118 
H. Beveridge — Ha]all Kdns. 
[No. 2, 
Rajah Ivans’ predecessors, was a joennd and able prince, and the story 
about the Kazi’s calling him to justice for having by misadventure shot 
the widow’s son is worthy of Herodotus. But the only other king of 
Bengal who can compare in romantic interest with Rajah Kans is 
Husain Shah. He is known in history as Alanddin Abnl Mozaffar 
Husain Shah, but the people of the Rarh in Murshidabad call him the 
Rakhal Badshah, or Shepherd King, from a tradition that he was origin¬ 
ally a herdsman in the house of a brahmin at Chandpnr, or Chand- 
para, near Mirzapur, in the Subdivision of Jangipur.* * * § 
In Buchanan’s account of Dinajpurf Rajah Kans is called Gones. 
He says that Ghyassuddin was succeeded by his son Saifuddin, and 
he by his slave Shihabuddin, and that then “ Gones, a Hindu and Hakim 
of Dynwaj, (perhaps a petty Hindu chief of Dinajpur) seized the 
government.” It does not seem certain that this Dynwaj is identical 
with the town of Dinajpur. It may have some connection with the 
Dhinaj Rai mentioned in Stewart, page 72, as a chief of Sonargaon. 
But the Riyaz, page 78, calls him Bhoj Rai. 
Mr. WestmacottJ was apparently the first to point out the identity 
of Kans and Gones. Mr. Blochmann§ doubted the identity, but I 
presume that his doubt was only as to the proper spelling of the 
name ; for it is impossible to doubt, that, whatever be the true name, 
the person described by Buchanan as Gones is the Kans of Firishta 
and the Riyaz. Mr. Blochmann remarks that Gonesh is a common 
name, and that Muhammadans must have been acquainted with it. 
“ But all MSS. spell the Rajah’s name Kans, not Ganes.” 
The reply to this is that g and k are often written alike in MSS. 
There is no g in Arabic, and in Meninski’s Dictionary we find g and k 
treated as one letter. In his remarks on the letter K he says that it is 
also written with three dots and called gef, “ sed raro in libris invenies 
expressa ilia puncta, unde et hie ea passim omitto.” Another way of 
distinguishing between g and k is by writing or printing the former 
with a second slanting line, thus <A, but this is very often not done in 
* J. A. S. B. XLIT, 227 note. The story is that when Husain Shah became 
king he rewarded his old master by giving him a zamindari at the quit-rent of one 
ana. Hence the place is called Ekana Chandpara to this day. Another tradition 
abont Husain Shah is that he made a road from Deoghar to Jagannath. This he 
did to propitiate the god who had threatened him with death for having entered his 
temple. The road runs from north to south through the Rarh or western half of 
Murshidabad and is still in use. There are many tanks along side of it which 
Husain Shah is said to have excavated for the benefit of travellers. 
+ Eastern India , II, 618. 
J Calcutta Review, LY, 208. 
§ J. A. S. B. XLIY, 286-87. 
