A new book explores Bangladesh through what remains of its ancient Buddhist landscape and monuments

Comilla lies 100 kilometres east of Dhaka on N-1, the main artery between Dhaka and Chittagong. A few kilometres off Sitalakshya Bridge, a street branches off to Langalbandho, about 27 kilometres east of Dhaka. This is the holy confluence of the Sitalakshya, Brahmaputra, and Meghna rivers. With the arrival of the month of Chaitra, Langalbandho gears up for a four-day bathing festival when thousands of Hindus descend on the banks of the rivers for a holy dip. Pandals and barricades are set up and bathing ghats are spruced up for the occasion.

The highway cuts through Narayanganj and Sonargaon. At Mograpara, a left turn took one to Panam Nagar, the “ghost city” of merchants long dead. Up ahead, the road passed through Gazaria, where a pilgrim rush to Langalbandho held up traffic on the Meghna Bridge. A little ahead at Daudkandi, high sand hills cover the banks of the Gomti River as heavy cranes excavate sand from the river bed.

A short detour at Gauripur Bazaar took us to Majidpur, where Mamun wanted to show me the ruins of a zamindar’s rajbari. This ended in great confusion as the rajbari was nowhere to be found, and we returned to the main highway only to find it jammed as a vehicle had crashed into another. Luckily, we were last in the kilometre-long convoy that had come to a halt. Finding a small cut to the other side of the road that was nearly empty, driver Munir quickly steered to the right and drove ahead for about two kilometres, where at Kutumbapur he joined a narrow village road that eventually took us through Badkamta directly to the Mainamati hill range in Comilla.

Passing through Muratpur, Ambarpur, and Tirangi bazaars we tried to get back on N-1 via the Mochail bypass, but there was no respite from the traffic jam. So, we returned to the maze of village roads, and proceeded to Ramman and Kotbari via Naemsar. Finally, we found ourselves at the hill ranges of Mainamati-Lalmai near the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) post in the Comilla Cantonment area.

An extraordinarily rich assemblage of about 50 monastic establishments was discovered in the early 19th century in the Mainamati-Lalmai Range, which runs across the Meghna basin in the Comilla District of Bangladesh. It includes a large number of Buddhist monasteries, temples and stupas erected on the foothills, slopes, and crest of the hilly ranges covered by deep forests between the 6th and 13th centuries CE. Such an astounding number of separate Buddhist establishments, with stupas, shrines, wells, courtyards, and monastic cells, situated within a distance of a few kilometres, is without parallel in the Indian subcontinent.

The cluster of monasteries was situated along the slopes of the low hill ranges of Comilla, known as Devaparvata. These hill ranges extend for over 19 kilometres.

The ridge comprising low laterite hills in the eastern deltaic region of Bangladesh, and once covered with thick forests, was set in the vast expanse of the lower Meghna River basin. It ran north to south from Mainamati village on the Gomti River to Chandi Mura, Lalmai – identified with Lalambi-vana of the Chandra epigraphs – at its southern end.

This cluster shows the status and patronage afforded to Buddhism during the continuous and lengthy reign of Buddhist dynasties over the exceptionally affluent region of Samatata, of which the Mainamati-Lalmai Range was a part. Buddhist colonies thrived from ancient times and flourished during the rule of the Khadgas (second half of the 7th century CE), the Devas (8th–9th centuries CE), and the Chandras (10th–11th centuries CE).

The Kotbari Road passing along Comilla Cantonment is dotted with viharas and ancient mounds amid thickly forested low hills. A visitor can see only some of the excavated viharas along the Comilla–Kotbari Road, N-1, and the Brahmanbaria Road as some are located in the army cantonment and are off-limits for visitors.

My first halt was at the Latikot Vihara, quite close to the BGB post from where two other viharas, namely, Itakhola Mura and Rupban Mura, were within walking distance. Unfortunately, the gates of Latikot were locked. We looked for an alternate entry but found none. We called out for the guards, hoping to gain an entry, but there was no one. What could be seen from outside the gates was a walled compound, within which stood the ruins of the monastery. A vast open courtyard surrounded it.

Adjacent to the vihara was a three-storeyed school building. From the worn-down archaeological interpretation board at the site, we learned that it was called the Latikot Mura. Excavations had revealed the ground plan of a Buddhist monastery measuring 47.24 m × 44.80 m with 33 monastic cells. According to survey reports, a mandapam was found in the eastern wing of the monastery. And based on the exposed architectural details, the monastery is said to be from the 8th–10th century ce.

The main approach of the monastery was from the north, but there was no gate on this side—only the walls of the school compound. So, any visitor coming via the Cantonment Kotbari Road could only take photographs from outside the locked gates.

Very close to Latikot Vihara, at a walking distance on the same side of the Kotbari Road, is the Itakhola Vihara. It served for long as a quarry for brick-hunters who stole its bricks, thereby diminishing the size of the vihara. By the time we reached Itakhola, the sun was overhead and it was very hot. The ticket counter was located near the gate, and while Mamun bought the tickets and the archaeological survey report, the kind keeper allowed me inside. The winding path to the monastery was through the vast expanse of a flowering garden.

The first thing noticeable about the monastery was its sheer size. The outer wall around the monastery was decorated with panels set apart by vertical bands, giving the structure a grand appearance. A couple of steps at the entrance led into a narrow front yard from where a pathway took one around the entire ruins. Near the stairway lay three square votive stupas, which were probably a memorial for the senior bhikshus who lived there.

Crossing the front yard, a staircase led into a long, wide corridor enclosed within high walls. This unusual corridor appeared like a broad street leading towards a massive monastic structure but ended abruptly in a wide platform, a flat stone podium with moulded edges. In many monasteries, such stone podia are built to accommodate the image of a Reclining Buddha. But here there was no image. Behind this high platform was a colossal east-facing square stupa, measuring 43 x 43 feet and rising to a height of about 20 feet.

The Excavation Report on Itakholamura, Mainamati, Comilla (1990– 1992) by Habibur Rahman, mentions that this podium was a later construction; originally, there was an image chamber (8 × 7 feet) in its place, which cut into the large stupa. A two-feet high platform was built in front of the image chamber. Two large arched niches can still be seen embedded in the walls on either side of the pedestal.

Along the corridor leading to this podium, monks resided in cells on either side. In a later phase, the monastic cells were changed to image chambers from where remains of ornamental pedestals were found.

Excerpted with permission from On the Buddha’s Trail in Bangladesh, Sunita Dwivedi, Rupa Publications.