1897.] Dr. Hoernle —Gauhatl Copper-plate Grant of Indrapala. 121 
They also use the same emblem on their seals, a full-figure elephant, 
standing to the front. But the probability is that both dynasties are 
those of aboriginal tribal chiefs, who, aggrandizing themselves, adopted 
Hinduism and got invented for themselves a quasi Ksatriya descent. 
All the genealogical details, therefore, before Brahmapala, f alastambha 
and Pralambha (or Harjara) are unhistorical, the real lines commencing 
with those names. The lineage of Bhagadatta seems to have been a 
favorite one for the chiefs of Kamarupa to adopt. “ The so-called Rajas 
of Rani,” as Mr. Gait informs us ( Journal , Yol. LXII, p. 272) also 
“ claim to be descended from the lineage of Bhagadatta.” 10 
The preceding remarks, practically, dispose of the question of the 
connection of the Palas of our grant with the Palas of the well-known great 
Bihar and Bengal dynasty. On this subject, Mr. Gait writes to me as 
follows:— 
“ I do not think that there is any connection between the Pala kings, men¬ 
tioned in the Gauhatl grant and the great Pala dynasty of Bengal. The ins^ 
cription contains no reference to any known king of this dynasty; and the Palas 
in the copper-plate claim descent from Naraka and Bhagadatta, the mythical Hindu 
progenitors of more than one of the royal families which formerly held sway m 
Kamarupa. Moreover they are described as Lords of Pragjydtisa, which is not a 
title claimed by any of the Pala kings of Bengal, although one of them—Deva 
Pala—is said to have conquered Kamarupa. Lastly the title Pala is a very common 
one not only amongst the kings of ancient Assam, but also of the Baro Bhuiyas 
and others, e.g., of the Brahman to whom the land-grant mentioned in the plate 
under discussion was made.” 
I fully agree with Mr. Gait. 
Besides the four Asam grants, referred to in the preceding remarks 
(viz., the Gauhatl, Tejpur, Nowgong and Ratnapala grants), there is 
known a fifth, viz., the Benares grant of Vaidyadeva, published by 
Mr. Yenis in the Epigraphia Indica , Yol. II, p. 347. Yaidyadeva was 
the prime minister of king Kumarapala, of the great Bihar dynasty, 
who made his minister the tributary ruler of Kamarupa, in the place 
of the original ruler who had rebelled. Kumara Pala does not appear 
in the ordinary genealogical list of the Bihar Pala dynasty. That list 
concludes with a king Yigraha Pala III. But as Kumara Pala’s own 
genealogy begins with a Yigrahapala, as the grandfather, and gives 
Rama Pala, as the father of Kumara Pala, Mr. Yenis, with much 
probability, concludes the identity of the two Yigraha Palas, and thus 
makes Kumara Pala to he the grandson of Yigraha Pala III. The 
date of his grant is conjecturally fixed as 1142 A.D., placing it about 
one century later than the Gauhatl grant, which agrees well enough 
10 For modern instances of fictitious genealogies, see page 83 (§ 46) of Mr. 
Gait’s Report on the Census of Asam, 1891. 
