128 On the Sena Rajas of Bengal. [No. 3, 



On the Sena Rajas of Bengal as commemorated in an Inscription from 

 Rajshdhi, decyphered and translated by C. T. Metcalfe, Esq., 

 C. S. — By Baku Rajendralala Mitra. 



[Eeceived 5th July, 1865. Read 5th July, 1865.] 



Subjoined are the text and translation of a Sanskrit inscription of 

 some interest lately found in a part of Rajshahi called the " Burrin," 

 close by the village of Deoparah, Thannah Grodagari. Mr. C. T. Met- 

 calfe, to whom the Society is indebted for the original and the transla- 

 tion, gives the following account of the place where the monument 

 was found. " The tank where I found it," he says, " is some 40 

 miles from Goa (Grour ?) ; hut it stands on the bank of a river which 

 was the old Pudda bed, and which river now flows 6 miles to the 

 south, before Ranipur Rauleah. The locality is evidently the site of 

 some temple, and the stone records, I should say the inscription, the 

 praises of the founder. While making some further examinations 



1 came to the top of a series of black stone-steps leading underground ; 

 one monster stone was 1 yard in thickness. In the tank itself are 



2 slabs which can be felt with a bamboo and which, a hoary-headed 

 old man says, were above ground when he was a cholera (boy) and kept 

 the village cattle, i. e. some 60 years ago." The place was of some 

 distinction, even during the Mahomedan period, for there still stands 

 a magnificent masjid about 650 years old. Mr. Metcalfe describes it 

 as " built entirely of stone without a bit of mortar, and put together 

 like a child's toy-house, the stones fitting the one into the other. 

 The carving on it is beautiful." 



The stone slab upon which the inscription is recorded, was found in 

 a dense jungle apparently away from its original position, but amidst 

 a number of large blocks of stone half buried under the earth. It 

 measures 3 ft. 2 inches by 1 ft. 9f . Its material is basalt carefully 

 polished on the upper surface. 



The letters of the inscription are of the Tirhoot or Grour type, simi- 

 lar to that of the Bakerganj plate of Kesava Sena, decyphered by 

 James Prinsep. Bengali MSS. three centuries old, are written in 

 very much the same characters, and the facsimile of the Yajnadatta- 

 badha published by Chezy, bears some resemblance to it. It is in fact 



