400 
Rajendralala Mitra —On the Pala 
[No. 4, 
assigned to the Palas, to 986 A. D. The last name I took to be an alias of 
Adisura, Yira and Sura being synonymous, and a notable instance of the use 
of synonyms occurs in the name of the founder of the Pala dynasty, who is 
at option called Go-pala, Bhu-pala or Loka-pala. In a Bengali book, entitled 
Samhandha-nirmya , published two years ago, Pandit Lalamohana Yidya- 
nidhi states that he had been informed of a tradition current in the Yaren - 
dra country which makes one Bhusura the son of Adisura, and adds that 
Bhusura dying without male issue, his daughter’s son Asoka Sena suc¬ 
ceeded him, who was followed by Sura Sena, and the latter by Yira Sena. 
On asking the pandit for his authority for this tradition, he told me that 
he had got it from a Kulajna at Murshidabad, but that he had heard it no¬ 
where else. On so slender an authority, I cannot induce myself to accept it 
as a matter worthy of historical enquiry. The two names Asoka and Sura are 
later names, which the Kulajna put at the beginning, evidently not knowing 
where else to place them. Leaving these names aside, it will be seen 
that the Pala and the Sena dynasties fall for some time within the same 
period. The one beginning in the 9th decade and the other in the 6th 
decade of the 10th century. It is obvious, therefore, that they could not 
have reigned over the whole of Bengal at the same time, nor could the 
Senas have followed the Palas, as the modern Anglo-Indian historians usually 
make them ; but there can be no doubt that both dynasties did reign in 
Bengal at the same time. The difficulty, however, may be easily oyercome. 
It has been already shown that the Palas occupied western and north¬ 
ern Bengal. There is nothing, however, to show that they had extended 
their sway to the eastern districts. Whereas tradition assigns to the Senas 
the whole of the delta and the districts to the east of it. The chief seat 
of their power was at Vikrampur near Dhaka, where the ruins of Ballala’s 
palace are still shown to travellers. Dr. Wise, in his notice of Yikrampur, 
says—“ A remarkable evidence of this is afforded by the names of the 56 
villages assigned to the descendants of the Five Brahmans whom Adisura 
brought from Kanauj. All those villages were situated within the delta, 
and none out of it.” This is of course an indirect evidence, but it is not the 
less significant. It may be added that none of those who dwelt out of the 
delta, in the northern districts, were included in the scheme of Ballala’s 
nobility. The Yarendras have since organized a system of their own, but it 
is not in accord with that which prevails as the system of Ballala. 
The religion of the Senas was Hinduism, either of the Shiva or of the 
Yaishnava sect. In the Rajshahi stone and the Bakerganj copper-plate, 
S'iva is the divinity invoked. In the Tarpandighi plate preference is given to 
Yishnu or Narayana, and the epithet Parama-maliesvara occurs in all the 
three. The well-known fact of the founder of the family obtaining five 
Brahmans to perform Yedic rites which, owing to the dominance of the 
