1878 .] 
395 
and the Sena Rajas of Rengal. 
Fazl in the Ain-i-Akbari. The Mungher plate does not name the kingdom 
of the three Palas, bnt it was executed when the camp of Deva-pala was 
pitched at Mudgagiri, i. e., Mungher. The Bhagalpur plate was also 
executed at Mungher, and in it Narayana-pala is called the “ lord of Anga,” 
or king of Bhagalpur and its neighbourhood, including Mungher. The 
Budal pillar occurs in the Dinajpur district, and that would show that in 
the time of Narayana-pala his minister Gurava had administrative power on 
the north of the Padma. The Dinajpur plate not having been fully deci¬ 
phered, we know not where it was executed, and, though found at Amgachi, 
it is possible that the grant may refer to some place at a great distance 
from it. There can be no doubt, however, that one of the latest kings 
named in it, Mahi-pala, exercised full severeignty in the province to the 
north of the Padma. That vast sheet of water in Dinajpur which still bears 
his name, the Mahi-pala dighi, is a proof positive on this point. We 
have also the evidence of the Sarnath stone which calls him lord of Gauda, 
though the stone cannot be accepted as a proof of Mahi-pala’s reign having 
extended as far as Benares. In a sacred place of pilgrimage any person 
could go and dedicate a temple or an image, without in any way acquiring 
political power in the locality. 
Mr. Westmacott, in his “ Traces of Buddhism in Dinajpur,” supplies 
several other proofs in support of the sovereignty of the Palas on the north 
of the Padma. He says, “ In all south-eastern Dinajpur, and the neighbour¬ 
ing parts of Bagura, remains of Buddhism, and of the Buddhist Pala kings 
are numerous. It was in this neighbourhood that in the seventh century 
the Chinese pilgrim Hiouen-Thsang found the Buddhist court of Paundra- 
vardhana which I identify with Vardhana Kuti, the residence o£ a very 
ancient family, close to Govindaganj, on the Karatoya. Mr. Fergusson, in 
his paper on Hiouen-Thsang, quotes from an account of Paundradesa in 
the fourth volume of the ‘ Oriental Quarterly Magazine,’ that Vardhana 
Kuti, governed by a Yavana, or Musalman, was one of the chief towns of 
Nirvritti, comprising Dinajpur, Bangpur and Koch Behar, and consequently 
the eastern half of Hiouen-Thsang’s kingdom of Paundra Vardhana.”* 
Elsewhere he says : “ Dharma-pala, whose fort still bears his name, more 
than seventy miles north of Vardhana Kuti, and other Pala kings, were 
ruling east of the Karatoya long after Bengal had been subdued by the 
Senas, before whom indeed the Palas probably retreated by degrees to the 
north-east, and were supplanted without any great catastrophe.”f Again, 
“ close to Jogi-ghopa are extensive brick remains, said to have been the 
palace of Deva-pala, whether the Deva-pala of the Mungher plate or not 
I will not say, but certainly of the Amgachi plate. Bhimla Devi, daugh¬ 
ter of Deva-pala, is said by the ignorant pujdris to be represented by one 
* Ante , XLIV, p. 188. f Loc. cit. 
2 E 
