323 
1893.] H. Beveridge — The Site of Karna Suvarna. 
The name S'asanka,* * * § does not occur in AbuT-fazl,+ or Tieffenthaler,J 
but the first has a Shashatdhar, and the second a Seheschdar. These are 
clearly corruptions of S'asadhara, (the moon,) and it is quite possible 
that this is another form of the name S'asanka. Both words mean hare- 
marked or hare-bearing, i. e., the moon, and apparently the pilgrim trans- 
lates S'asanka simply by the Chinese word for moon. If this is so, the 
fact is very important, for S'asadhara belonged to the line of Adi sura, 
and was the eighth in succession from him. He is said to have reigned 
58 years, but the reigns of all the princes of this line seem unreasonably 
long. However if S'asanka and S'asadhara be identical, Adisura can 
hardly have been later than the first half of the 6th century. There 
seems nothing incredible in this for Lassen § says that he is wrongly 
referred to the 9th or 10th century, aud that he must have lived in the 
beginning of the 7th century. But if he was not later than 600, he 
must, I think, be put back still further, for it was A'disura who brought 
Brahmans from Kanauj to Bengal. He could not have done this during 
the Aditya dynasty for they were Buddhists. Their dynasty began ac- 
cording to Lassen in 580, and so Adisura must have reigned before 
that date, and perhaps was contemporary with one of the eai’ly 
Guptas. || M. Saint Martin suggests that Hiuen Tsiang went out of 
his road to visit Karna Suvarna, on account of the connection of 
the neighbourhood with Yijaya and the conversion of Ceylon. This is 
not very likely, since Hiuen Tsiang says nothing about it, and he was not 
deeply interested in Ceylon, for he never went there. The fable, how- 
ever, about Yijaya is interesting as showing an early connection between 
Bengal and Ceylon. Yijaya probably came from Singbhum.1T His story 
* Mr. Fleet’s work, Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, III, for a reference to 
which I am indebted to Dr. Waddell’s paper, shows (p. 283), that there is an inscrip- 
tion of S'asanka at Rohtas. With reference to this identification, however, and also 
to General Cunningham’s remark that there is a tank in Bogra named after S'asanka, 
it may be well to bear in mind that according to the Buchanan MS., Vol. Bhagalpur 
I. 183, there was a S'asanka, a Kshetanri Raja of Kharakpur, who was put to death 
in 1502 (910 Fasli.) [A'pud Montgomery Martin, II, 57. Ed.] 
f Ain I. 413. 
I Tieffenthaler, I. 472. 
§ III. 718. 
|| III. 393. 
«|f His mother was the daughter of the King of Banga by a Kalinga Princess, a 
circumstanoe which points to an early connection between Bengal and the Madras 
coast. She was brought up in her father’s city of Banga which presumably lay in 
South-east Bengal or somewhere about Samatata. There can be no doubt that the 
forest of Lala where the caravan in its way to Magadha (S. Bihar) was dispersed, 
and she fell into the power of a lion, is the Rai-h country west of the Bhagirathi. 
See Upham, Sacred books of Ceylon, I. 69 and II, 164. 
