1875.] E. V. Westmaeott — A Copperplate grant by LaJcshnan Sen. 7 



troops'. The A'mgachhi plate lias the same expression, so has the Baman- 

 ghati plate (p. 166, Pt. I, J. A. S. B., 1871). 



The Keshab Sen plate speaks to the Chatta BJiattajatiydn, where it 

 might perhaps he Chanda Bhancla, as the transcript is not clear ; Chatta 

 BJiatta prabesli, as here, and a third time, where it is illegible in the tran- 

 script. A plate from the Sioni District, Narbada territories, at p. 729, 

 Yol. V., Journ. A. S. B., has abliatta clichhatra prabesk, as read by Mr. 

 Prinsep's pandit. I cannot read the character of that grant, and so am 

 nnable to pronounce it the expression I am looking for, but it is probably 

 the same. 



The expression Pawidra-Varddhana appears to me to have much his- 

 torical significance. The Paundra are, I believe, mentioned in Manu as a 

 degraded race, that is to say, as I understand it, a race whose importance 

 did not compel the Brahmans to give it a high rank in the caste system, as 

 they did to the Kshatriya. Of the Varddhana I do not remember to have 

 met with any mention as a tribe or caste, but it occurs as part of the name 

 of each king of one of the dynasties of Kashmir, and I think I 

 have met with it elsewhere as part of personal names. The compound 

 Paundra-Yarddhana is the Sanskrit form to which Mr. Stanislaus 

 Julien has reduced the Chinese name by which the pilgrim Hiouen 

 Thsang calls an Indian kingdom which he visited in the seventh century of 

 the Christian era. The position of this kingdom has been settled by Mr. 

 Jas. Fergusson, in a paper published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic 

 Society, November 1872. The pilgrim followed the course of the Ganges 

 to some place near Bajmahal. The Ganges has shifted so much, that it is 

 quite impossible to identify this place, but I am very much inclined to look 

 for it near old Gaur. The appearance of the country leads me to suppose 

 that at some time previous to the Muhammadan conquest, the main stream 

 of the river, instead of turning southward where it now does, ran east along 

 the present Kalinchi as far as Maldah, and then turned south, along the 

 Mahananda, running eastward of Gaur. 



The direction in which Hiouen Thsang was travelling was eastward, 

 and after following the course of the river as far as it took that direction, 

 he would naturally cross it and turn his back upon it as soon as it turned 

 to the southward. The only difficulty is to ascertain the point where the 

 river changed its direction. After crossing the river, the Chinaman went 

 600 li, or from 100 to 120 miles, eastward, and found himself in the king- 

 dom of Paundra- Var ddliana. Mr. Fergusson quotes from a paper in the 

 Oriental Quarterly Magazine, 1824, an account of Pundra Desa, abstracted 

 from the Brahmananda section of the Bliavishyat Purana, from which it 

 appears that the chief towns of the Nivritti division of Pundra Desa, com- 

 prising Dinajpur, llangpur, and Koch Bihar, were Verddhana Kuta, Kadi- 



