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proper, s.c., S. and E. Bengal, and the conquest, temporary or permanent, of Vardhamana by & king of Vanga cannot be regarded as improbable. It may be noted in this connection, that according to a Chinese map Harikēla comprises the coastal region between Samatata and Orissa. Further, we know that king Govindachandra, who flourished early in the eleventh century A. D., and possibly also other Chandra kings before him, ruled over the whole of E. and 8. Bengal right up to the Bhāgirathi river, and their original kingdom is said to be that of Harikēla. The two geographical names, Vardhamāna and Harikēlā-mandala, therefore, justify the assumption that Kantidēva was the ruler of Vanga, i.e., S. and E. Bengal, and had conquered & portion of W. Bengal, right up to Burdwan, when the present plate was issued. Of course this must be regarded as a tentative theory only, based on the very insufficient data that are available at present.
There can hardly be any doubt that the collapse of the Pāla power in the second half of the ninth century A. D., caused by the Pratihära invasions, gave opportunity to Käntidēva (or his maternal grandfather who is described in 1. 7 as a great king) to carve out an independent kingdom in E. and S. Bengal. It is also likely that Käntidēva ruled over both his own territory, Harikēlā, and the kingdom of his maternal grandfather which probably included Vardhamāna. It is to be noted that Radha (W. Bengal) and Vanga (S. and E. Bengal).constituted separate independent states almost throughout the Pāla period after the death of Dēvapāla, though they were occasionally brought into subjection by powerful rulers like Mahīpāla I and Råmapala.
Kántidēva was undoubtedly a Buddhist as the title Saugata is applied to him (1. 14). The seal of the plate is, however, somewhat unique. The figure of the lion enshrined in a temple evidently stands for the Buddha, and we meet with lions in exactly the same pose, carved under Buddha images. But the figures of two serpents are not, so far as I know, found along with the lion in Buddhist images. If we remember that the serpent and the lion are the symbols of the two last Jaina Tirthamkaras, Pārsvanātha and Mahāvira, the seal might be regarded as & Jaina symbol. The invocation to Jinēndra which means both Mahāvira and the Buddha, might also lend support to the view that the king was Jaina. But the expression Saugata. applied to Kāntidēva, definitely precludes this view, as it can only mean a Buddhist, and not a Jains. It is also possible that the serpents are used here as symbols of Siva, for we know that
1 The map is printed at the end of Vol. II of the French Translation of Hiuen Tsang's Records by 8. Julien. It is entitled "Map of Central Asia and India published in Japan in 1710 on the basis of (or in accordance with) the accounts of Fa-Hien and Hiuen Tsang".
Rämpäl plate of Srichandra, v. 6 (Inscriptions of Bengal, Vol. III, by N. G. Majumdar, pp. 4,7). The verse, as interpreted by Dr. R. G. Basak (above, Vol. XII, p. 141) means that the founder of the Chandra royal family was the chief support of the king of Harikēla, which he ultimately occupied. In any case there is no doubt that the Chandras came into the possession of the kingdom of Harikola. It may be noted that the Chandra kings, like Kántidëva, were Buddhists. It is very probable that the Chandras suoceeded Kantidéva's family in the kingdom of Harikēlā.
Cf. e.g., the image of Bodhisattva (Buddha) in the Mathura Museum (Coomaraswamy, Hist. Ind. Indonesian Art fig. 84).
• Mr. T. N. Ramachandran, Superintendent, Archaeological Survey, informs me that a motif "almost similar" to that on the seal "occurs on a Digambara Jaina Nava-Dévatá (metallic) plate now in the Tiruparuttikunram temple, K&bchipuram" (Cf. Tiruparuttikunram and its Temples by T. N. Ramachandran, Pl. XXXVI, fig. 2).
