 The name is derived from the number of parganas or divisions contained in the Zamindari of Calcutta which was ceded to the East India Company by Mir Jafar in 1757.Not much is known about the districts history before the fifteenth century.References to this portion of the Gangetic delta in the Puranas, Mahabharata and Raghuvamsa show that it lay between the kingdom of the Suhmas and the Vangas.