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No. 26.]
SILIMPUR STONE-SLAB INSCRIPTION.
287
Śrāvasti. The late Sir A. Cunningham thought that these were only apparent discrepancies, and he tried to solve the difficulty in the following wordel :-"These apparent discrepancies are satisfactorily explained when we learn that Gauda is only a subdivision of Uttara-Kõsala and that the ruild of Srāvasti have actually been discovered in the district of Gauda, which is the Gonda of the maps." Evidently he thinks that the Sråvasti of the Matsya-Purāna and the Kūrma Purana was situated in Uttara-Kosala, and tries to identify the Gauda mentioned in both these Parānas with the place named Gonda in Kosala. But what seems to be really the case is that the Sråvasti of Uttara-Kosala which is mentioned in the Ramayana (last book) and the Väyu-Purana is quite a different city from that of the same name which is described in the Matsya-Purăra and the Kurma-Puriņa as situnted in the Ganda-deśa, which must be North Bengal. Our inscriptiou also lends corroboration to this theory, inasmuch as we know of no contry of the name of Sakati as intervening between the countries Kosala and Pupdra, so distant from cach other. Moreover, had the Srāvusti of Kosala been very old, it would have been mentioned in the first five genuine books of the Rāmāyana, which must have been composed before the time of king Prago najit of Kosala, who was Buddha's contemporary, and who is known to have reigned at Stāvasti. There is no denying the fact, too, that the ruins of the city of Srāvasti, so celebrated in the annals of Buddhism, were discovered in Kosala. What we mean to say is that there were two separate Srāvastis--some of the Purana writers making one of them the capital of Lava, some taking the other as founded by king Srivasti, an ancestor of Lava. Therefore, Sir A. Cunningham does not seem to have been right in identifying Gonda of Kosala, merely on the strength of identity of name, with the Gauda mentioned in the Matsya and the Kūrma Purānas. There is Gonda, and not Gauda, in Kosala, even according to his own opinion. So we think that the Srāvasti mentioned in verse 2 of our inscription was situated also in Puõdra and must be identified with the city of the same name nientioned in the Matsya and the Kurma Puranas.
In the various genealogical histories (Kula-panjikas) of the Brahmaņas and Kāyasthas of Bengal a tradition is found according to which king Adi-Sûra of Bengal imported from Kazauj five Brāhmaṇas belonging to five gotras (of which one is the Bharad vāja gotra), with whom also came five Kayasthas. The cause assigned to this importation of Brāhmaṇas was that orthodox Hindu customs had fallen into disuse for want of Brāhmaṇas versed in the Vedic lore. The time of the rule of this half-mythical king is fixed differently by different writers of family-histories; but all such authorities are agreed in limiting it within the centuries 700 to 1100 A.D. No epigrapbic record bas as yet been discovered to prove the existence of a king of the name Adi-sūra ruling at any time during these centuries, although we cancot overlook the fact that there was one Sara dyuasty from which the descent of queen Vilasa-dēvi, mother of Ballala-sēna, is traced. The information about the existence of a Sára family from which Vilása-dēvi is said to have descended has been gathered from an unpublished copper-plate grant of king Vijaya-8ēpa in the 37th year of his reigo, issued from his victorious camp at Vikrama-pura. Even if any future discovery should prove the existence of a king named Adi-śūra, the question still remains open whether that king did really feel the dearth of orthodox Brāhmapas in Bengal, and had, therefore, to import some from Kanauj or any other part of Aryāvarta. Oar inscription will serve as evidence to throw doubts on the story of the importation of Brāhmaṇas by king Adi-sūra. In this prasasti of the Ilth century there is mention of seven generations from Prahaga upwards, so the seventh ancestor Pasu.pati might have belonged to the latter end of the 9th century. We have also seen from verses 2-7 that the ancestors of this family who were famous for their learning, austerities and lineage had been living in the village of Balagrāma in Varöndri (North Bengal) for a long time past, even anterior to Pasu.pati's timo,
1 Ancient Geography, p. 408,
