The city owes its historical importance to being the headquarters of the Maharajas of Burdwan, the premier noblemen of lower Bengal, whose rent-roll was upwards of 300,000.

Bardhaman Raj was founded in 1657 by Sangam Rai, of a Hindu Khatri family of Kotli in Lahore, Punjab, whose descendants served in turn the Mughal Emperors and the British government.

Sadhak Kamalakanta as composer of devotional songs and Kashiram Das as a poet and translator of the great Mahabharata were possibly the best products of such an endeavour.

We find, among others, the great rebel poet Kazi Nazrul Islam and Kala-azar-famed U. N. Brahmachari as the relatively recent illustrious sons of this soil.

Batukeshwar Dutt an Indian revolutionary and independence fighter in the early 1900s was born on 18 November 1910 in a village Oari in Burdwan district.

[10] The first epigraphic reference to the name of this place occurs in a sixth-century AD copper plate found in Mallasarul village under Galsi Police Station.

Archeological evidences suggest that this region, forming a major part of Radh Bengal, could be traced even back to 4000 BCE.

The city of Bardhaman was visited by notables of the Delhi Sultanate from Raja Todarmal to Daud Karnani, from Sher Afghan and Kutub-ud-din to Ajimuswan to the future Mughal emperor Shah Jahan while he was still a rebel.

This, coupled with the initiative of the then Chief Minister of West Bengal, Bidhan Chandra Roy, facilitated the establishment of this university.

With social responsibilities in mind, the university actively patronised the construction of a science centre and the Meghnad Saha Planetarium.