Travel Guide Mahasthan

A 12 km north of Bogra, the former town of Pundurunagar was a provincial capital of Gupta and Enclave Empires. If little is known about the Pundourous, their presence is prior to that of the Aryans and they were probably native to that region of Bengal. Dating back to the th century before our era, the city was occupied successively by the Buddhists, the Hindus, and then the Muslims. As for an archaeological site, there are few obvious traces of these different periods. The main site is the citadel (garh means "strong" in Hindi), but the surrounding countryside is enamelled with ruins that date mainly from the Buddhist golden age, between the th and th centuries, under the Acap rule. The rediscovery of the site of Mahasthangarh to Francis Buchanan-Hamilton, a geographer and Scottish botanist integrated into the Bengal Medical Service from 1794 to 1815.