two small coin units.
- The emergencies are water, fire, and parrots in the crop.
- Texts of the 7th century CE and later call the city Pundranagara.
- No sunrise or star is published for the rampart.
Open questions
| Question | Status |
|---|---|
| Is the script 3rd century BC? | Open. That is the usual palaeographic reading. A later hand has been argued, and the king’s name is not on the piece. |
| Did the wall come first? | Open. A 4th-century mud wall and a 3rd-century order fit in that order. A later script would leave the wall’s date to the dig alone. |
The current narrative
Where publication stands today. It is the best-supported reading, and it is open to revision. It is not a verdict.
The current narrative — open to revision
A Mauryan provincial centre
Mahasthangarh is Pundranagara, fortified around the 4th century BC and addressed by a Mauryan order in the 3rd, telling a local officer to fill the storehouse.
What supports this
- The stone names Pudanagala and gives practical orders, which is a government present, not a later legend of a city.
- The listing’s sequence puts a mud wall in the 4th century and continued occupation after it.
- Later texts use the name Pundranagara for this centre.
What pushes back
- The king is not named on the surviving lines, so “Mauryan” is the look of the letters.
- A later palaeography is published against that look.
- The 5th-to-4th and the 4th are both in the same landscape study. The start is a spread, not a year.
What would settle it
It is the centre. A named officer and a granary are hard to move. The exact reign is ahead of the broken stone.
Emerging narratives
Other published readings. Each may be right. None is adopted here unless the evidence carries it.
An emerging narrative
A later letter on an older city
The rampart is an early city, and the Brahmi stone is a later century’s hand, so the Mauryan province is a reading of letter shapes rather than a dated order.
What supports this
- Palaeography is comparative, and a later date for these shapes has been argued.
- The fragment does not keep a royal name.
- A city can be large and walled before the empire that is asked to explain it.
What pushes back
- The usual reading of this inscription is still the 3rd century BC, and it is treated as Bengal’s earliest.
- The practical contents, grain and parrots and small coin, do not require a late date to make sense.
- Moving the script later does not move the excavated wall, which the listing already puts in the 4th.
What would settle it
A later hand is a real published doubt. It does not erase Pudanagala. It changes which government sent the grain.
Should the current view be reevaluated?
Open to revision
A large ramparted citadel and a Brahmi order naming Pudanagala are firm. The 3rd century BC is the usual script date and not the only one in print. The wall’s beginning is a 5th-to-4th or a 4th, depending on the sentence in the same study. No sky reading is published for the rampart.
What drives this
- A citadel about 1.52 by 1.37 kilometres.
- Seven lines naming stores against water, fire, and parrots.
- A 3rd-century reading of the letters, a later reading beside it, and a mud wall placed around the 4th.
This is the museum’s own weighing of the evidence. It is not a visitor vote, and it is separate from the slider.
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If the contested reading is right
What would follow if a reading that is not the consensus turned out to be true, and what could settle it. This explains the stakes. It does not adopt the reading.
The order is Mauryan
The northern delta would be inside that empire’s paperwork, with a named town and a famine plan, in the 3rd century BC.
Why it is still worth a test
A joining fragment with a royal name, or a letter shape that only that reign uses.
The letters are later than the wall
The city would be older than the order, and the Mauryan label would be the script’s, not the rampart’s.
Why it is still worth a test
A published radiocarbon series from the mud wall, with depths, set beside a palaeographic date that is not the 3rd century.
Sources
- Cultural landscape of Mahasthan and the Karatoya UNESCO
- Mahasthan Brahmi inscription Banglapedia
- Mahasthan Banglapedia
Image credits
- Brickwork in the citadel at Mahasthangarh, with the earthen rampart behind it. The file calls the site the ancient capital and dates it to 300 BC, which is the script’s usual century, not a laboratory year on these bricks. . Zaheed Sarwer Khan, CC BY 4.0. Shown unedited.