Geography: Bangladesh Landforms

Boundaries of Samatata

• Samatata is bounded by the lofty hills and mountains of Tripura and Arakan in the east and the Meghna (combined waters of the Padma-Meghna-Brahmaputra) in the west.

Samatata Janapada

• Samatata was a distinct entity, well-known and well-recognized since Samudragupta's time (4th century AD).
• Its earliest reference is found in the Allahabad Prashasti, where it is mentioned as an eastern frontier state along with Davaka, Kamarupa, Nepala, and Karttapura.
• The Brhatsanghita (6th century AD) refers to it and Vanga as separate states.
• Hiuen-Tsang, the 7th century Chinese traveler, described Samatata as a country with a Buddhist cultural center in its capital, which had an area of 20 li (5.5 km).
• The country was on the sea-side and was low and moist, with a circuit of more than 3000 li (about 800 km).

Harikela Janapada

• Harikela is a geographical entity in ancient Bengal, with its identification being a matter of controversy among scholars.
• Ancient Indian writers of the 7th century AD mention Harikela as an eastern Indian country.
• It was an important kingdom of eastern Bengal.
• Hiuen-Tsang defined its position as 'the eastern limit of eastern India'.
• The 9th century literary work Karpuramanjuri mentions Harikeli girls among women of eastern Bengal.

Physical Geography of Bangladesh

• The Pleistocene uplands comprise the Lalmai hills of Comilla district and the low hills in the east through Dhaka and Rajshahi divisions to West Bengal of India.
• The river systems of the Meghna and the Jamuna trisect the Pleistocene upland, giving rise to three blocks of high lands that exhibit smooth rolling topography.
• The Barind Tract, the Madhupur Tract, and the Tippera Surface form three individual blocks.
• The Ganges limits the western, and the Buriganga and Dhaleshwari, the two distributaries of the Jamuna, limit the southern extremities of the Pleistocene uplands.

Prehistoric Artifacts in Bangladesh

• Regions that have yielded prehistoric artifacts include the Lalmai hills, Chaklapunji Tea Garden, Sitakunda, Rangamati, and the Wari-Bateshwar.
• These regions contain both Pleistocene deposits and suitable raw materials.
• Neolithic tools such as Celts, shouldered axes, etc. made on sandstone, siltstone, and fossil wood have been found in the Wari-Bateshwar.

Harikela Janapada (Continued)

• The most reliable documentary evidence of Harikela is supplied by the incomplete copperplate inscription of Kantideva (9th century AD) discovered in an old temple in the Nasirabad area of Chittagong.
• The inscription states that Maharajadhiraja Kantideva was the ruler of Harikela.

Radha Janapada

• Radha is a distinct geopolitical unit (commonly called janapada) of ancient Bengal, which probably included a large part of the modern Indian state of West Bengal.
• The earliest reference to Radha/Rarha/Ladha/Lara is to be found in the Jaina chronicle, Acharangasutra, where it is related that Mahavira travelled in the pathless country of 'Ladha' in Vajjabhumi and Subbhabhumi in the sixth century BC.
• During this period, the settlement was 'pathless and lawless' and its people treated Mahavira harshly.
• Dipavangsha and Mahavangsha record the tradition that Sri Lanka was colonized by Vijaya who hailed from Simhapura in 'Lala', identified with Radha.