page_title: Birbhum district
section_title: Prehistory
hierarchical_section_title: Birbhum district / History / Prehistory
caption_attribution_description: English: Statue of Rabindranath Tagore by K P Krishnakumar (1959- 1989) at Amar Kutir
context_page_description: Birbhum district is an administrative unit in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is the northernmost district of Burdwan division—one of the five administrative divisions of West Bengal. The district headquarters is in Suri. Other important cities are Rampurhat, Bolpur and Sainthia. Jamtara, Dumka and Pakur districts of the state of Jharkhand lie at the western border of this district; the border in other directions is covered by the districts of Bardhaman and Murshidabad of West Bengal.
  Often called "the land of red soil", Birbhum is noted for its topography and its cultural heritage which is somewhat different from the other districts in West Bengal. The western part of Birbhum is a bushy region, a part of the Chhota Nagpur Plateau. This region gradually merges with the fertile alluvial farmlands in the east.
  This district saw many cultural and religious movements in history. The Visva Bharati University at Santiniketan, established by Rabindranath Tagore, is one of the places Birbhum is known for. Many festivals are celebrated in the district, including Poush Mela.
  Birbhum is primarily an agricultural district with around 75% of the population being dependent on agriculture.
context_section_description: The area now known as Birbhum was inhabited from pre-historic times. Some of the archaeological sites related to Pandu Rajar Dhibi of chalcolithic remains are located in Birbhum. Stone age implements have been found at several places in the district.
  According to the old Jain book Acaranga Sutra, the last (24th) great Tirthankara Mahavira had wandered through this land, referred to as the "pathless country of Ladha in Vajjabhumi and Subbhabhumi (probably Suhma)" in the 5th century, B.C. According to some historians, the spread of Jainism and Buddhism in the Rarh region was part of the process of Aryanisation of the area. Based on Divyabdan, a Buddhist text, Dr. Atul Sur has inferred that Gautam Buddha probably traversed this area to go to Pundravardhana and Samatata.
  The Rarh region, once a part of the Maurya empire was later included in the empires of the imperial Guptas, Shashanka and Harshavardhana. After dismemberment of Harshavardhana's empire, the region was ruled by the Palas till the 12th century AD, when overlordship of the area passed into the hands of the Senas. During the rule of the Pala dynasty Buddhism, particularly the Vajrayana cult, flourished here. In the 7th century A.D., the Chinese traveller Xuanzang described some of the monasteries he visited.
caption: Statue of Rabindranath Tagore by K P Krishnakumar at Amar Kutir
exif: {"Image Software": "Picasa 3.0", "Image ExifOffset": "50", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "848", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1232", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0210", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "150", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "fb28b0df1ff54d5e2026eebb4ee891fc"}