Vol. IX, No. 10.] The Twelve Bhuiyas of Bengal. 449 
[N.8.] 
may suppose that these twelve sub-kings were also among those 
**on the crowns of whose heads the soles of his feet always 
rested.’’ : 
Again, Father Monserrate (1581-82) speaks of Rana Partab 
‘“cui duodecim reguli parebant.’’ May we 
not also compare with this a sentence in Friar Jordanus’ 
Mirabilia descripta: ‘‘In this Greater India are twelve idola- 
trous Kings, and more’’? Of. Yuin, The Wonders of the East, 
Hakluyt edn., 1863, p. 39. 
‘*In Malabar,’’ writes Ibn Batuta, ‘‘ there are twelve 
idolatrous Sultans, among whom some are powerful, with 
armies amounting to fifty thousand men; some weak, their 
army consisting only of three thousand men.’’ Cf. C. 
Derrémery and B. R. Sanaurnett1, Voyages d’ Ibn Batuta, 
Paris, 1858, IV, 75.! 
Singh of Udaipir, 
probably under the Hindi Rajas of Gaur. In view also of the 
fact that the dignity still flourished in Arakan in 1631, we do 
not think that the number fwelve was merely conventional, or 
that in the minds of the people all dignitaries next to a Raja 
belonged to the Council of Twelve. (Yuu, Op. cit., p. 39 n. 2; 
Garr, Op. cit , p. 37.) Yet, if the title was not hereditary, but 
bestowed at will by a suzerain on the occasion of his accession 
term. The term Bhiiya has now fallen from its high estate in 
Eastern Bengal, and has become a com appellative. 
(J.A.S.B., 1874, p. 198.) The same has happened to the term 
Ra 
Island of Formosa] there is a kind of Senate, consisting of twelve persons, 
which are changed every two years.’’ The pa 
