| * "The
village is not old nor is the shrine. The place is not shown in Rennell's Atlas (1779-81),
but appears in the Survey maps of 1830-45 as Taressure.Regarding its origin, the following
curious legend is told. Raja Vishnu Das, aKshatriya by caste, lived at Mohaba Garkalingar
in Oudh, early in the eighteenth century. Rather than remain under the rule of the
Musalman Nawabs of Oudh, the Raja immigrated to Bengal, and took up his abode a village of
Ramnagar at Balagarh, near Haripal, about two miles from where Tarakeswar now stands. With
him came 500 followers of his own caste and 100 Brahmans from Kanauj. The inhabitants of the neighborhood suspected them of being robbers,
and sent word to the Nawab of Bengal at Murshidabad that a large gang of marauders, in
complete armour and with strange beards and moustaches, had come and settled near Haripal.
The Nawab having sent for them, the Raja presented himself, and sai that they were
harmless folk who only, wanted some land whereon to settle. Tradition states that, to
prove his innocence, Raja Vishnu Das went through the ordeal by fire, holding in his hand
a red-hot iron bar, without sustaining injury. The Nawab was convinced of his honesty and
gave him a grant of 500 bighas of land (equal to 1,500 bighas at the present day) eight
miles from Tarakeswar.
Vishnu das had a brother, who became a religious mendicant and wandered, about the
neighborhood as a devotee. While living in the jungle near Tarakeswar, then known as
Jot Savaram, he noticed that many cows entered the jungle with udders full of milk, and
returned with them empty. Varamal Singh, as the devotee was called, followed them to see
who milked them, and saw them discharge milk of their own accord on to a stone which had a
deep
hollow in it, made by cowherds grinding rice.
10 Bengal District Gazetteers, Hooghly, by L.S.S.
O'Malley. |
