Khasnagar Dighi

Khasnagar Dighi a fine old dighi (large pond) situated at about a mile to the south of Panam and close to the village of Khasnagar in Sonargoan. It is also now called Sonargoan Dighi. The age of the dighi is unknown. In consideration of its longer sides lying north to south, the origin of the dighi may be traced to the Hindu period. The dighi is said to have originally covered an area of twenty acres of land. But subsequently, James Wise (1872) places the area of the dighi as covering 9.75 acres while Alexander Cunningham (1879-80) measured the dighi as having 1200 feet in length and 600 feet in breadth.

Sonargoan produced the finest quality of cotton fabric known as muslin including its finest variety called khasa. The place-name Khasnagar and that of Khasnagar Dighi may have derived from the fine muslin khasa thereby signifying Khasnagar as a busy centre of production of the finest muslin. The banks of the Khasnagar Dighi are reported to have once been covered with huts of weavers who found its water making their muslin fabric remarkably white. The existence of a large reservoir of water in Sonargoan giving a peculiar whiteness to the clothes that are washed in it, as mentioned in the Ain-i-Akbari, obviously indicates the Khasnagar Dighi. [Muazzam Hussain Khan]