Vol. X, No. 3.] A Forgotten Kingdom of East Behqal. 89 



[N.S.\ 



(2) Bharudeva son of Kushumadeva Lord of Karrnrnanta 



made the Lord Nartteswara on the four- 



teenth day of Ashadhara All the letters engraved by 

 Ratoka. Sculptured by Madhusudana ' 



In all probability the inscription had a date but the 

 inscribed portion in the beginning of the third section has been 

 broken away and lost, and some letters in the beginning of each 

 line have been rendered illegible by the peeling off of stone. 

 In spite of that the date might have been ascertained by 

 astronomical calculation from the data available in the inscrip- 

 tion. The question would be:— In what year did the dark 

 Chaturdashi Tithi, the Pushya Nakshatra, Thursday and the 

 fourteenth of Ashadha come together. We referred the ques- 

 tion to eminent astronomers like Babu Jogesh Chandra Ray, 

 M.A., of Cuttack and Babu Rajkumar Sen, MA. late 

 Irofessor of Dacca College, but they both assure us that 

 the coincidence of Chaturdashi Tithi and Pushya Nakshatra is 

 impossible. 1 am at a loss to account for this dilemma. On 

 paleographical grounds the inscription cannot be put earlier 

 than the tenth century a.d 



It will be seen from the inscription that the kings of 

 Karmmanta had sunk to a very low position. The absence of 

 any royal titles shows that they were mere local chiefs by this 

 time and King Kushumadeva acknowledged the over-lordship 

 or certain Layahachandradeva. 



Up to this time we know of only two Chandra dynasties 

 who might have acquired over-lordship over Karmmanta. 

 Ihese are the Chandra dynasty of Vikrampur and the Chandra 

 dynasty of Arrac 



We came to know of the Chandra dynasty of Vikrampur 

 only the other day. 2 Mr. Rankin has published in the Dacca 

 Review of October, 1912, a note on the Idilpur plate of King 

 1 ^ ar l~ ra ' vy hich was communicated to him some years ago by 

 late Gangamohan Lashkara, M.A. Nothing can be said about 

 Jt definitely until the publication of this plate in full with 

 facsimile, but it is apparent from Gangamohan Babu's brief 

 observations that King Chandra was a Buddhist king and that 

 Jjhe characters of the plate are of the twelfth century type, 

 nree Chandra Kings of Vikramapur are known from this 

 P'ate. Namely, Subarna, Trailokya and Chandra, and there is 

 no Lay aha among them. We must look to Arracan for this 

 ^ayahachand 



an 



ra. 



, Ratoka was the engraver who engraved " all tiie letters. Mad ha - 

 uaana therefore, must have been the sculptor. We are glad to learn 

 . 2 P man and Bitapal of Barendri had their rivals in East Bengal, 

 h u ecen ^7 a copperplate grant of Srichandradeva of Bikrampus 



, ** be f 9n published by Prof. R, G. Basak, M.A., in the Bengali Magazine 

 fchahitya." 



