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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
[Vol. XXVIII
images, some of which unfortunately cannot be traced now. This is because, as is well known, a large number of images have since been occasionally removed from the villages by interested parties. But most of the old villages in some Districts of Bihar, such as Monghyr, Patna and Gaya, still abound in broken images usually of the Pāla age, both inscribed and uninscribed. Some at least are coming out every year at the stroke of the cultivator's ploughshare and the workman's spade to increase the number of accumulated images, although the process of the removal of better preserved images is also still going on. In January 1950, I conducted a search for old inscriptions amongst the images accumulated in certain villages about the western fringe of the Monghyr District and this led to the discovery of some very interesting records. The images are mostly mutilated and many of them bear no inscriptions at all. The writing on the largest number of the inscribed images again either gives only the Buddhist formula ye dharma hētu-prabhava', etc., or especially when the image is not a Buddhistic one, merely says that a particular image was the gift (dēva-dharma or dèya-dharma') of a certain private individual, sometimes styled dāna-pati. Only in a few cases they prove important owing to the mention of the regnal year of the king, during whose rule an image was installed, or rarely to some other interesting information such as about the locality where the image was installed or where the man responsible for the installation lived. In connection with this survey, I visited the localities called Rājaunā, Chauki, Valgudar, Raghugarh, Pātner, Samsarpokhri, Kāwāyā, Godi, Rāmpur, Amarpur and Urēn. The villages lie in the vicinity of the Luckeesarai, Kiul and Kajra railway stations on the East Indian Railway. Of all the inscriptions examined by me in the above localities, the three discovered at Valgüdar were found to be the most interesting, as they not only helped me in locating the ancient city of Krimilā, headquarters of a vishaya of that name within the Pāla empire, but also as one of the three records offered an exceptionally important date in the chronology of the Palas of Bengal and Bihar.
On the 9th of January 1950, I visited Valgüdar (lat. 25° 10' 30" N.; long. 86° 5' E.) which is & small village lying by the side of the railway line between the Luckeesarai and Mankatha railway stations. I was fortunate enough to find there no less than three small inscriptions. The earliest of them was found on a pedestal (image now lost) which is lying in the compound of the house of Babu Kesav Sinha and is being used now by the people as a platform for washing their feet. It contains two lines covering a space 17.5" in length and 2.4" in height. The aksharas are about 15" in height, although the conjuncts with vowel marks are sometimes double that height. The second inscription was found on a mutilated image lying in the verandah of the Katchery of Babu Dilip Narayan Sinha, who, I was told, is a zamindar staying at Bhagalpur. I was further told that the image had been discovered sometime previously while digging the earth for the foundation of a house. It is an image of a seated goddess with a child on her lap. It may be mentioned here that such images of the Devi with child were noticed by me in many places in South Bihar. She must have enjoyed great popularity amongst the people of the region in the early medieval period. There is a similar image of the goddess at the neighbouring village of Rajaunā which, as the inscription on it shows, was styled Pundēsvari and was installed during the reign of Nayapāla (circa 1038-55 A. C.). A mutilated image of the same deity is now preserved in the Asutosh Museum of the University of Calcutta. The inscription on it shows that it was installed during the reign of Ramapāla. This image also seems to have been originally found somewhere in South Bihar, although goddesses of similar types were fairly popular in Bengal as well. The Dēvi's
1 Cf. Pali diyya-dhamma, a gift, an offering.
* In old Bengali, this word is used in the sense of a person who had promised to dedicate an object on the fulfilment of particular desire and later kept the vow. See J. M. Das, Bangla Bhashar Abhidhana, 8. v. In the votive inscriptions of the type referred to above, the word dana-pati seems to be used in this technical sense. Devadharma thus seems to refer to an image installed according to a previous promise called manasika.
