1910: three men and a museum

In 1910 three men set out to study and preserve the history of the Varendra region: Kumar Sarat Kumar Ray of the Dighapatia family, who founded and presided over the society and paid for the work; Akshay Kumar Maitreya, a lawyer and historian, who became its director; and Ramaprasad Chanda, then teaching at Rajshahi Collegiate School, who served as honorary secretary.

The Varendra Research Society they formed opened a museum in Rajshahi in April 1910 — the first museum in what was then East Bengal.

The collection now holds around 19,000 objects: stone and metal sculpture, terracotta, coins, manuscripts, weapons, and Arabic and Persian documents. Since 1964 it has been run by the University of Rajshahi.