Chandrawip

Chandrawip, also called Bakla, was a principality among the rivers and islands of southern Bengal. Its rulers moved their seat more than once within the delta, where broad channels offered routes of travel but also exposed settlements to storms and seaborne raids. The country was known to visitors from beyond Bengal as a distinct and prosperous land.

Raja Kandarpanarayan ruled Chandrawip in the late sixteenth century. The English traveller Ralph Fitch visited in 1586, two years after a devastating cyclone had struck the region. Repeated raids by Arakanese and Portuguese seafarers prompted the ruler to move his capital. His successor Ramchandra later established his seat at Madhabpasha. Mughal expansion brought the principality under imperial authority in the early seventeenth century, although its ruling family continued as local landholders.