1865.] On the Sena Bdjds of Bengal 129 



the first transition stage of the Kutila in its passage to the modern 

 Bengali. Mr. Metcalfe found considerable difficulty in getting the 

 record decyphered, owing to modern pandits not being familiar with 

 its style of writing, but I have carefully compared his transcript with 

 the original and satisfied myself that his reading is perfectly correct. 



The language of the inscription is pure Sanskrit, but its style is 

 highly inflated and hyperbolical. Umapati Mis'ra, the author of it, is 

 never satisfied with an ordinary comparison. If he has to describe a 

 high temple, he cannot stop without making its pinnacle stand as 

 an obstruction to the course of the sun. His kings must upbraid the 

 heroes of the Bd may ana and the Mahdbhdrata as vain boasters and 

 insignificant upstarts, and his war-boats, even when stranded on a 

 sand-bank in the Granges, must eclipse the glory of the moon. This 

 style, common enough in oriental writing, was particularly remarkable 

 in Northern India in the 9th, 10th and the 11th centuries of the 

 Christian era. Whether at Grour or Benares or Kanauj or Oujein or 

 Mathura, this straining after bombast was so universal, that no one 

 familiar with the monumental literature of the period, can mistake it 

 for a moment, and it may therefore be taken as characteristic of the 

 time. I have myself met with it so often, that had I no other guide to 

 ascertain the age of the record under notice, I would have taken its 

 style to be a conclusive proof of its being of the 10th or 11th century. 

 The subject of the record is, the dedication of a temple which is 

 described to have " extended to all directions in space, and vied in 

 loftiness with the Mount Meru round which the sun, moon and the 

 stars run their course." Its pinnacle of gold, which was shaped like a 

 water-jar, was equal to the Meru in weight. Its locality was the 

 margin of the tank where the inscription was found. Judging from the 

 insignificant remains now traceable in that locality, I believe the edifice 

 was by no means a very extraordinary one. Its presiding deity was 

 Pradyumnesvara or S'iva as the destroyer of Cupid, a form in which 

 he is not often worshipped by his votaries in Bengal. This divi- 

 nity, who is generally represented as a vagrant mendicant, is said to 

 have exchanged, by the favour of the dedicator of the temple, his tiger 

 skin toga for silken dresses, his serpent neck-chains for garlands of 

 jewels, his ashes for sandal wood powder, his rosary for pearls, and his 

 human bone ornaments for precious gems. 



