18G5.] On the Sena Rdjds of Bengal. 141 



obscure origin have their veins filled with the blue blood of genera- 

 tions of kings by the opportune help of popular genealogists, and 

 we feel strongly tempted to believe that the pedigree of the so- 

 called Ballaia's descendants is no better. The Kulapanjikd of Kula- 

 charya Thakura describes A'dis'ura as the " sun of the Kshatriyarace." 

 (Kshatriya vansa hansa) ; the Bakerganj and the Rajshahi inscrip- 

 tions agree in calling the Senas, the descendants of the moon or 

 Kshatriyas of the lunar race (Somavaiisa) ; the latter describes Samanta 

 Sena as " a garland for the head of the race of noble Kshatriyas" — 

 brahma kshatriydndm hulos'iro ddma ; and their testimony cannot 

 be rejected in favour of modern tradition. Nor is it difficult to 

 account for the mistake which has given rise to that tradition. There 

 lived in former days in the North- West a race of Kshatriyas of the name 

 of Anibastha. The Vishnu Purana alludes to them when enumerating 

 the several races of the North- West Provinces, (*T5[T TTTT^^l^B'T: TT- 

 Tfa^T^J^TSJT'* ) and Panini quotes Anibastha as an example of the 

 same word meaning a Kshatriya race and a country where they live 

 (Panini IV, 1, 171.) The Mahabharata uses the word both as the 

 name of a race of Kshatriyas, and that of a Kshatriya king, and the 

 Medini, the Viswaprakas'a and the Sabdaratnakara explain it as the 

 name of a country.* It is very likely that the Senas belonged to this 

 section of the military class, and in Bengal, in later days, was confounded 

 with the Anibasthas of Manu who were a mixed tribe of Brahmans and 

 Vaisyas, and therefore taken to be of the medical caste. Such con- 

 founding of names and their meanings has been so common in India, 

 that one need not be at all surprised at finding the Senas degraded from 

 a military to a mixed caste, from a misapprehension of the meaning of 

 their name. Abul Fazel in the A'yin Akbary and Pere Tieffenthaler 

 make the Senas to belong to the Kdyastha caste, and this may be explain- 

 ed by the fact that the Kayasthas in the North- West are even to this day 

 called by the name of Anibasthas. If this be not accepted, tradition shall 

 have to be opposed to authentic inscription. James Prinsep noticed in 

 the Bakerganj plate the title of S'ankara Gaudes'wara which, written as 

 the word s' ankara is with a palatal s, can only mean " the excellent lord 

 of Gauda," unless ?{%-T. " excellent" be taken as a euphuism of sankara, a 

 mixed race. There is a temple at Kashmir known by the name of San- 

 * Goklstucker'a Sanskrit Dictionaiy, voce Ambastha. 



