397 
1878.] and the Sena Rajas of Bengal. 
but he overlooked it. In that record the date is given in these words : 
“ On Thursday, the 12th of the wane, in the mouth of Vaisakha, Sam. 
or year 74 after the expiration of the reign of the auspicious Lakshmana 
Sena Deva.” Calculated with the datum given by Colebrooke, it would have 
at once settled the date of Lakshmana Sena ; but this was not done. In 
1873, I found a MS. of the ‘ Sadukti-karnamrita,’ datedS'aka 1500=1578 
A. D., in the colophon of which the work is described to have been com¬ 
piled in the Slika year 1127=1205 A. D., which corresponded with 
some date of Lakshmana Sena which I could not make out. The date is 
given in words, the meaning of which could not be reconciled ; the words 
are i The author was the son of a con¬ 
fidential friend and a general under Lakshmana Sena. # 
Shortly after the publication of my remarks on this MS., in an anony¬ 
mous article on the life of Vachaspati Misra, published in a Bengali magazine 
called Banga Darsana , Babu Rajakrishna Mukarji announced that the era 
of Lakshmana Sena was still current in Tirhut, and its date in 1874 was 
767, its distinctive mark being ^r® * *j®, the initial letters of “ Lakshmana 
Sena Sam vat.” The Babu also noticed an inscription of Siva Sinha, a local 
chieftain, which bore date the 280th of Lakshmana Sena’s era. A brief 
notice of this article appeared in the ‘ Indian Antiquary’ for 1875 The 
Babu, likewise, used this date in an elementary history of Bengal, published 
in that year. Thus the credit of utilizing the date and bringing it to 
bear on the history of Bengal is entirely due to him. 
In 1875 Mr. Westmacott brought to notice a copper-plate grant 
found in the bed of a tank called Tarpandighi, seven miles S. S. E. of 
Debkot in Dinajpur,f which bore the 7th year of Lakshmana Sena’s reign ; 
but no attempt was then made to trace the initial date of the era. 
In 1877, Pandit Ramanatlia Tarkaratna, who is employed by the Asi¬ 
atic Society of Bengal to collect information regarding Sanskrit MSS. in 
private libraries, while travelling in Tirhut, collected some information on 
the subject, and communicated it to me. He also purchased there two old 
Sanskrit MSS. for the Government of India, which were dated in the era 
in question. One of them Anumdndlolca-tilcd , a gloss by Madhusudana 
Thakkura on the Anumana Khanda of Gangesa, is dated ^r® ^r° 
I “ the 14th of the waxing moon in the month of Chaitra L. S. 
479.” The other, Pratyahshdloka-darpana, a gloss by Mahesa Thakkura, 
on the Bratyaksha Khanda of Gangesa, has I 
“ In the year of the Vedas (4) the eight, and the Nigamas (4,) accor¬ 
ding to the king Lakshmana.” 
* Notices of Sanskrit MSS. Ill, pp. 134—148-9, 
f Ante , XLIV, p. 13. 
