Page:The Imperial Gazetteer of India - Volume 2 (2nd edition).pdf/279

 BENGAL. Bengal

269

as it is more precisely designated, '•Lower Bengal'), and most populous of the twelve local Governments of British India, comprising the lower valleys and deltas of the Ganges and Brahmaputra; lies between 19° 18' and 28° 15' n. lat., and between 82° and 97° E. long. Excluding Assam, which was erected into a (or

the largest

separate administration in February 1874, Bengal great Provinces of Bengal Proper, Behar, Orissa,

Nagpur.

It

includes the four

forms a Lieutenant-Governorship, with a population, accord-

ing to the Census of 1881, of 69,536,861 souls;

square

now

and Chhota or Chutia

miles, or

187,222

and an area of 193,198 rivers, lakes, and

square miles, excluding

Although ruled by a Lieutenant-Governor, Bengal forms the largest Administrative Division of India. It contains, exclusive of Assam, one-third of the total population of British India, and yields a gross revenue of 17 to 18 millions sterling, or one-third of certain unsurv’eyed tracts.

It is bounded on the north by Nepal and Bhutan ; on the east by Assam, and by an unexplored mountainous region which separates it from China and Northern Burma ; on the south by the Bay of Bengal, Madras, and the Central Provinces ; and on the west by the plateau of the Central India Agency, and by an imaginary line running between it and the adjoining Lieutenant-Governorship of the North-Western Provinces. The word Bengal is derived from Sanskrit geography, and applies strictly to the country stretching south-east from Bhagalpur to the sea. The ancient Banga formed one of the five outlying kingdoms of Aryan India, and was practically conterminous with the Delta of Bengal. It derived its name, according to the etymology of the Pandits, from a prince of the Mahabharata, to whose portion it fell on the original partition of the country among the Lunar race of Delhi. But a city called Bangala, of which no trace remains, found its way into the old

the actual revenues of the Indian Empire.

maps, near Chittagong, probably from the statements of Louis Varthema. It is pretty certain, however, that Varthema’s travels never extended beyond the Malabar coast. The Arabs had a custom of applying the name of a country to its chief city, and it was probably in this

way

that

Varthema and other

early writers picked

up the idea

of a great town called Bengal.

The name Bangala first came into use about the 13th century. It is used by Marco Polo (1250-1323) ; and by his contemporary Rashidud-din (1247-1318). Under Musalman rule, it applied specifically to the Gangetic delta, like the later

Muhammadan

Banga of Sanskrit

times, although the

conquests to the east of the Brahmaputra were

eventually included within

it.

In their distribution of the country for

formed the central Province of a Governorship, including Behar on the north-west, and Orissa on the south-west, jointly Under the English, the ruled by one Deputy of the Delhi Emperor. fiscal

purposes,

it