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of the Jogi-ghopá carvings. A mile to the south-west, at Amári, are more brick remains which Dr. Buchanan heard called the palace of Mahi-pála. Across the bil, two miles north-east, at Chondirá, are remains, which he was told were those of Chandra-pála's palace; there are more bricks at Katak and Dhoral, and indeed in all the country round are innumerable brick ruins. Seven miles north of the great stúpa is the celebrated Budál pillar, set up by a minister of Nárayana-pála, and bearing an inscription, in which Deva-pála and Sura-pála are mentioned as having preceded Nárayana-pála. A dozen miles north of that again was found the Amgáchi plate, containing a grant of Vígraha-pála, and enumerating his ancestors, Sura-pála his father, Mahi-pála, Dharma-pála, and others."* Several local names, such as Mahiganj, Mahinagar, Mahipur, Mahi-santosh, Nayanagar, &c., also bear remains of the names of former Pála kings.

The evidence thus is on the whole sufficient to show that the Pálas exercised sovereignty on the west of the Bhagirathí, certainly as far as the boundary of Behar and probably further, taking the whole of the ancient kingdom of Magadha. On the north it included Tirhut, Máldá, Rájsháhi, Dinajpur, Rangpur and Bagurá, which constituted the ancient kingdom of Paundravardhana. The bulk of the delta seems, however, not to have belonged to them. To show this and to prove the time when they were finally expelled from Bengal proper, we must turn to the history of the Sena Rájás of Bengal.

In my paper on the Sena Rájás,† I have already put together the names of all the Sena Rájás that have been brought to light by authentic records, and nothing has since been discovered to disturb their genealogical table as published by me. Mr. Westmacott, in 1875,‡ published some remarks on my paper, but his criticisms did not apply to the order of succession. But several important facts have since been brought prominently to notice, and they necessitate slight alterations in the dates assigned by me to the several princes of that dynasty.

The most important of these facts is the era of Lakshmana Sena. The credit of first discovering it is due to Colebrooke. In the Preface to his translation of the 'Digest of Hindu Laws,' he remarked: "Haláyudha, the spiritual adviser of Lakshmaņa Sena, (a renowned monarch who gave his name to an era of which six hundred and ninety-two years are expired), is the author of Nyáya-sarvaśva, &c." But no notice was afterwards taken of this era, and Prinsep in his Useful Tables' entirely passed it over. Subsequently an opportunity offered him when he noticed an inscription from Buddha Gayá, § in which the era of Lakshmana is distinctly mentioned, * Loc. cit. † Ante, Vol. XXXIV. į Ante, XLIV, pp. 1 f. § Ante, V, p. 659.

but he overlooked it. In that record the date is given in these words: श्रीमल्लक्ष्मणसेनदेवपादानामतीतराज्ये सं० ७४ वैशाखवदि १२ गुरौ । "On Thursday, the 12th of the wane, in the mouth of Vaiśákḥa, Sam. or year 74 after the expiration of the reign of the auspicious Lakshmana Sena Deva." Calculated with the datum given by Colebrooke, it would have at once settled the date of Lakshmana Sena; but this was not done. In 1873, I found a MS. of the 'Sadukti-karnámṛita,' dated Saka 1500=1578 A. D., in the colophon of which the work is described to have been compiled in the Saka year 1127=1205 A. D., which corresponded with some date of Lakshmana Sena which I could not make out. The date is given in words, the meaning of which could not be reconciled; the words are श्री मल्लक्ष्मणसेन चितिपस्य रसैकविंशे | The author was the son of a confidential friend and a general under Lakshmana Sena.*

Shortly after the publication of my remarks on this MS., in an anonymous article on the life of Váchaspati Miśra, published in a Bengali magazine called Banga Darsana, Bábu Rájakrishna Mukarji announced that the era of Lakshmana Sena was still current in Tirhut, and its date in 1874 was 767, its distinctive mark being • •, the initial letters of Lakshmana Sena Samvat." The Bábu also noticed an inscription of Siva Siñha, a local chieftain, which bore date the 280th of Lakshmana Sena's era. A brief notice of this article appeared in the Indian Antiquary' for 1875 The Bábu, likewise, used this date in an elementary history of Bengal, published in that year. Thus the credit of utilizing the date and bringing it to bear on the history of Bengal is entirely due to him.

In 1875 Mr. Westmacott brought to notice a copper-plate grant found in the bed of a tank called Tarpandighi, seven miles S. S. E. of Debkot in Dinajpur,† which bore the 7th year of Lakshmana Sena's reign; but no attempt was then made to trace the initial date of the era.

