544 Analysis of the Bengali Poem Raj Mala, [No. 7. 



The historical basis of this myth is probably that the Tripura troops 

 adopted the same practice as was employed by the Dutch against the 

 Spaniards at the siege of Leyden, viz. breaking down embankments so 

 that the hemmed in waters might sweep away the enemy. The 

 enemy fled, when Hyten Khan arrived at the fort of Sogoria he 

 declared, putting his hand on his head, that he who would conquer 

 Tripura ought to bring with him double the troops he had, he was de- 

 graded on his return to Gaur. 



Sxi Dharma having returned to his capital Rangamati, worshipped 

 the fourteen gods with great pomp, and directed that human sacrifices 

 should be oifered only triennially, in ancient times one thousand used 

 to be sacrificed every year. He introduced musical teachers from 

 Tirhut* and the Tripura people, soon became proficients in a know- 

 ledge of song. He made an image of Bhubaneswari of gold, weigh- 

 ing a maund, he placed cotton in her nostrils so that at the puja 

 time when the Prdna Pratishtd ceremony is performed, her breath 

 might blow it away, the people all cried out that a miracle had been 

 performed, though a pipe perforating the body and in contact with the 

 mouth of a priest accounts for the whole, we have many instances of 

 similar tricks in Europe in the middle ages.f The Raja was a great 



* Tirhut, the ancient Mithila which gave a wife to Rama, seems in former days to 

 have been a point d' appui for the Brahmans in the progress of their influence from 

 North to South : Nadiya derived its learning from Mithila pandits, and the far 

 famed Kamrup in Asam, the Paphian residence, received a colony of Brahmans 

 from Mithila 1 , who effected the work of proselytism so effectually that " the priests 

 maintained an authority, more exalted, more extensive than they had been able to 

 engross in any other part of India." The temple of Kamakhya near Gauhati is 

 frequented by pilgrims from all parts of India, and is the only temple in those parts 

 which boasts of its Deva Ddsi or temple women ; it contains, it is said, 5,000 of these. 



Though Brahmanism spread itself in India chiefly by missionary colonies and 

 conquest, yet proselytism was resorted to largely as the histories both of Asam 

 and Tripura show, it seems in its course from the North to have taken as successive 

 centres of action, Kashmir, Aude, Tirhut and Nadiya. 



f Much injury has been done to the cause of truth by ignorant assertions, such as 

 that the Hindus regard the pieces of stone or clay that they worship to be gods, this 

 is confuted by the fact that the Prdna Pratisthd or infusion of divinity into an idol is 

 a ceremony without which no sanctity is attributed to it, as may be seen at the time 

 of the Durga. Puja aud other Pujas when the idols are flung into the river after the 



