Bengal District Gazetteers Rajshahi

Abstract

RAJSHAHI is ’a district in' the south-west of the"Rajshahi division. It li^s between ttie twenty-fonrfh and twenty-fifth parallels of north latitude, while its limits east and west lie between the eighty-eighth and eighty-ninth degrees of east longitude. Its area is 2,618 -square miles, and it contains a population, according -to. census of .1911,* of 1,480,587 persons. The headquarters are at Rampur Boalia, a town on the northern bank of tbe. Ganges, which in'This portion of its course is Imown as the Padma. The .postal and telegraphic designation of the town is, however, not Rampur Boalia but Rajshahi, and it^as not infrequently referred to by the inhabitants as Rajshijhk The correct transliteration according to Bengali spelling is Rajsahi. The name Rajshahi is commolily believed to mean the royal territory, and it is a .popular, but mistaken, idear that the district was given this designation because it is tire home of many Rajas. The origin of the name is doubtful,, but one plausible hypothesis is that it dates back to the beginning of the "fifteenth century. when this ‘part of the country was ruled over by Raja Khans .or Ganesh, the Hindu chief of Bhaturia (i.e., the country on both sides of the river Atrai in Dinajpur and Rajshahi). .The Raja, having ousted the Muhammadan Governor of Gaur, became king o f Bengal, and, according to Professor Blochmann, was consequently known as a Rasjhah i.e., a ,Hindu Raja who ascended a Musalman throne, while his territory acquired the name of Rajshahi.