694 Sanscrit Inscription on the Slab removed from [Sept. 



Vira Mitra Sen, the last, succeeded his brother, and is stated to 

 have conquered from Sher Khan the fortress oiRohitaswa, — to the great 

 astonishment of the Emperor of Delhi. He rebuilt it, and it became 

 known by his name. He erected in it a row of lofty temples, in which 

 he located Siva under the name of Mitreswara, and he also in 1688 

 Sumbut, or 1631 a. d., built a palace and a Mundira in which he 

 located Durga, and it was by his order that the Poet Siva Deva of 

 Maithila (celebrated at the Court of Delhi) composed, in honor of his 

 illustrious family, the verses which were found engraved over the 

 Kothoutiya gate. This is named from the neck of rock which joins the 

 hill to the table land. Buchanan mentions this inscription,* but 

 evidently was not acquainted with its contents. He describes it 

 as confirming the facts obtained from the Persian inscription, and as 

 contemporary with it. But in reality there is no mention of the Viceroy 

 Man Singh, and the date 1654 Sumbut, quoted by Buchanan, seems 

 to have been obtained by the addition of 57 to 1597, the Christian year 

 which corresponds with 1 005, h. je. in the Sanscrit inscription the figures 

 1688 are very distinct, and this year also results from the conventional 

 numeral words used, " vasu dwana shat chandra." 



The bold assertion that Vir Mitra took the fort from the formid- 

 able Sher Khan is not justified by history ; and if we assume on 

 the evidence of the stone, as we perhaps may, that Vir Mitra 

 was living in 1631 a. d. it is impossible that he could have been 

 opposed in war to the celebrated Pathan emperor who died in 

 1540. We are left then to surmise that Vir Mitra Sen may have 

 been a native chieftain of that part of Behar, and perhaps entrusted 

 by the Mohammedan ruler with the charge of the fort. The invention 

 and adulation of the poet has supplied the rest. 



Though the slab should be thus convicted of error and exaggeration, 

 there may still be some historical facts pointed at. In the 7th 

 verse the grandfather of Vir Mitra' s great-grandfather is repre- 

 sented to have sustained the king of Yavanapura (Jionpoor), — the 

 king of the easl t against the emperor of Delhi. The dominion of the 

 Jionpoor Muslim kings extended to Behar. Allusion is probably 

 made to the emperor Beloli, and Hosen Shah the king of the East. 

 After a long struggle the latter was in 1478, driven to seek shelter with 

 Allahudden the ruler of Bengal. It may be observed that the 

 Hindus applied the term Yavana to denote their Afghan invaders, 

 though this term properly belongs to the Greek or Ionian. We have in 



* Buchanan, vol. iii. p. 432. 



