1865.] On the Sena Rijas of Bengal. 129 
the first transition stage of the Kutila in its passage to the modern 
Bengali. Mr. Metcalfe found considerable difficulty in getting the 
record decyphered, owing to modern pandits not being familiar with 
its style of writing, but I have carefully compared his transcript with 
the original and satisfied myself that his reading is perfectly correct. 
The language of the inscription is pure Sanskrit, but its style is 
highly inflated and hyperbolical. Umapati Mis’ra, the author of it, is 
never satisfied with an ordinary comparison. If he has to describe a 
high temple, he cannot stop without making its pinnacle stand as 
an obstruction to the course of the sun. His kings must upbraid the 
heroes of the Ramdyana and the Mahabharata as vain boasters and 
insignificant upstarts, and his war-boats, even when stranded on a 
sand-bank in the Ganges, must eclipse the glory of the moon. This 
style, common enough in oriental writing, was particularly remarkable 
in Northern India in the 9th, 10th and the 11th centuries of the 
Christian era. Whether at Gour or Benares or Kanauj or Oujein or 
Mathura, this straining after bombast was so universal, that no one 
familiar with the monumental literature of the period, can mistake it 
for a moment, and it may therefore be taken as characteristic of the 
time. I have myself met with it so often, that had I no other guide to 
ascertain the age of the record under notice, I would have taken its 
style to be a conclusive proof of its being of the 10th or 11th century. 
The subject of the record is, the dedication of a temple which is 
‘described to have “extended to all directions in space, and vied in 
loftiness with the Mount Meru round which the sun, moon and the 
‘stars run their course.” Its pinnacle of gold, which was shaped like a 
water-jar, was equal 1o the Meru in weight. Its locality was the 
nargin of the tank where the inscription was found. Judging from the 
insignificant remains now traceable in that locality, I believe the edifice 
yas by no means a very extraordinary one. Its presiding deity was 
radyumnesvara or S’iva as the destroyer of Cupid, a form in which 
he is not often worshipped by his votaries in Bengal. This divi- 
“nity, who is generally represented as a vagrant mendicant, is said to 
| have exchanged, by the favour of the dedicator of the temple, his tiger 
skin toga for silken dresses, his serpent neck-chains for garlands of 
jewels, his ashes for sandal wood powder, his rosary for pearls, and his 
( 












human bone ornaments for precious gems. 
