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No. 37.]
From the other records
The Saktipur inscription refers to the land measurement of drona. of the Sena kings we know that several dronas made one pātaka. Drōna was again divided into āḍhaka or āḍhavāpa, āḍhaka into unmāna, and unmāna into kāka or kakinika. Drōna is still used as a land measure in Bengal. All these measurements were governed by a linear standard known as "nala". The standard of the measurement of nala was not uniform all over Bengal, and differed according to the custom and practice of a particular locality. The present grant makes mention of Vrishabhasankara-nala. Vrishabhasankara being an appellation of Vijayasēna,' the nala used in this inscription might have been introduced by and named after him. The Barrackpur grant of Vijayasena refers to Samataṭiya-nala. The Govindapur copper-plates of Lakshmanasēna which records the grant of a village in the Vardhamana-bhukti, refers to a standard of nala consisting of 56 cubits, prevalent in that region.
SAKTIPUR COPPER-PLATE OF LAKSHMANASENA.
215
The donee Kubēra was the son of Ananta, grand-son of Prithvidhara and great-grand-son of Aniruddha. From an early dynastic calendar used by the ghatakas (match-makers), we gather that there were in the time of Lakshmanasena three brothers' named Devala, Vamana and Kuvēra, sons of Dharmamśu, grand-sons of Pithō and great-grand-sons of Aniruddha. If Pithō is a contraction of Prithvidhara (as is very likely) and Ananta is taken to be another name of Dharmamsu, the Kubera of the present record may be identical with the youngest of the three brothers. The other two, Devala and Vamana are said to have received honor as "Kulin" (High class Brahmans) from Lakshmanasēna but Kuvēra is said to have forfeited this privilege, owing to his marriage with the daughter of Hasya Ganguli, a degraded "Kulin" who had accepted the gift of a golden cow from Vallalasēna. The loss of 'Kulinism' does not however seem to have prevented the Brahman from receiving gifts at the hands of the king.
The date of the inscription was read by Mr. Basu as Sam 3, the 2nd day of Sräāvana. Mr. Bhattasali (with whom I concur) corrects it as Sam 6, the 7th day of Śrāvaņa. 10
[The supposition that the king first granted by mistake some land already in the enjoyment, of another donee, on the occasion of the solar eclipse, and subsequently exchanged it for another seems to be corroborated by the fact that except in 1163 A.D. (which is too early for Lakshmanasena) there was no solar eclipse on the 7th day of (solar) Śrāvana, throughout the latter half of the twelfth century A.D. In 1183 A.D. the seventh day of Sravana fell on Sunday the 3rd July, while a solar eclipse occurred on Monday the 23rd May. The intervening period of about six weeks can be explained by the supposition that the mistake took some time to be detected, reported to the authorities concerned and rectified. In 1185 A.D. a solar eclipse occurred about two months before the 7th day of Sravana and in 1180 A.D. over three weeks after the date. The year 1183 is thus the most plausible equivalent of the present date, which corroborates the conclusion
[Drona is the same as drōnaväpa of the Gupta period plates in Bengal, cf. above, Vol. XX, p. 61. The pataka of the Sena period was however a larger unit than the kulyavapa of earlier plates, as the former equalled at least 10 dronas, while the latter was made up of 8 dronavapas.-Ed.]
Inscriptions of Bengal, Vol. III, pp. 78, 90, 104,
Ibid., p. 136, 1. 32,
Ibid., p. 66.
Ibid., pp. 96, 97; tad-desiya-samvyavahara-shatpañcha bata(t)-hasta-parimita-nalēna.
• Banger Jatiya Itihasa, by N. N. Basu, Brahmanakhanda, p. 140.
Ibid., p. 155.
[Cf. Pithora for Prithviraja.-Ed.]
Ibid., p. 182. I am indebted to Mr. Subodh Chandra Banerjee, M.A., of the Manuscript department, Dacca University, for drawing my attention to this passage, contained in an early match-makers calendar,
10 Cf. the numeral "3" in the Anulia plate, 1. 56, and in Sahitya-parishat copper-plate of Visvarûpasēns, 1. 55, and the numeral '6' in the latter 1. 50.
