JOURNAL 



OF THE 



ASIATIC SOCIETY. 



Part I.— HISTORY, LITERATURE, &e. 

 No. I.— 1875. 



A Copper Plate containing a grant of land by Lahsliman Sen of Bengal, 



found near Torpon-dighi in the District of Dmdjpur, 1S74. — 



By E. Vesey Westmacott, C. S. 



(With two plates.) 



Among the works undertaken to employ the people in Dinajpur during 

 the scarcity of 1873-4 was the deepening of a small tank to the north of 

 the one called Torpon-dighi, or ' the tank of offerings,' six or seven miles 

 S. S. E. of the ancient Muhammadan capital of Debkot, and the Hindu 

 remains called the city of Ban Raja. Two miles to the eastward is a mauza', 

 called Baneshwarbati, and Doctor Buchanan, in his account of Dinajpur,* 

 mentions the traditions connecting this neighbourhood with the mythical 

 Ban Raja. 



Erom the mud at the bottom of this small tank was dug a copper 

 plate, thirteen inches long by eleven and a half wide, engraved on both sides 

 with a grant of land made to a Brahman by Lakshman Sen, a prince of the 

 Hindu dynasty which Muhammad Bakhtyar Khilji found on the throne 

 of Bengal, when he carried the Muhammadan arms into that province, 

 A. D. 1203. 



At the top of the plate is affixed a circular relief, nearly three inches 

 across, in copper, representing a ten-armed god, very similar to that litho- 

 graphed by Mr. James Prinsep as at the head of a plate containing a 

 record of a grant made by Keshab Sen, son of Lakshman Sen, found in par- 

 ganah Edilpur, zila' Bacurganj.f 



The character approaches more nearly to that of the Keshab Sen plate, 

 so far as I can judge of the latter from Mr. Prinsep's lithograph of a some- 

 what imperfect impression, than to that of any other plate which I have 



* Page 660, Vol. ii, Martin's Eastern India, 

 t Page 40, Vol. vii, Journal, As. Soc. Bengal. 

 A 



