604 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [December, 1910 



king of Sinhapura : he was the father of Panduvasadeva who 

 succeeded Bijaya on the throne of Sinhala. 



The town of Sinhapura mentioned in the Mahawanso is 

 evidently the present village of Singur, which is a station on 

 the Tarakeswar Branch of the East Indian Railway and ten 

 miles from Tarakeswara in the district of Hughli. Singur is 

 situated in Rada, and the tradition of its foundation accords 

 well with the story in the Mahawanso, though it has come 

 down to us in a garbled form. It is stated that at the time of 

 the Magadha Raja (king), three brothers came to that part of 

 the country where Singur is now situated, but it is not 

 mentioned from which country they came. These three brothers 

 belonged to the Kshatriya caste and their surname was Sinha. 

 That part of the country was at the time a wilderness. One 

 of the brothers cleared the jungle and founded a settlement 

 which he named Sinhapura (pronounced Singhapura) according 

 to his own surname of Sinha. The other two brothers went 

 away to seek their fortune elsewhere. According to the tradi- 

 tion Babubheri is a very ancient spot at Singur containing the 

 remains of some ancient buildings and an earthen mound now 

 overgrown with jungle. From time to time Jaina and Bud- 

 dhist statues have been exhumed from the earth, and some of 

 them still exist in the village. Traditionally Singur in ancient 

 time was of considerable size, having comprised some ten 

 villages. It was a very flourishing commercial town when the 

 Saraswati used to flow by its eastern side. The old bed of the 

 river is still visible, though a large portion of it has now been 

 converted into culturable lands. It should only be remarked 

 that the three brothers of the tradition evidently refer to Suppa 

 Devi and her two children. General Cunningham, however, 

 supposes that Sinhapura, the capital of Sinhabahu, the father 

 of Bijaya, is the town of that name situated 115 miles to the 

 west of Ganjam and was the capital of Kalinga. 1 But he has 

 been led to make this conjecture as the town is situated on the 

 river Lalgla and Suppa Devi's mother was a princess of 

 Kalinga, whereas Sinhapura of the Mahawanso was situated in 

 the country of Lala (" Lala-ratthe ")* or Lada 8 which is 

 another form of Rada, the letters r and I being interchange- 

 able. It should also be borne in mind that the princess Suppa 

 Devi was carried away by the lion at Lala while she was pro- 

 ceeding from Banga to Magadha (modern Bihar), and therefore 

 Lala must have been situated between Banga and Magadha, 

 and not in Kalinga. The identification of Lala or Lata, the 



l General Cunningham's Ancient Geography of India, p. 518. 

 * Tumour' s Mahawanso, ch- vi. 



8 Upham'a Mahavansi, vi ; Ra-jaratnacari, ii ; Rajavali, pt. i, 

 have got Lada instead of Lala. Mr. Upham in his note to the word 



says: • Properly Ratfa, a country near Gauda-desa " : Sacred Books of 

 C pylon. 



