Nakkatigachhi is a village in the

Tufanganj I Tufanganj I is a community development block (CD block) that forms an administrative division in the Tufanganj subdivision of the Cooch Behar district in the Indian state of West Bengal. Geography Natabari, a constituent panchayat of the block, ...

CD block in the

Tufanganj subdivision Tufanganj subdivision is a subdivision of the Cooch Behar district in the state of West Bengal, India. Subdivisions Cooch Behar district is divided into the following administrative subdivisions: Administrative units Tufanganj subdivision ...

of the

Cooch Behar district Cooch Behar district () is a district of Indian state of West Bengal. Formerly part of the Kamarupa kingdom, the area became the heart of the Kamata Kingdom in the 12th century. During the British Raj, the district was known as Cooch Behar st ...

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fourt ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

Geography

Location

Nakkatgachhi is located at .

Area overview

The map alongside shows the eastern part of the district. In Tufanganj subdivision 6.97% of the population lives in the urban areas and 93.02% lives in the rural areas. In Dinhata subdivision 5.98% of the population lives in the urban areas and 94.02% lives in the urban areas. The entire district forms the flat

alluvial Alluvium (from Latin ''alluvius'', from ''alluere'' 'to wash against') is loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain, in an alluvial fan or beach, or in similar settings. Alluv ...

flood plains of mighty rivers. Note: The map alongside presents some of the notable locations in the subdivisions. All places marked in the map are linked in the larger full screen map.

Demographics

As per the

2011 Census of India The 2011 Census of India or the 15th Indian Census was conducted in two phases, house listing and population enumeration. The House listing phase began on 1 April 2010 and involved the collection of information about all buildings. Information ...

, Nakkatigachhi had a total population of 4,243. There were 2,213 (52%) males and 2,030 (48%) females. There were 488 persons in the age range of 0 to 6 years. The total number of literate people in Nakkatagachhi was 2,495 (66.44% of the population over 6 years).

Culture

As per local beliefs, Sukladwaj or

Chilarai Shukladhwaja (Pron:ʃʊkləˈdwɑːdʒ) (1510-1577AD), or more popularly known as Bir Chilarai(Pron:/ʧɪləˌraɪ/), was the 3rd son of Biswa Singha, founder of the Koch Dynasty in Kamata Kingdom and younger brother of Nara Narayan, the 2nd kin ...

, (1510-1571), younger brother of

Nara Narayan Naranarayan (reign 1554–1587) was the last ruler of the undivided Koch dynasty of Kamata Kingdom. He succeeded his father, Biswa Singha. Under him the Koch kingdom reached its cultural and political zenith. Under his rule, and under the mi ...

, of the

Koch dynasty Koch may refer to: People * Koch (surname), people with this surname * Koch dynasty, a dynasty in Assam and Bengal, north east India * Koch family * Koch people (or Koche), an ethnic group originally from the ancient Koch kingdom in north east In ...

, had established an idol of Sandeswar Shiva in this village. However, it is not clear as to whether he built a temple. Some opinions point to Maharaja Pran Narayan or Najirdeo Khagendra Narayan as builders of the temple, and yet others think that the temple was built by Chilarai, and later modified/ improved upon by Pran Narayan and Khagendra Narayan. It is also possible that the temple was so badly damaged that Khagendra Narayan rebuilt it. The present brick-built temple with a sheet ‘charchala’ is not more than 200-250 years old, but remnants of a broken temple indicate of there being an earlier temple in the traditional Cooch Behar style. The

Shiva linga A lingam ( sa, लिङ्ग , lit. "sign, symbol or mark"), sometimes referred to as linga or Shiva linga, is an abstract or aniconic representation of the Hindu god Shiva in Shaivism. It is typically the primary ''murti'' or devotional im ...

continues to be worshipped daily and this temple is under the Cooch Behar Debuttor Sangstha.Koch Bihar Jelar Purakirti (in Bengali), Data compilation and writing by Dr. Shyamachand Mukhopadhayay, published by the Department of Archaeology, Government of West Bengal, Second edition 1974, Page 52

References

{{Cooch Behar District Villages in Cooch Behar district