Wari-Bateshwar ruins

Habibulla Pathan, An archaeological things collector in his personal archaeological museum and library at Bateshwar, Narsingdi. Behind him there is a binding image of his father Hanif Pathan, who was the pioneer of discovery Wari - Bateshwar archaeological ruins.

In the neighbouring villages of Wari and Bateshwar, many archaeological artifacts were discovered upon digging. In the Wari village in 1933, some local diggers found a pot full of ancient coins dating back to between 450 BC to 300 BC while digging in the undiscovered grounds of Wari-Bateshwar. A local school teacher, Hanif Pathan, collected 20–30 of the ancient coins from there. After that, he made his son Habibullah Pathan aware of this incident. In 1955, Bateshwar village, some diggers left behind two ancient metal-made things. Habibullah Pathan showed these items to his father. Then in 1956, during digging in Wari-Bateshwar, an ancient silver coin storage buried underground was discovered. In 1976 Habibullahh Pathan collected many archaeological things from Wari-Bateshwar and submitted these items to the Dhaka National Museum. In 2000 under the order of Jahangir Nagar University's archaeologist Professor Sufi Mostafizur Rahman, a digging expedition was begun in Wari-Bateshwar. Discoveries include ancient roads, houses, terracotta, silver coins, hand crafted metal objects, printed currencies, weapons and a host of other artifacts.

About 14 km away from Wari-Bateshwar in Shibpur Upazila in a village named Mondirbhita one Buddhist temple was found. In another village named Jankhartek a big Buddha temple was found which suggests that the residents of Wari-Bateshwar were Buddhists. However as the civilization was developed before born of the Buddha, therefore now it is questions that what was religious belief of the people lived in the civilization before the Buddism was starts, and as because there is no evidence found that they ware prayed in front of any statue, so some researcher are thinking that maybe they ware practice in Abrahamic Religion; the Judaism. Because no record found in the ruins/city that they ware used to worshipped IDOLS therefore it is clear that they were not Hindus, and Buddha was not born during the periods.

The site of Wari-Bateshwar is very important regarding development of religion in ancient Bangladesh. From the discovered stone slab and punch mark coins we do get an idea of the religious attributes of the civilization. Symbols of 'Swastika' and 'Nandipada' is found on the stone slab. Whereas the Coins comes with punch marks of solar symbol and six armed figurine, there are also mountain symbols with crescent found on coins. Swastika is common aspect of all Indic religions and used extensively since Vedic Hinduism. Whereas Nandipada and mountains with crescent is a known depiction of 'Shiva' in ancient times before the image icon of Shiva came into existence. On the other hand the depiction of Sun God on the coins suggest that the civilization held Sun in high esteem, which is resembles Hinduism's reverence to 'Surya' the Sun God[2] Therefore from scholarly viewpoint it is acknowledged that people in Wari- Bateshwar civilization was probably practicing an ancient form of pre temple aspect of Hinduism.

Nearly 50 ancient archaeological sites have been found around Wari-Bateshwar, with most of the discoveries being settlements. Some of them are known as Rangartek, Sonartula, Kendua, Morjal, Tongirajar Bari, Mondirbhita, Jankhartek, Tongirtek.