433 SANSCRIT INSCRIPTIONS 



England, it was only known to Mr. Colebrooke by a Copy of it made by 

 the Pundit employed to decypher it : this grant agrees precisely and ap- 

 parently literally with the present, except in the first name and the last, or 

 Vijaya-deva in place of Vijaya Chandra, the ancestor of Jaya deva, not the 

 same prince as Mr. Colebrooke has stated. 



Vijaya Chandra is celebrated in the inscription for the pangs he inflict- 

 ed on the wives of Hamvira or as Capt. Fell writes Hammira; this expres- 

 sion implies his having slain a prince so named but such an interpretation 

 is rather questionable as it is not easy to particularise the prince so denomi- 

 nated. To one Hammira a very popular character in Hindi poetry and 

 tradition, the passage is of course inapplicable, as he did not live till long 

 after the date of the grant, or in the 14th century, (A. R. ix. and x.) A 

 chieftain of the same name is mentioned in the inscription found at Hansi, 

 which fortress it is said was made the government of Kilhana the uncle of 

 Prithivi Raja in reward of his slaying Hammira ; this inscription is dated 

 1168, and so far tallies well enough with the existence of Hammira as the 

 cotemporary of Vijaya Chandra, but Hammira could not be twice exter- 

 minated, and we have either two individuals of the name alive at the same 

 time, and both obnoxious to Hindu princes, or we must suppose that the 

 king of Kanoj only annihilated the power of Hammira, and left his death 

 to the ruler of Ajmere. After all however there seems a more simple solu* 

 tion than either, and Hammira is nothing more than Mir or Amir, a Mo- 

 hammedan prince or general. Consistent with this is all Musselman histo- 

 ry which mentions the capture and recapture of Asi or Hansi several times, 

 between the first and last invasions of Hindustan, and the character given 

 in the inscription to Hammira who is there styled " the Harasser of various 

 realms." The inscription to which Capt. Fell refers includes no notice 

 of Hammira, (A. R. vii. 180): the only connexion between his name and 

 it, is the mention it makes of the Sakambhari princes of Dehli in a stanza 

 quoted in the Sarangdhara Paddhati, a collection of miscellaneous verses 

 compiled two generations after Hammira, prince of Sakambhari, but this is 



