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Again, when the Brahmanas of the eastern part of that village removed to the neighbouring place, Siyamba, they found that some of the old orthodox families of highly learned Brähmaņas of the locality had still been residing thure. The forefathers of these Brāhmaṇas of the Bharadvaja gotra, as we have seen in verses 2-4, came to colonise Bāla-grāma from Tarkari of Srāvasti which, according to our opinion, was also situated in Varčudri. So we see that Bengal, especially North Bengal, was from time immemorial a home of learned Brāhmaṇas, practising the Vedic customs and highly versed in Vedic lore, as also in Mimaisā philosopby, in tarka, tantras and other dharma-śīstras. "The prasasti of Bhatta-Bhava lēva algo does not mention any event which can corroborate the importation of Brāhmaṇas, at least of the Savarna götra, into Bengal by king Adi-sara. There, also, we find seven generations of Bhatta-Bhavadēva of the Sāvaina gotra mentioned, but no reference to any story of Brāhmaņas from Kananj having been imported by any kiog of the name of Adi-sära. My learned country. man, Babu Monmohan Chakravarti, has thus written in an article about Bhatta Bhavalēra! :"In fact the existence of the Savarnas and the Vandyaghatīsas in this inscription of the eleventh century throws doubts on the stories found in the accounts of the match-makers that the Rādhiya Bråhmans were imported from Kananj in the cleventh century." I, however, demur to Mon. mohan Babu's taking the inscription as belonging to the 11th century, inasmuch as I like to follow Professor Kielhorn, who has assigned this prasasti, on palmographical grounds, to about 1200 A.D. We ought to mention another fact, that there are also instances of Brahmanas of these gotras coming to Bengal from the Madhyadēía, e.g. we know from the Belava copper-plate grant of Bhöjavarına-dēva that the donoe was the great-grandson of Pitambaradēva-śarman, who was an inhabitant of the village Siddhaln in North Rādha, and who came from the Madhyadēša. But such importation from t'a Madhyadośa has always been going on, not only into Bengal, but into other parts of India too. We may accordingly conceive that these later immigrants of the Sávarna götra might have mixed up with the local residents of the same gotra in Bengal. Many passages from the epigraphic records of the medieval ages may be cited to show the existence of orthodox Brahmaņa in Bengal during all the centuries beginning from the 7th to the 11th. A certain section of the scholars of Bengal still hold the tradition of king Adi-sūra and his importation of Brāhmaṇas as authentic, and Mr. Vincent Smith, who in the 2nd edition of his " Early History of India' (p. 300) doubted the existence of Adi-śūra, has since changed his opinion and has unfortunately believed in the existence of such a king as ruling " Gaur and the neighbourhood, approximately in A.D. 700, or a little earlier." From some of the pre-Pala records of Bengal bitherto discovered we can bring evidence to show the existence of Brāhmaṇas possessed of Vedic culture, e.g. from the copper-plate grant A, amongst the four discovered in the Faridpur District, we learn that the doneo Chandra-svāmin belonged to the Bharadvaja gotra, was. Vajasanüyin and studied the six Angas; and in grant of the same group we find Brāhmans of the same gotra mentioned therein. We also hope to show from the Tipperah copper plate of Loko-nātha (to be later on published in the Epigraphia Indica) and from some other eld records of the 5th century A.D., now in our possession, that there were orthodox Brahmaņas in Bengal even in the pre-Pala days. In supp rt of our theory that Bengal was always a home of g od Brāhmaṇas we may here refer to & most significant epithet (Brahmakulodbharā) applied to the land of Varēndri in Sandhyakara-nandin's Rama-charita.7 This epithet as applied to the land of Varendrt means "the birth place of Brāhinana families". So, wbether before or during the Pāls period, we ever find any scarcity of Brāhmaṇas versed in the Vedas and performing
1 Journ. Beng. 41. Soc., Vol. VIII, No. 9, 1912, p. 340. *Above, Vol. XII, p. 43. Ind. Ant., 1910, p. 196. Mem. A. S. B., Vol. III, No. 1, p. 47 (canto III, 5. 9).
Above, Vol. VI, p. 205. • Early History of India, 3rd edition, Oxford, 1914. . Ibid., p. 204.
