________________
No. 24.)
SOME IMAGE INSCRIPTIONS FROM EAST BENGAL.
351
Ballade, at one time very widely popular are current about a king called Govinda-Chandra throughout Bengal. One was published by Grierson'in J. A. S. B., 1873. Another was published by Babu Sib Chandra Sil from Chinsura near Calcutta. I published a version by a poet called Bbabānīdás, edited from two manuscripts of the song procured from the Tippera district. All these versions say that Govinda Chandra was the daughter's son of Tilak Chandra king of Mehårkul which is still a pargana of the Tippera district. Govinda Chandra of RajendraChola's inscription and the Govinda-Chandra of the ballads appear to have been the same person, and Layaha may have been the name of the father of Tilak Chandra.
Kusuma dēva, whose son Bhāvu-dēva consecrated the image of Narttēsvar, seems to have heen a vassal prince under the suzerainty of Layaha-Chandra, ruling over Karmmānta, which I am inclined to identify with modern Badkamtā (the senior Kamtā), some three miles southwest of the find-place of the image. Badkåintă is still a place of considerable importance, being A police station with a big Zemindary kachery, situated within a spacious area surrounded by an ancient moat and containing two big tanks, in the smaller of which many ancient stone images of Brahmanical deities were found. Stone images, both Buddhist and Brahmanical, abound in the villages surrounding Badkamtă, and testify to the former prosperity of the tract. The area surrounded by the moat probably indicates the site of the palace. The appellation Dēva at the end of the names of Kusuma-deva and Bhavu-deva is also in favour of supporting their claims to royal dignity. My friend Prof. Rådhåg vinda Båsak, M.A., however, is in favour of taking the word Karmminta to mean'a store of grain,' and degrading Kusuma-deva to the rank of an officer in charge of the royal granary. We know that the two plates of Déva Khadga published by the late Gangamohan Laskar in the Memoirs, A. S. B., Vol. I, were issued from Jaya-Karmmānta. I have elsewhere tried to show that Karmmänta the capital of the Khadgas and the Karmmānta of the present inscription are identical, and is the present Badkimtă (J. A. S. B., July 1914).
The language of the inscription is Sanskrit prose throughout. As to orthography, we may note the doubling of consonants after as in karmmānta (1.1), saruvakshara (1. 2), etc., but chaturdafyan (1.1) is spelt with one d.
Numeral figures for 1 and 4 are used in designating the 14th day of Ashadha.
The letters of the inscription are mentioned to have been engraved by one Rataxa; but Madhusudans seems to have been the sculptor who made the image.
TEXT.
Part I. i [fafura'] Amugureauretaforation ver[ey* ****o]wgért
तिथौ दृष्यति वारे पुष्यनक्षवे कमान्तपालो. 2 munaythigeantfoto BaHET[**....] poat
wargfa 28 #gfany Tatata wafat:
Part IT.
i afany Way 2 aafa #
1 Expressed by a symbol ; see below, p. 852,
Road yrafa
