1878.] 
G. A. Grierson —The Song of Munih Chandra. 
143 
virtue that it would take at least twenty-five months to fashion him. 
As a matter of special grace he was presented to her with seven months of 
his growth already accomplished, so that he was in fact born only eighteen 
months after his conception. # 
During Mayana’s pregnancy she became sati for her dead husband, 
and mounted the pyre with his corpse. I need hardly say that the flames 
refused to touch her, although the relations of her late husband did their 
best to aid them, by thrusting her more and more into the flames with long 
poles, f 
Mayana after passing through various adventures survives them all, 
and in due time gives birth to a son, who is called Gopi Chandra. It is he 
who is really the hero of the poem, and not his putative father who gives 
it his name. All references to the latter end before the 154th verse, and the 
remaining 550 narrate the fortunes of his son. 
Apparently from the birth of her child, Mayana deserted Mayana 
matir kot and went to dwell in Dharmapur. She was a clever woman and 
managed to keep up without great difficulty the high rates of land 
revenue, which had caused the death of her husband.]; When Gopi 
Chandra was nine years old, it was time for him to be married, and so 
Mayana looked round for a suitable match. 
Ra'ja' Hari's' Chandra. 
At the present day, seven or eight miles south of the ruins of Dharma¬ 
pur, in the thana of Darvani, there is a village called Char Chara. § Here 
there is a large mound of earth called Haris Chandra Rajar Pat, i, e., the 
seat of king Haris Chandra. 
Buchanan described it as a circular mound of earth about 40 feet in 
diameter. “ In searching for materials to build a pig-stye, the heap was 
opened by an indigo-planter, and a building of stones was discovered. The 
* The Yogis of course see nothing extraordinary in this ludicrous idea. They say 
the events occurred in the Satya Yuga , when all things were possible. I asked a Yogi 
once why the child was presented to Mayana already seven months developed, and he 
explained that it was “to prevent excessive scandal,” which might have occurred if the 
child had been born twenty-five months after his father’s death ! ! This is straining at 
a gnat, and swallowing a camel with a vengeance. 
fi The description of this rite in the poem is curious enough : whether such con¬ 
duct on the part of the relations was common in the performance of it I do not know. 
I have been unable to identify Chand the merchant, who figures in this part of the 
poem with any other legend. 
x I gather this from the last verse of the poem, from which it is evident that it 
was not till Gopi Chandra’s return that the land revenue was reduced to its former level. 
§ it is a short distance due east of the better known 
Ramganj Tupamari . 
T 
