1864.] On a Land Grant of Malendrapdla Deva of Kanauj. 327 



born and brought up in Kanauj, and as a court poet of that kingdom he 

 could well pride himself on the favours he received from his sove- 

 reign. He came then to Grauda and, to propitiate his new master, 

 thought proper to strike his lyre in praise of his family. In Bengal 

 he must have seen the sea, for it is on record that the five Brahmans 

 came to Gangasagara, and that offered to him a novel and majes- 

 tic theme for his descriptive powers, while to display his versatility 

 he took up the philosophical treatise Khandana Khanda, which is com- 

 mon enough in Bengal but is scarcely known in Kashmir. This 

 assumption, however, probable as it may appear, is, it must be admitted, 

 founded entirely upon presumptive evidence, and must await future 

 more satisfactory research for confirmation. At present it is opposed 

 to the opinions of the late Professor Wilson and of Dr. F, E. Hall. 



With regard to Sahasanka I have little to say beyond what is al- 

 ready known to Indian antiquarians. There were evidently two 

 princes of that name in Kanauj, one a predecessor of Harshavardhana 

 in the 6th century and the other a distant successor in the 10th, 

 probably a contemporary of the author of the Naishada who is said to 

 have recorded his biography, although that work is not now extant, 

 and it is impossible to say to whom it referred. Its name, which is 

 all that is left to us, is remarkable ; it is NavasdhasanJca charita which 

 may mean " a new biography of Sahasanka/' in contradistinction to 

 an old one ; or " a biography of the new Sahasanka," to distinguish the 

 hero of the work from a former potentate of the same name who rivalled 

 him in glory, or, as suggested by Professor Hall, " the biography 

 of the nine Sahasankas," who, like the nine Nan das of Pataliputra, 

 reigned successively in Kanauj. If the last be the correct inter- 

 pretation we shall find in the eight princes of the Benares plate 

 with a hypothetical descendant of the last of the series, just the neces- 

 sary number for our purpose. In the absence, however, of the origi- 

 nal work such speculation cannot lead to any satisfactory result. 



Transcript of a copper-plate grant from Dighwa in Ohhuprah. 



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