GAUR, or GOUR, a medimval city in Bengal. The name signifies "country of sugar." We have the names of dynasties, and partial lists of the kings, which bore the title of lord of Gaur, or Guada, before the first Mohammedan invasion. The last of these dynasties, that of the Senas, or of the Vaidyas, superseded its predecessor, the dynasty of the Palas, about the middle of the 11th century. The most eminent of this dynasty, by name Lakshmanasena, who flourished at the end of the century, is alleged in inscriptions to have extended his conquests to Kanauj (in the Doab), to century_, and to the shores of Orissa; this king is said by tradition to have founded the royal city in Guada which in later days reverted to a form of this ancient name (Gaur), but which the founder called after his own name, Lakshmanavati, or as it sounded in the popu lar speech, Laklmaoti. The fifth from this king, according to Lassen's list, Lakshma niya (c. 1160-98), transferred the royal residence to Navadvipa, Nadiya (on the Hoogly river, 70 m. above Calcutta), possibly from apprehension of the rising tide of the Mohammedan power; but here it overtook him. Nadiya was taken about'1198-99 by Mohammed Baklitiyar Khilji, the general of the slave king Kutbuddin Aibak of• Delhi, who became established as governor of Bengal, and fixed his capital at Lakh naoti. Here he and his captains are said to have founded mosques, colleges, monas teries. Lakhnaoti continued for the most part to be the seat of rulers who governed Bengal and Behar, sometimes as confessed delegates of the Delhi sovereigns, sometimes as practically independent kings, during the next 140 years. From the year 1338, with the waning power of the Delhi dynasties, the kingdom of Bengal acquired a substan tive independence which it retained for more than two centuries. One of the earliest of the kings during this period, by name Ilyas (Elias) Shah, whose descendants reigned in Bengal with brief interruptions for nearly 150 years, transferred the seat of government to Pandua (c. 1350), a place about 16 m. n. by e. of Gaur, and to the neighboring fort ress of Elkdala, a place often named in Mohammedan notices of the history of Bengal down to the 16th century. At Pandua several kings in succession built mosques and shrines, which still exhibit architecture of an importance unusual in Bengal proper. After some occasional oscillation the residence was again (c. 1446) transferred to Gaur, by which name the city is generally known thenceforward, that of Lakhnaoti disap pearing from history. city 24th and last of those whom history recognizes as inde
pendent kings of Bengal was Mahmud Shah (1533-34 to 1538-39). In his time the city more than once changed hands, during the struggle between the Afghan Sher Shah arid the (so-called) " Great Moghul," Humayun. son of Baber; and on One ocaufion (1537-38), when Sher Shah was operating against Gaur, we first hear of the Portuguese in the inner waters of Bengal. A party of that nation who had been sent with presents to the court of Gaur had been detained as prisoners by the suspicious Mahmud. But in the straits. arising during his resistance to Sher Shah, the Frank prisoners were able to render him good service. Mahmud was followed by,several Pathan adventurers, who temporarily held the provinces of the delta with more or less assertion of royal author ity. One of these, Suleiman Kirani (1564-65). abandoned Gaur for Thick, a place some what nearer the Ganges. It is mentioned by Ralph Fitch, the earliest of European trav elers in India, who calls it "'Panda in the land of. Gouren," standing a league from the Ganges. Mu'uini Kahn, Khankhanan, a general of Akbar's when reducing these prov inces in 1575, was attracted by the old site, and resolved to readopt it as the seat of local government. But a great pestilence (probably cholera) broke out at Gaur, and swept away thousands, the general-in-chief being himself among the victims. On hiss death the deprived Pathan prince, Daud, set np his standard again. But he was defeated by the forces of Akbar in a battle at Rajmahl, and taken prisoner. Afte• him no other assumed the style of king of Bengal. Tanda continued for a short time to be the residence of the governors under the " Great Moghuls," but this was transferred sue ces•sively to Rajmahl and Dacca, in repeated alternation, and finally to Moorshedabail. Gaur cannot have been entirely deserted, for the Nawab Shuja-uddin, who governed Bengal 1725-39, built a new gate to the citadel. But in history Gaur is no longer heard of, till its extensive remains attracted the curiosity of the English,—the more readily as the northern end of the site approaches within 4 m. of the important factory that was known as English Bazar (among the natives as Angrezzlhad), which is said to have been built of bricks from the ruins, and which is now the nucleus of the civil station of Malda.