1851.] Notes on the " Mahdpurushyas." 461 



Sankar occurred at K\\ Pdkeri, a village of central Asam, in the 

 year of "Sakadit" 1385, corresponding with A. D. 1464, and departed 

 this life or returned to heaven from Bhela, in Cooch-Behar, in Saka 

 1490, or A. D. 1569 ; and Madhab first appeared in the family of one 

 Hari Collita in Saka 1433, or A. D. 1512, and died A. D. 1597. 

 They were thus contemporaries of " Sri Chaitanya," who is adored as 

 an incarnation of Krishna, and venerated as the founder of their reli- 

 gion by most of the Vaishnavas of Bengal, and from the similarity of 

 the doctrines inculcated as well as from a tradition to that effect it 

 may be inferred that the Asamese sectarian was indebted, directly 

 or indirectly, to his illustrious contemporary for the system of religion 

 he introduced. Chaitanya,* of whose career the accounts handed 

 down to us are perhaps more to be depended on, was born at Sylhet 

 in A. D. 1485, and died, or was last seen, at Jagannath in A. D. 

 1527. The Asamese all admit the interview between him and San- 

 kar, but the sect of whom I am treating do not wish it to be supposed 

 that either of their founders was under any obligations to the Bengal 

 Saint. 



The Lila Charitra already referred to as the received account of 

 the life of the two Mahapurushyas, is in verse, and dates are excluded 

 as too matter-of-fact for a poetical effusion. According to this poem 

 Sankar' s reputed father, named Cusim, was one of the chiefs of the 

 country called " Bhuyas," These chiefs have often had the govern- 

 ment of Asam, or of parts of Asam, absolutely in their hands, and the 

 periods of their power are referred to as the times of the " baruh 

 bhuyas," but though they are honourably distinguished as the days 

 in which many important works, tanks, roads, embankments, and the 

 like were executed, their authority as rulers appears to have been 

 always either a provisional or a usurped one, and the expression 

 "baruh bhuyas' rule" is now used to signify a period of anarchy. 



Sankar' s father was a " Sudra" of the caste little known except in 

 Asam, called " Collita." The education of his son he entrusted to a 

 learned Brahman and the only marvels related of his childhood are his 

 extraordinary aptitude for learning and intense application night and 

 day to his studies without rest. 



* Ward's Hindus, Vol. 2nd, page 173, As. Soc. Res. Vol. xvi. p. 110. 



