1878 .] 
393 
and the Sena Rajas of Bengal. 
of their succession, and further as they do not fall within the scope of this 
paper, which I wish to confine to the sovereigns of Bengal only, I shall take 
no note of them. Within the limits which I prescribe for myself, the mate¬ 
rials available, as aforesaid, afford a list of eleven reigning sovereigns instead 
of thirteen, as given by General Cunningham, his Nos. 3 and 4 being inad¬ 
missible in the face of the Bhagalpur plate. 
The only intelligible date available for these eleven reigns is afforded 
by the Benares stone, and that is Samvat 1083 = 1026 A. D. The docu¬ 
ment when first read was utterly untrustworthy, and in drawing up my 
monograph of the Sena Rajas I took no notice of it. Although no fac¬ 
simile has since been published, as General Cunningham obtained a copy of 
the record from so able an antiquarian as the late Major Kittoe, and him¬ 
self read the date as given above, I am bound to accept it; for I am 
of opinion that no one in India in the present day has so thorough a 
knowledge of Indian lapidary writing as that profound scholar, and 
he is not at all likely to make a mistake in reading a mediaeval figure. The 
date may be taken to be about the middle of Mahi-pala’s reign, and as Mahi- 
pala was the most renowned of the Palas of Bengal, the only one whose 
name is still remembered by the people, and whose monument, the Mahi- 
pala Dighi of Dinajpur, is still in existence, his reign may be fairly assumed 
to have been of more than average length. If I say it lasted from 1015 
to 1040 A. D., I fancy it would not be by any means thought to be 
improbable. 
With this starting-point gained it is necessary to calculate backwards the 
times of his eight predecessors. Bor this purpose General Cunningham adopts 
an average of 25 years. He says, “ Assigning 25 years to a generation, and 
working backwards from Mahi-pala, the accession of Gro-pala, the founder 
of the dynasty, will fall in the latter half of the 8th century ; or still earlier, 
if we allow 30 years to each generation. By either reckoning, the rise of 
the Pala dynasty of Magadha is fixed to the 8th century A. D., at which 
time great changes would appear to have taken place amongst most of the 
ruling families of Northern India.”* 
The General assigns no reason for adopting this average, and I cannot 
help thinking that it is too high. It is certainly not in accord with data 
available from Indian history. Twenty reigns of the Mughals, from 1494 
to 1806, give an average of 15 years and 7 months. Twenty-one reigns in 
Kashmir, from 1326 to 1588, give 12 years and 6 months. Forty reigns of 
the Delhi Pathans yield an average of 9 years and 9 days. Twenty-four 
reigns of the Bengal Pathans, from 1200 to 1350, produce a little over 6 
years. Similarly twenty reigns in Burmah, from 1541 to 1781, offer an 
average of 12 years. Doubtless these averages are of periods and reigns 
* Arch. Surv. Itcport, III, p. 135. 
