Bogra (district)

Bogra District, officially known as Bogura District, is a district in the northern part of Bangladesh, in the Rajshahi Division. Bogra is an industrial city where many small and mid-sized companies are sited. Bogra was a part of the ancient Pundravardhana territory and the ruins of its capital can be found in northern Bogra. In the ancient period, Bogra District was a part of the territory of the Pundras or Paundras, which were known by the name of Pundravardhana, one of the kingdoms of Eastern India and was separated by the Karatoya River from the more easterly kingdom of Prag-Jyotisha or Kamrupa. The name Pundravardhana frequently occurs in the Mahabharata, Ramayana, and the Puranas. According to the Mahabharata and the Puranas, Vasudeva, a powerful prince of the Pundra family, ruled over Pundravardhana as far back as 1280 B.C. The claims of the district to antiquity, however, mostly rely on an association with the old, fortified town that is now known as Mahasthangarh. The district was under the rule of the Mauryas in the 4th and 3rd centuries B.C. This is evidenced by the presence of pillars of Ashoka in many parts of Pundravardhana and the discovery of an ancient Brahmi inscription at Mahasthangarh in this district. Bhadra Bahu, a high monk of the Jain religion and the son of a Brahmin of Kotivarsha, was the Jain-Guru of Chandra Gupta Maurya. Ashoka was a firm believer in Buddhism and put to death many naked sectarians, presumably the Jains, in Pundravardhana. The Gupta authority of the third-to-fifth centuries A.D. over this district is revealed by the discovery of several inscriptions of that period from Pundravardhana, which was a Bhukti under the rule of Guptas till the end of the fifth century. At the beginning of the seventh century, Sasanka came upon the throne of Gauda and exercised his authority over Pundravardhana, including this district. After the death of Sasanka, the region fell under the rule of Harshavardhana (606–647). This is evident from the account of a Chinese Xuanzang, who may have visited Pundravardhana in 640 A.