The extensive ruins of Mahasthangarh, sprawling on the western bank of the Karatoya river in Bogra district, represent the earliest city-site in Bengal. It has been identified as the ancient Pundranagara of the Maurya. the Gupta and the Pala epigraphic records when it was their provincial capital from third century B.C. to twelfth century A.D. The ruins of this ancient city cover a heavily fortified irregular oblong ground, measuring 5000 by 4500 feet with an average elevation of about 15 feet from the surrounding countryside. Limited excavation here has revealed thickly packed dwelling houses, temples and the defence wall at various points of the citadel. The city plan followed the general irregular pattern of all ancient great cities of northern India. Excavation on a number of ancient mounds, dotted about the city's suburb that fan out in a semi-circle of five miles radius, has exposed many temples and remains of various secular buildings. Among these the Govinda Bhita temple on the river bank, the honey-combed Lakshindarer Medh at Gokul and the Buddhist monasteries at Vasu-Bihar are noteworthy.

Kashmir chronicle Rajtarangini's romantic but less credible tale of the wandering prince Jayapida's incognito sojourn at the Kartikeya temple near Pundranagara under the hospitality of Kamala, the temple dancer; his daring encounter with a maneating lion that was terrorizing the countryside and his eventual winning of the hands of the princess of Pundranagara, remain yet a dramatic fiction, vaguely indicated by the remains of a small Kartikeya temple near the citadel on river bank, locally known as Skander Dhap.