The population of the Bengal delta has always been remarkably mobile. This has often led to tensions between the territorial rights of the sedentary people and the rights of mobile others. These tensions revealed themselves in multiple moving frontiers and a dynamic economy. The Bengal delta was never an isolated place. On the contrary, one of its basic features was its openness to both the immense expanse of the Indian Ocean and an enormous hinterland. For as far back as we can reconstruct, it was integrated into networks of long-distance trade, pilgrimage, political alliance, cultural exchange and travel. It served as a gateway to the wider world for people and goods from the landlocked Ganges plains in the west, from Tibet and Nepal in the north and from the Brahmaputra valley in the east. Conversely, traders, Buddhist pilgrims, political emissaries and adventurers who wanted to visit these regions had to pass through Bengal. It was the coastal waterways of Bengal that South-east Asians, North Indians, Srilankans, Chinese, Arabs, Central Asians, Persians, Ethiopians and Tibetans met from very early times.

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