208 Major Tod, on an Inscription at Madhucarghar. 



So extensive was the Prdmdra sway, that the couplet, or " D6hd," in 

 the Doric dialect of these parts, " Pirthi ! tain na Powar ka," " Earth, 

 thou art the Powdr's," has little of the hyperbole, when restricted to the 

 Indian world : and, though we cannot see the link of succession, it seems 

 to have been the first tribe that succeeded to the extensive power which 

 the Yddavas had so long maintained before them. 



There are more ramifications (Sdc' fids') of the Prdmdra, than of any of 

 the " Ch'hetis Rdja-cula," or thirty-six royal races, excepting the Ch'hepan 

 cMa Yddava, or fifty-six tribes of tlie Yddavas, celebrated in the Sacred 

 Books. The Prdmdras enumerate no less than thirty-six. 



On an inscription, in my possession, of the Grahildte race, the eulogist 

 does not limit their number ; and says, in the usual figurative style, 

 " Apramdna idc'/id" " of innumerable ramifications ;" though the Grahilotes 

 are in fact limited to twenty-four. 



The names of all the thirty-six Prdmdra tribes are not now to be col- 

 lected. About one third may be given with tolerable certainty of being 

 accurate ; but only the names. They are few in numbers, and without 

 power ; and, but for the itinerant bard and genealogist, would cease to 

 know themselves. 



Many now extinct, or not known under their ancient appellations, arc 

 traced in books and inscriptions. By these I have rescued a few once 

 celebrated names and tribes, which, I may say, had else perislied : amongst 

 others, that of Ldr, a once powerful tribe, and said, by the only living 

 bard I ever knew, who was acquainted with it, to be of Prdmdra stock. 



The Cumdra-pdla-charitra (which I this day present to the Society) men- 

 tions the celebrated Jaya-sinha of Pattana " having extirpated the remnant 

 of the race of Ldr," from the peninsula of Saiirdslitra, in which it was 

 formerly ail powerful. Doubtless this tribe furnished Ptolemy with the 

 name, which he gives in his geography, of this peninsula, " Larike ;" 

 and he places a Byzantium near the very spot, the ancient BallabM 

 (which I had the good fortune to discover), the capital of the Ballabhi-rdts, 

 and the origin of their title. Their capital was afterwards transferred to 

 " Nehrwdla ;" which that great geographer, D'Anville, had " fort a coeur 

 de retrouver," and which I had the happiness to find still as a suburb to 

 Pattana Anurwdra ; evidently the corruption of the original name, Anala- 

 vdt'a ; and which Abul Fazil had discovered in Akber's reign. 



