Dhamrai

Dhamrai

After crossing the river Banshi, we come to the Dak Bungalow where one can stop and have a snack. Then we leave the main road and follow an unpaved path, but motorable, to Dhamrai (a corrupted form of Dharmarajika) associated with the old Buddhist remains now completely forgotten. The first locality on way is Pathantola where we can stop and see on our left a Punch Pir Mazar – tombs of five local saints of Bengal so very common in this part. One of the graves found is a modern square building. Here is lying buried Hazrat Mir Syyid Ali Tirmizi, chief of the five ashab who came here to spread Islam. There is an inscription of the time of Alauddin Husain Shah, dated 922A.H./1516 A.D., fixed on the western side of the grave. The inscription speaks of the construction of a mosque probably in this dargah. Hence the saint must have come here before this date. There is another inscription now fixed in a private house, not fi.ir from this place, which is in a beautiful hand. The inscription speaks of the construction of a mosque by Akhund Shir, Mir-i-Bahar (a naval officer) at this place in 887 A.H./1482 A.D. It seems that the dargah was in existence even before this date, as the medieval practice was to build mosques in the dargahs. Now the mosques have fallen, but the inscriptions remain to recall their memory. To the south of the main tomb lie live graves, two of them are on one platform. Here we have the following inscription:
It speaks of the construction of a mazar by Abdul Rasul in 1153 A.H./1740 A.D.
 
Proceeding a little ahead we come to Muqamtola, where we can see the tombs of Haji and Ghazi, two of’ the five saints. The tomb is a single-domed square building, on which the date in Persian and Bengali is given as 955 A.H./1548 AD. But obviously the present building is a later reconstruction. Another tomb of Sayyid Ataur Rahman Alvi from Bijnor is dated 1294 B. S. In front of the tomb can be seen two unfinished stone pillars of octagonal shape. A little further away can be seen the tombs of Shah Jangi Pir and Mir Makhdum.
 
From this place we pass to the main Dhamrai market which is in the Hindu locality. The market is even now famous for bronze ware and is a nice place for buying curios. But the muslin weavers, the Basaks, left the place long ago. Right in the heart of the market is a beautiful ratha built in wood in the typical Bengali style. It moves on 32 wheels. The greatest attraction of the place for the Hindus is the temple of Yas-Madhava, which is a modem building, and the images are also new. But the tradition about this temple goes back far in history. In the year 1092 A.H./1681 A.D., during the reign of Aurangzeb 31 bighas of land were granted to the temple by a firman under the signature of Khanazat Muhammad Mazhar. Here can also be seen a wooden image of Vishnu with ten incarnations painted on the back stella. There are many other temples and images in the locality.

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