18 C. Bendall— History of Nepal and surrounding Kingdoms . [No. 1, 
III.—TIEHUT. 
There are few regions of India possessing an ancient civilization 
about which we have less definite historic information than the region 
north of the Ganges variously known as Yideha, Tirabhukti, or (from 
its capital) Mithila. 
Neither the work of Prinsep, nor its excellent successor, that of 
Miss C. M. Duff, attempts a ‘ Dynastic list ’ for this country. Chronolo¬ 
gical indications are thus peculiarly valuable. There would seem to 
have been a certain degree of literary intercourse between Nepal and 
Tirhut, the frontier state on the direct route to the plains. Accord¬ 
ingly a large number of the MSS. in the present Catalogue are writ¬ 
ten by Tirhuti scribes in their characteristic (Maithili) script and 
dated mostly in the common era of the country, that of Laksmana 
Sena. 
On pp. 131-2 we find a case where a MS. is by a Tirhuti scribe 
domiciled in Nepal. For it will be observed that not only are the 
writing and the era those of Mithila, but the scribe goes out of his way 
to describe Lalita-pattan ( £ Patanwhere the MS. was copied, as 
‘ situated in the kingdom of Nepal.’ 
A notice of far . greater interest and importance is preserved 
through a case of intercourse in the opposite direction, where a Nepa¬ 
lese scribe was living in Tirhut. This is the case of the MS. of part 
of the Ramayana, No. 1079, briefly noticed at p. 34 of the Catalogue. 
The colophon in question occurs at the end of the Kiskindyakanda at 
ff. 375-6. As it is not given in the Catalogue, I here transcribe 
it from my own notes : Samvat 1076 dsadha badi 4 maharajadhi- 
rdja punydvaloka-somavatnsodbhava-gaudadhvaja-srimad-Gangeyadeva- 
bhujyamdna-Tirabhaktau kalydnavijardjye Nepdladeslya-Srl bhdncu sdlika - 
srl Anandasya patakdvasthita fkayastha) 1 panclita srl srl Kurasydtmaja- 
sri. Gopatinalekhldam. Interpreting this according to the some¬ 
what ‘ free-and-easy ’ Sanskrit used by scribes, I understand it to 
mean that in Samvat 1076 Gopati, son of S'rlkura, (Kayastha) pandit 
belonging to the country of Nepal and living in A'nanda’s pataka 2 
belonging to Bhancu sali ( ?), copied this during a victorious reign in 
Tirhut, when it was ruled by Gahgeyadeva, the great king, beholder of 
holiness, sprung from the lunar race and banner of Gauda. The writing 
of the MS. is the archaic 1 Lantsa’ of Nepal, so that we may quite well 
■ . • . . • e 
1 Added in a different hand. 
2 Cf. Ind. Ant. XVIII. 135, where pataka is interpreted to mean the subdivi¬ 
sion of a village ; hence bhdncu sdlika may well contain the name of the larger 
village or district. 
