8. A Forgotten Kingdom of East Bengal. 



By Nalini Kanta Bhattasali, M.A. 

 Communicated by Sir Asutosh Mookerjee, Kt 



[With Plate VIII.] 



It is 



coppe 



plate inscriptions of a Buddhist king named Deva Khadga, 

 with a small bronze chaitya, were unearthed at Asrafpur,— a 

 small village some miles north-east of Dacca. One of the plates 

 was somewhat damaged at the edges, but the other plate was 

 in a perfect state of preservation. Dr. Rajendra Lai Mitra 

 published a reading of the first plate on pages 49-52 of the 

 Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal for 1885. Short 

 notices of the second plate and the chaitya were published it 



/ 



, - , , ^. -*- c„v* «.«*, ?. »«. A photo- 



?Si 'n° ° f the cIlait ^ a was published with the notice of 

 »yj. Jhe only serious attempt of publishing a correct 

 reading of the plates up to this time has been that of late 

 uaoga Mohan Lashkar, M.A., who in 1904 read a paper on 

 tne plates in the Asiatic Society of Bengal. But neither his 

 c rwcie nor those of his predecessors contain any attempt of 

 determining the historical importance of the plates, or of 

 uentiiying the city of Karmmanta from which the plates 

 were i^ued. Though Khadga dynasty was undoubtedly a 



erves 



tO wl I *f 1 '"' "' oa - ""CU'lCl IV UCSCIVKS LUC UW11V1UI1 



for TV been consi g ned - La s fc year, while searching 



fon, ill t i° f anti q uari an interest in and near the town of 

 umina, i chanced upon an inscribed image of Nataraj Shiva 

 tnLZ- exan ] inin S th « inscription I found that it was an 

 Katmm «. °/ a king 0f Karmmanta,-no doubt the same 

 Dlar^n u? which the ^rafpur plates were issued. The 



hetL , ch the ima 8 e was found is sti11 called Kamta. It 



me I! 016 l 7 e miIes west of the town of Comilla. Impos- 

 amJrTn ancient buildings, temples and forts, large tanks 

 iaLaW ? ^ VeraI h "udred years old and innumerable stone 



of Buddhist and Shaiva gods and goddesses testifv 

 citx7^* C ^? SpiCUOUs1 ^ to the antiquity and past greatness of the 



w mmanta- 



rule? R n did the Khad g a dynasty of Karmmanta begin to 

 dvnl tar dkI their swa y ex tend? How and when did the 



shall t ° 0me t0 a cIose ? These are the questions which we 

 hands t0 anSWer in the h ^ ht of the new materials in our 



»p | ' Las bkar in his article on the Asrafpur plates says— 

 aieographic considerations would lead us to place these 



