List of rulers of Bengal
| History of Bengal |
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This is a list of rulers of Bengal. For much of its history, Bengal was split up into several independent kingdoms, completely unifying only several times. In ancient times, Bengal consisted of the kingdoms of Pundra, Suhma, Vanga, Samatata and Harikela.
In the 4th century BCE, during the reign of the Nanda Empire, the powerful rulers of Gangaridai sent their forces consisting of war elephants which led to the withdrawal of Alexander the Great from the Indian subcontinent.
With the rise of Gopala in 750 AD, Bengal was united once more under the Buddhist and Shaivite Pala Empire. The Pala period is considered as one of golden eras of Bengali history as it brought stability and prosperity to Bengal after centuries of Civil War, created outstanding works of art and architecture, proto-Bengali language developed under them including its first literary work, the Charyapada and so on. They ruled Bengal until the 12th century, before being succeeded by the Buddhist and Hindu Chandra dynasty, Sena dynasty and Deva dynasty. The rule of the Sena and Deva dynasty extended over various parts of Bengal, until the arrival of Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khalji as part of the Ghurid Invasion of Bengal.
In the early 13th century, Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khalji conquered the Western and parts of Northern Bengal, and established the first Muslim kingdom in Bengal. The Delhi Sultanate, under various Islamic dynasties such as the Mamluk Sultanate, the Khalji dynasty, the Turko-Indian Tughlaq dynasty, the Sayyid dynasty and the Lodi dynasty ruled over various parts Bengal for some 300 years, interrupted and frequently challenged by local muslim rulers of Bengal.
The Bengal Sultanate, a major trading nation in the world, was founded in 1342 by Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah, after he united Satgaon, Lakhnauti and Sonargaon. The Ilyas Shahi dynasty ruled Bengal for nearly 150 years. The Hussain Shahi dynasty founded by Alauddin Husain Shah, reached its greatest territorial extent which saw the extension of the sultanate from modern Bihar and Odisha in the west, to Kamaraupa and the port of Chittagong in the east, witnessing the arrival of the earliest Portuguese merchants.