In 1877, Paṇḍit Rámanátha Tarkaratna, who is employed by the Asiatic Society of Bengal to collect information regarding Sanskrit MSS. in private libraries, while travelling in Tirhut, collected some information on the subject, and communicated it to me. He also purchased there two old Sanskrit MSS. for the Government of India, which were dated in the era in question. One of them Anumánáloka-țíká, a gloss by Madhusudana Thakkura on the Anumána Khanda of Gangesa, is dated

चैत्रशुक्लचतुर्द्दश्यां Savageœi | “the 14th of the waxing moon in the month of Chaitra L. S. 479." The other, Pratyakshaloka-darpana, a gloss by Mahesa Thakkura, on the Pratyalesha Khanda of Gangeśa, has वेदाथनिगमैर्युक्त भूपलक्ष्मणसम्मतेः । "In the year of the Vedas (4) the eight, and the Nigamas (4,) according to the king Lakshmana."

*Notices of Sanskrit MSS. III, pp. 134-148-9. † Ante, XLIV, p. 13.

Apparently disjointed as these facts are, they are of great importance in the elucidation of the date of the Sena Rájás. To put them together, we have first in the Tarpandighi plate the 7th year of Lakshmana's reign. In the Buddha Gayá inscription we have the 74th year of his era. Then we have in the Sadukti-karnámṛita MS. some date which corresponded with the S'aka 1127-1205 A. D. Then comes the Siva Siñha inscription, dated in the 280th year of that king's era. Then we have two MSS., one dated in the 459th year, and the other in the 484th of that era. And lastly we have the fact that the era is still current, and in the present year reckons 771. That the era is not a newly devised one, is abundantly. evident from the fact of its having been in regular currency all along, and its present figure, therefore, gives us a very correct clue to its initial date. The pandits of Tirhut reckon the era to be a luni-solar one, commencing from the 1st of the Inni-solar month of Mágha, and it must have therefore commenced in January 1106 A. D., or within three years of the date which I conjecturally assigned to Lakshmana Sena in my paper on the Sena Rájás.* This settles the date of Lakshmana Sena on infinitely more reliable data than what we have for any other Hindu sovereign of the preMuhammadan era.

Beginning with 1106, Lakshmana had a very prosperous reign of many years, for his minister Haláyudha informs us, in the preface to his Bráhmaņa Sarvasva, that he commenced service when very young as a court pandit, and was successively raised by the king to higher ranks, till he was made a minister when he had become old. A period of 30 years would scarcely be too much for this, and Lakshmana's reign may very fairly be assumed to have extended to the close of the fourth decade of the 12th century. His immediate successors, Mádhava Sena and Keśava Sena did not take up each two or three years, and the rest of the century was taken up by Lákshmaneya alias Aśoka Sena, the Lakshmaniyá of Muhammadan writers.

name.

The name Aśoka has puzzled many antiquarians. With the vivid recollection of the name as that of the great patron of Buddhism, they have found it difficult to reconcile with it the idea of a Hindu bearing the But the word simply means "griefless," and there is nothing to prevent such a name being given to a Hindu. On the contrary, Hindu mothers and guardians often use terms indicative of immunity from pain, grief and the like; and, in the case of a posthumous child which lost its mother immediately after its birth, a term implying that it would never have cause to mourn the loss of its parents, would by no means be inappropriate. With the close of Asoka Sena's reign, the sovereignty of the Hindus in the delta passed to the Muhammadans; but the exact time when this * Ante, Vol. XXXIV, p. 139. † Ante, p. 138.

