Ramacarita. 
By Sandhyakara Nandi. Edited by Mahamahopadhaya Haraprasad Sastri, M.A. 
PREFACE. 
Ramacarita text and com- 
mentary. 
The manuscript of Ramacarita was acquired by me in 1897. It is a curious 
work. It is written throughout in double en tendre. It 
is written in imitation of the Raghava-Pandavlya 
Read one way, it gives the connected story of the 
Ramayana. Read another way, it gives the history of Ramapaladeva of the Pala 
dynasty of Bengal. The story of Ramayana is known, but the history of Ramapala is 
not known. So it would have been a difficult task to bring out the two meanings 
distinctly. But fortunately the MS contained not only the text of Ramacarita, but a 
commentary of the first canto and of 36 verses of the second. The commentary por- 
tion of the manuscript then abruptly came to an end. The commentary, as may be 
expected, gives fuller account of the reign of Rampala than the text. The other por- 
tion of the text is difficult to explain, and I have not attempted to make a com- 
mentary of my own. But I have tried, in my introduction, to glean all the historical 
information possible by the help of the commentary and the inscriptions of the Pala 
dynasty, and other sources of information available to me 
The author of the text is Sandhyakara Nandi, who composed the work in the reign 
of Madanapala Deva, the second son of Ramapala, and the 
fourth king from Ramapala, for, he ends his work with a 
hearty wish for the long life of Madanapala. The author enjoyed exceptional oppor- 
tunities of knowing the events of Ramapala’ s reign and those of his successors, as his 
father was the Sandhivigrahika, or the Minister of Peace and War of Ramapala, and 
lived at Paundra-Vardhana, if not the capital, a suburb of the capital of the Palas. 
When the work was written the events narrated in it were recent and people under- 
stood them without difficulty, but the case is quite different now when all memory 
of the events is lost. The author was unwilling to publish it, but he often repeated 
stray slokas in assemblies, and so in a short time it became known that he had writ- 
ten a book and his friends pressed him to publish it. 
The author belonged to a very respectable family of Varendra Brahmanas, who 
derived their name from their residence in the Varendra country, i.e., North Bengal, 
the scene of the struggles of Ramapala for empire. The residential village 
from which Sandhyakara’ s family derived their cognomen is Nanda, perhaps a contrac- 
tion of Nandana. The family is still well known. His grandfather was Pinaka 
Its author and his family. 
