1867.] The Initial Coinage of Bengal. 29 



history of the period represented by the earlier coins of the Kooch 

 Bahar hoard, than all the native authors combined, to whose writings 

 we at present have access. 



The merits of these authors may or may not appear upon the surface 

 in the subsequent pages, as it is only in doubtful or difficult cases that 

 their aid may chance to be invoked, but for the obscure series of the 

 first Governors of Bengal, the one stands alone ; and for the space of 

 time intervening between the provincial obscuration of Nasir-ud-din 

 Mahinud, the unambitious son of Balban, to the revival of public in- 

 terest in Bengal, consequent upon the subjection and capture of a 

 rebel Vassal by Ghias-ud-din Tughlak Shah, the chance traveller 

 describes more effectively the political mutations and varying mo- 

 narchical successions than the professed historiographers treating ex- 

 clusively of the annals of their own land. 



The following list of Local Governors has been compiled, the early 

 portion from the precise statements of Minhaj-ul-Siraj, the latter part 

 from the casual notices of Bengal, to be found in Ziti-i-Barni, who 

 professed to continue the history of India from the latest date reached 

 by the former author, or from a.ii. 658 to 753, being a period of 95 

 years, covering the reigns of eleven kings. The last-named work was 

 finally completed in a.h. 758. 



The arrangement of the names and dates of accession of the chiefs 

 will be found to depart occasionally from the details given by Stew- 

 art,* in his excellent History of Bengal, but I have designedly sought 

 to draw my materials independently from the original authorities, 

 whom he was perhaps in a less favourable position for consulting than 

 the student of the present day. 



* The History of Bengal, by Charles Stewart. London, 1813. 4to. 



