Pundranagar

Mohasthan gor

Mohasthan Gorh :The relics of Mohasthan Gor are the silent witness of almost two and a half years of glorious history of Pundranagar, the capital of ancient Pundrabandhanvukti. It stands on the western bank of the river Korotoa 13 km north from Bogra town. This main and ancient castle-town of entire Bangla has a step by step clay and brick built fences for protection which are 1525 meters in length north-south and 1370 meters in width east-west and 5 meters high from the ground around it. Apart form the fences there is a river on the east and deep ditch on the other three sides which were used as added protection. It’s known from the archeological examples that it was used as the capital of Mourjo, Gupta and Paul kings for some centuries and later on used as the capital of the Hindu Sananta king. Inside 7/8 km around the castle on the north, west, south and south-west side there are still a lot of ancient examples of various kinds which bears the evidence of this town. It should be mentioned that famous Chinese tourist Huen Sang visited Pundranagar during his visit to the sub continent (639-645). Famous British archeologist Sir Alexander Cunningham was the first to correctly indicate the relics of Mohasthan Gor as the Pundranagar that Huen Sing once described. The archeological digging first started in 1928-1929 in Mohasthan Gor. At that time 2 places were dug inside the town named Boyragir Vita, Munir Ghon and on the outside a place called Gobinda Vita were dug too. A long time after that in 1960-1961 and later on from 1988 different parts of the castle were dug regularly. From 1993 Bangladesh and French government started digging Mohasthan Gor collectively and that added a whole new dimension to the archeological research here. Firstly the place at the eastern fence of the castle was dug inside 1999. Secondly the digging started at the western side of the Mazar from 2000. After huge amount of digging and searching, examples of localities formed almost continuously from 4^th decade CE to the Muslim era were found inside the castle. Houses, roads, drains, wells, temples, mosques, doors, bastions etc of before Mourja, Gupta and Paul era and of the Muslim era is  discovered in 18 levels. Besides the goods connected to their extra curricular activities of that time like stone pieces with Tapi of Mouja era, silver coins, copper coins, black and betch chair, bulleted war, black smooth clay pot of the north, terracotta plate of Shunga characteristics, terracotta statue, stone marbles of small price, stick of nets, clay and metal goods, a lot of general clay pots and a stone place with Arabic inscription on it are most notable.   

 15 km away from Bogra town, Mohasthan Gor was the center administration of Pundrabardhan. At present the area is reserved under the archeological department.