happened, yet remains undetermined. When writing my paper on the Sena Rájás I accepted as a fact the opinion then prevalent, that this happened in 1203 A. D. This, however, has since been questioned. The late Mr. Blochmann, whose researches into the dark points in the Muhammadan history of India were unrivalled, came to the conclusion, that the transfer must have taken place four years earlier, or between 1198 and 1199, whereas Major Raverty, in his translation of Albiruni, removed it 590 H. 1194 A. D.,* while Mr. Thomas placed it at 599 H. 1204 A. D. Even the latest of these dates would seem to be a little too early, if we should take the statement of the author of the Sadukti-karnámṛita, who completed his work in 1205, when he described himself as a district Commissioner in the service of Lákshmaneya, to mean that his master was then reigning at Nuddea. He could not have held that position in 1205, if the kingdom had passed away to the Muhammadans five years before. But it was possible for him to describe his official rank in his work, even after he had lost it, or to refer to the king when he reigned at Sonárgáoñ after his retirement from Nuddea; for it is now well-known that he and his descendants lived at the latter place for several years after his overthrow by Bukhtiar Khiliji. Dr. Wise believes that there must have been a Ballála Sena reigning in Vikrámpur or Sonárgáon after Lakshmaníyá, and Susena and Sura Sena, whose names I once took to be aliases of Lakshmaníya, were probably those of other successors. On this point, however, there is no reliable information at hand; and as the question of date is related to Muhammadan history, I shall leave it unnoticed for the present. Turning to the ancestors of Lakshmana Sena, the first name I have to deal with is that of Ballála. The close of his reign of course took place in the year of the commencement of the reign of his son. But when it commenced, remains uncertain. The Ain i Akbari makes it begin at 1066, which would give it a duration of 41 years. The authority of Abul Fazl, however, is not great in such matters; and, as I have rejected it in the case of the Pálas, I cannot consistently accept it in the present instance. This much, however, may be unhesitatingly stated, that Ballála's reign was a long and prosperous one. He is the best known to this day of all the Sena Rájás, and the system of nobility or Kulinism which he organized, exists to this day in full force. None but a powerful sovereign, reigning with considerable eclát for a prolonged period, could have carried out the system so thoroughly as he did; and a reign of 41 years is after all not so improbable as absolutely to necessitate its rejection.

Of the predecessors of Ballála we have lapidary proofs of four names, Vijaya Sena, Hemanta Sena, Sámanta Sena, and Vira Sena, extending, at an average of 18 years, to 994 A. D., or at 20 years, which I have reluctantly * Ante XLIV, p. 277. + Ante XLIII, p. 83.

assigned to the Pálas, to 986 A. D. The last name I took to be an alias of Adisura, Vira and Sura being synonymous, and a notable instance of the use of synonyms occurs in the name of the founder of the Pála dynasty, who is at option called Go-pála, Bhú-pála or Loka-pála. In a Bengali book, entitled Sambandha-nirnaya, published two years ago, Pandit Lálamohana Vidyánidhi states that he had been informed of a tradition current in the Varendra country which makes one Bhúsura the son of Adisura, and adds that Bhúsura dying without male issue, his daughter's son Aśoka Sena succeeded him, who was followed by Sura Sena, and the latter by Vira Sena. On asking the pandit for his authority for this tradition, he told me that he had got it from a Kulajña at Murshidabad, but that he had heard it nowhere else. On so slender an authority, I cannot induce myself to accept it as a matter worthy of historical enquiry. The two names Aśoka and Sura are later names, which the Kulajña put at the beginning, evidently not knowing where else to place them. Leaving these names aside, it will be seen that the Pála and the Sena dynasties fall for some time within the same period. The one beginning in the 9th decade and the other in the 6th decade of the 10th century. It is obvious, therefore, that they could not have reigned over the whole of Bengal at the same time, nor could the Senas have followed the Pálas, as the modern Anglo-Indian historians usually make them; but there can be no doubt that both dynasties did reign in Bengal at the same time. The difficulty, however, may be easily overcome.

It has been already shown that the Pálas occupied western and northern Bengal. There is nothing, however, to show that they had extended their sway to the eastern districts. Whereas tradition assigns to the Senas the whole of the delta and the districts to the east of it. The chief seat of their power was at Vikrampur near Dháká, where the ruins of Ballála's palace are still shown to travellers. Dr. Wise, in his notice of Vikrampur, says "A remarkable evidence of this is afforded by the names of the 56 villages assigned to the descendants of the Five Bráhmans whom Adisura brought from Kanauj. All those villages were situated within the delta, and none out of it." This is of course an indirect evidence, but it is not the less significant. It may be added that none of those who dwelt out of the delta, in the northern districts, were included in the scheme of Ballála's nobility. The Várendras have since organized a system of their own, but it is not in accord with that which prevails as the system of Ballála.

The religion of the Senas was Hinduism, either of the Saiva or of the Vaishnava sect. In the Rájsbáhí stone and the Bákerganj copper-plate, Siva is the divinity invoked. In the Tarpandighi plate preference is given to Vishnu or Nárayana, and the epithet Parama-máheśvara occurs in all the three. The well-known fact of the founder of the family obtaining five Bráhmans to perform Vedic rites which, owing to the dominance of the

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