Varendra

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Region in northern Bengal

title: "Varendra" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["ancient-divisions-in-bengal"] description: "Region in northern Bengal" topic_path: "general/ancient-divisions-in-bengal" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varendra" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Region in northern Bengal ::

::callout[type=note] historical region in northern Bengal ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Kaivartas_of_the_Varendras_circa_640-730_CE.jpg" caption="Coin of a king of the Kaivartas in Varendra, circa 640–730 CE."] ::

Varendra (), also known as Barind (), was an ancient and historical territory of Northern Bengal, now mostly in Bangladesh and a little portion in the Indian state of West Bengal and Eastern Bihar.

It formed part of the Pundravardhana or Pundra Kingdom region currently part of the Rajshahi and Rangpur Division of Bangladesh and included the districts of Bogra, Rajshahi, Pabna and Dinajpur of Bangladesh and West Dinajpur and Malda of West Bengal, India. According to Cunningham, the boundary of Varendra was the Ganges and the Kosi river on the west, the Karatoya on the east, the Padma River on the south and the land between Cooch Behar and included the Terai.

Literature and inscriptions

According to R. C. Majumdar, the term Varendra-mandala occurs in the Ramacharitam, which places it between the Ganges and Karatoya rivers. He writes, "Its inclusion with Pundravardhana is proved by the Silimpur, Tarpandighi and Madhainagar inscriptions. The Tabaquat-i-nasiri mentions Barind as the wing of the territory of Lakhnawati on the eastern side of Ganges".

History

Historical evidence attests significant presence of Brahmins in Bengal during the Maurya period. The Jain Acharya Bhadrabahu, regarded to be the preceptor of Sthulabhadra, is said to have been born in the Brahmin family of Pundravardhana (or , the region north of the Ganges and west of Brahmaputra in Bengal, later known as Vārendra). Such evidences suggest or Vārendra and regions west of Bhagirathi (called Radha in ancient age) to be seats of Brahmins from ancient times.

Modern usage

References

Majumdar, R. C.. (1971). "History of Ancient Bengal". G. Bhardwaj & Co..
{{cite Banglapedia. AM Chowdhury

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::