132 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [March, 1910. 



Chandra Sll of Chinsura — we get the important fact that 

 Gopichandra' s capital was at Patikanagar, and his grandfather 

 and great-grandfather were named Subarnachandra and Dha- 

 richandra respectively. From local traditions, the existence of 

 old ruins and the vicinity to Mayanamatir kot, Patkapara can 

 unquestionably lay claim to identity with Patikanagar, the 

 capital of Gopichandra. 



Dr. Buchanan Hamilton has told us, apparently on the 

 authority of the Jugis whom he might have come across and 

 possibly misunderstood, that Dharmapal was Manikchandra's 

 brother and had a fight with MayanamatI after his death over 

 the throne which he usurped. Dharmapal undoubtedly belonged 

 to the great Pal dynasty of Bengal, and if his alleged relation- 

 ship to Manikchandra can be established, Manikchandra and 

 Gopichandra must also be held to have belonged to that dyn- 

 asty. By sifting enquiries amongst the Jugis, however, I have 

 been unable to find any trace of a tradition lending the least 

 support to the theory of this relationship. On the other hand, 

 I have come across a ballad composed some 40 or 50 years ago 

 by a Jugi, since dead, which makes Manikchandra the grand- 

 son of Dharmapal. While I am ready to concede that the gene- 

 alogy given in this newly-discovered ballad is devoid of any 

 historical value, it demolishes the theory of a "universal" 

 tradition amongst the Jugis ascribing a common parentage to 

 Manikchandra and Dharmapal. If not a constructive, it has 

 certainly a destructive value. 



There are, in fact, no data for even a bare supposition that 

 Manikchandra and Dharmapal were contemporaries or that the 

 former belonged to the Pal dynasty. It is difficult to under- 

 stand either how Buchanan gathered the story of a fight between 

 MayanamatI and Dharmapal. Every Jugi questioned by me has 

 expressed surprise at my mention of the alleged tradition, and 

 the long tale of Mayanamati's achievements after her husband's 

 death told in the great epic of the Jugis is significantly silent 

 on the point. She fought with the infernal spirits that carried 

 away her husband from the land of the living, she put the 

 mighty deities of the Hindu Pantheon to various indignities, 

 she worked numerous miracles and passed through unspeakably 

 difficult ordeals to inspire her young and handsome son with 

 confidence in the Jugi doctrine, but there is no mention of her 

 rivalry with an earthly antagonist of the type of Dharmapal. 

 We get from the ballads extant that she was the daughter of 

 Tilakchand (sometimes called king Tilakchand), that she was 

 sent to school at an early age, that she became the disciple of 

 Gorakhnath when that great sage paid a visit to her father's 

 domains and that this initiation was the secret of her extra- 

 ordinary powers. The epic tells us also that after her marriage 

 Manikchandra took a number of other wives, and as Mayana ad- 

 vanced in years and did not agree well with the younger queens, 



