Ancient Sylhet

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Sylhet was not a place of first preference for settlement, wedged between Assam and Tripura and with their hills and forests on all three sides, north, east and south and vast water-bodies in the basin impeding movement. The basin, known as Sylhet basin- one of the three geographically distinguishable sub-regions of the vast Bengal delta-the deltaic plain and the Tippera surface being the other two, has its own features. Much of Sylhet, most prominently the central area, forms a saucer-shaped basin. This Sylhet basin can be distinguished from the rest of the recent alluvaium by its subsidence and the profound effect this has had upon the drainage pattern, the sinking of this large area into its present saucer-shape seems to be intimately connected with the rise of the Madhpur Tract. This long basin is also known as the Haor basin because it is a succession of large lake-like water bodies of various sizes known as Haors. It has been held that Hsuan Tsang while giving his account of Samatara makes a reference to Sylhet which he describes as being on the borders of an ocean. Since there cannot be any real ocean in the geographical location of Sylhet in the 7th century A. D. when Hsuan Tsang travelled, it can be taken that he relied on his informers - it appears from the context that the pilgrim never really visited Sylhet – who had reported to him about these endless expanses of joined – together haors. We may recall the usal explanation that the word haor is probably derived from the word Sagara or Sayara i.e. sea or lake. But we have doubts if Hsuan Tsang really meant Sylhet by the word that he used in Chinese transformation i.e. Shi-li-Ch’a-ta-lo. In describing the location of Shi-li-Ch’a-ta-lo Hsuan Tsang says according to Beal’s translation. “Going north-east from this (i.e. Samatata) to the borders of the ocean, we come to the kingdom of Shi-li-Ch’a-ta-lo. It was Vivien de Saint-Martin who first equated Shi-li-Ch’a-ta-lo with Srihatta i.e. Sylhet and it received added respectability when Cunningham accepted it. Historians have accepted the identification since. However, if probably looked at Hsund Tsang’s statement has contradictions in it which was in fact pointed out by his translator Beal, although ignored by other including Chnningham. What has been ignored so far is that “North-east towards Sylhet does not lead to the borders of the ocean” (Beal, 407 f.n.). Shi-li-Ch’a-ti-lo – does it os obviously stand for Srihatta? It was not so obvious to Beal either who would rather identify it with the Burmese kingdom named Srikshetra. Hsuan Tsang describes it as “Kingdom of Shi-li-Ch’a-ti-lo. Form the political history of Bangladesh what we have so far recovered it is extremely unlikely that in the middle of the seventh century when Hsuan Tsang visited Bangladesh there was a Srihatta kingdom. The first srihatta kingdom Srihattarajya that we know of belongs to the 12th/13th century as we will see below. Our position in this arctcle is as will be seen further down, that in the 7th century parts of Sylhet were rathe under the kingdom of Kamarupa-Pragjyotisha. It not an alternative suggesting possible? Shilichatalo sounds more like Sri-chattala (i.e. Chittagong) than Srihatta. And that would be on the “borders of the ocean” but Chittagong or Srikshetra – that would be south-east of Samatata, not “north-east’ as given by Hsun Tsang. Perhaps Hsuan Tsang committed an error here. Suniti Kumar Chatterji speak of “the five Bengals” during the 600-100 A. D. period and defines it as “Radha, Varendra, Vanga, Chattala and Samatata,” on what authority however we do not know. The contries beyond Si-li-Ch’a-ti-lo that have been mentioned by Hsuan Tsang are all South-East Asian - which is also an indicator. Robert Lindsay, the Resident of Sylhet in the 2nd quarter of the eighteenth century leaves a graphic account of his journey from Dhaka to Sylhet and describes how he encountered so vast an expanse of water that he had to use a compass of finding his direction. Even in the ancient inscriptions of Sylhet there are clear references to the existence of large water bodies, giving an overall impression of a land with much watery areas around-unlike the inscriptions from the many other settled areas of Bengal. These watery feature are particularly mentioned in demarcating the situation of the lands granted in ancient Sylhet, particularly noticeable in the Paschimbhag Copper Plate of Srichandra. In the very first lines of its grants portion it states: “in the matter of Garala vishaya, Pogravishaya and Chandrapuravishaya with the group of atoll like forms of lands formed out of unfathomable waters moveover inclusinv of marshy lands surrounding them belonging to Shrihattmandala”. Moreover, the Paschimbhag Copper Plate refers to a large naval establishment, a Naubandha (ship anchorage) i. e. the Indresvara Naubandha. The place survives till today as Indesvara in the Maulvibazar district only a few miles from Pachimbhag, the find-place of the copper plate. The Naubandha according the inscription extended over an area comprising 52 patakas of land. Raja Kesavadeva and Isanadeva, local potentates of the 12th /13th centuries felt it important to have innumerable war-boats (nauvatakas) according to their Bhatera Copper Plates. So much naval activity in the land presupposes extensive watery areas. Indeed that these joined-together waster bodies used to gave the impression of a sea (Sagar) we find again in L 38 in the Bhatera CP No.1 which makes mention of Sagar as the boundary of the land granted.

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