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No. 13.]
NIDHANPUR COPPER PLATES OF BHASKARAVARMAN.
occurred subsequent to Bhāskara's time-, quitted his original home and came to the sparsely peopled part of Sylhet, and, wishing for some reasons to conceal his original status flung away the plates that contained a record of the same, and became easily absorbed into the society of this new place.
This theory-though only a surmise-will be supported, if we can prove that Sylhet never at least during the days of Bhaskaravarman, belonged politically to Kimarapa. Several considerations lead me to this conclusion :
1. While travelling in India, Yuan Chwang went from Kimarüpa southwards to Samatata, and before turning back from Samatata, he got information of certain regions one of which was Shihlichatolo. This has been taken to mean Srikshatra, and Mr. Watters and Mr. Vincent A. Smith have taken great pains to localize it, but our Bengali writers of historical books have found no dificulty in identifying Shihlichatolo with Śrībatta. In fact what the people whom Yuan Chwang consulted said was certainly Srihatta, which the pilgrim heard as Srikshatra and reproduced in his defective Chinese tongue as Shihlichatolo. At any rate this points to the fact that Sylhet, which word is a Musalman corruption of Srihatta, which is still used in Bengali. existed independently of the kingdom of Kamarupa in Yuan Chwang's and, consequently, in Bhaskaravarman's time.
2. The Sampradayika Brahmans of Sylhet, who are said to have come from Mithila, have genealogical accounts of their families. It is recorded therein that five of their ancestors were imported by a king of Tipperah in 641 A.D., and that the very locality where the plates have been found was allotted to those five Brāhmang-and so the place was called Panchakhanda. This event took place two years before Yuan Chwang heard of Shihlichatolo, and although such gonealogical accounts are only to be accepted with reservation, yet there can be no doubt that much of the eastern part of the district of Sylhet, including Pañchakhanda the place of the find, belonged to the king of Tipperah at that period.
3. The name of Srihatta has very curiously found its place in an inscription of a date prior to Bhaskarvarman, vie., in the prasastus of the temple of Lakkhi Mandal at Madhs in the Jsanear Bawar distriot. Just on the top of the inseription, we read the word Srihattidhifparebhyal, and although Dr. Bühler, who read the inscription and assigned to it a. date about 600 A.D.was of opinion that these lotton wore of a later date," they could not, from their very nature, be of a very posterior date; they were apparently inserted to fill in some omission somewhere in the inscription, and very probably the calligraphic difference is due to a different band that corrected the mistake. At any rate, it becomes evident that by 600 A.D. there was a place called Srihaçta, which had its own adhisvaras (lords).
But how is it that many of the historians, European and Indian, have asserted that a part of East Bengal, to the east of the Brahmaputra river, including portions of Dacca and Mymensingh, Tipperah and Sylhet, belonged to Kamarūpa ? There are also spots in the western part of Sylhet and the east of Mymensingh which are pointed out by common people as the place of Bhagadatta, the son of Naraks, the first king of Kamarapa, who is mentioned in the present grant as well as in other ancient copper plates. Let us examine if there is any basis of truth in these matters. It is stated in the Yoginitantra that Kamarūpa extended from the Kāñchana moantain
1 See Watter's Yuan Chwang, Vol. II, pp. 186-189, and p. 340. They identify it with the Tipperah district. the northern part wheroof was formerly included in Sylhet. The headquarters of Tipperah is Comilla which is identifiable with Kamalang ka of Yuan Chwang. • See Ep. Ind., Vol. I, pp. 10 ff.
There is no indication that the words in question should be inserted anywhere in the inscription. The alpha. bet is certainly later than that of the prafuati, and no inference can be drawn for the time about A. D. 800.-S. K.)
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