The Ancient Age
A country like Bangla did not emerged at a time. It started through the Janapadas. It is knownfrom the books that there were as many sixteen Janapadas like Gaur, Banga, Pundra, Harikele, Samantata, Barendra etc. The exact boundary or expansion of these Janapadas is not known. Their boundaries did not remain the same always. Sometimes the boundary of some Janapadas increased and sometimes decreased. Descriptions of some of the Janapadas are given below-
Gaur: It was situated in the northern part of East Bengal in the sixth century. In the seventh centuary Sasanka was the king of Gaur. Karnasuborna was the capital of the Gaur at that time. Its present location is in the present district of Murshidabad.
Banga: In the east and southeast portion of the present day of Bangladesh there grew a Janapada called Banga. It is supposed that a race called Banga used to live there. Hence the region was called Banga after their name.The ancient Banga Janapada was a powerful region.
Pundra: Pundra is one of the important Janapadas. It is said that a race called Pundra formed this Janapadas. It was comprised of the present Bogra, Rangpur, Rajshahi and Dinajpur districts. The capital of the Pundra Janapadas was Pundranagar. It was later named Pundra Vardhana. The historians are of the opion that these inscriptions were made during the time of Asoka in the Third century B.C.
Medieval Age
The main glory of Medieval Age was establishment of the Muslim rule in Bengal. The Muslim rule in Bengal began with Bakhtiar Khalji. In 1203 A.D. the Turkish hero conquered Bihar near Bengal. He conqured Bengal, expanding his dynasty to Tibet. Bakhtiar Khalji wanted to establish independent rule in Bangal. For this reason he divided the conquered region into a number of provinces or districts. These were called Ikta and the ruler og Ikta was called Mukta. He developed the Muslim society and culture.
The Sultans of Delhi could not leep Bengal under their power for about two hundred years from 1338 A.D. to 1538 A.D.. In the beginning the soldiers of the sultans of Delhi carried out some attacks on Bengal. They tried to keep Bengal under their control. When they failed, they gave up hope. There was no possibility of any foreign attacks. The Sultans of Bengal could rule independently and peacefully. Although Fakhruddin Mubarak Shah initiated independence in Bengal, stability came to Bengal with of Ilias Shah.
