Indian Antiquary Vol 42

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 197

JOLY, 1913.)
ON THE DATE OF LARSHMANASENA
taken from the Persian, belongs to a time somewhat distant, the last part of the name) is not found on these coins. The letters ba might be taken for an indication of a year of the short cycle, as on a coin from Kedah; but the preceding signs give as little satisfactory sense as the following ones reading the Arabic word at the beginning as shahr, month. Further, it is very improbable that the last signs should be read der-ba for the Arabic zarb [struck), and that the first signs might indicate the well-known name Ligore or Lagor, Lakhon in Siamese. It therefore only remains for me to confess my ignorance.
11. P. 153. Again, MM, Netsche and van der Chijs have reproduced a tin coin (De Munten van Nederlandisch Indie, Batavia 1863, p. 172, No. 220), which I have never seon, but which, although somewhat obscure, scems to me to belong also to the Malay Peninsula. According to their description, it weighs about 5 gr. with a diameter of 32 mill., and has a hole of 18 mill. diameter. One side is blank, the other bears the inscription in [ini] pitis Jering 1861. [This inscription puzzled Millies and the others, writing about 1865 and earlier, but from the knowledge since gathered by Mr. Skeat c. 1893, the coin clearly reads as above :--this is a pitis (cash) of Jering, 1261:-1845. Plate XXIV. No. 257].
(To be continued.)
ON THE DATE OF LAKSAMANASENA.
BY 8. KUMAR, Supdt. of the Reading Rooms, Imperial Library, Calcutta. In this Journal for July 1912, Prof. Nalini Kânta Bhattaśîli has contributed a paper on the date of Lakhmanagena, in which he has attempted to uphold Minhaj al-Din's story of the conquest of Bengal by Mahammad bin Bakhtyar-i-Kbilji, with a view to controvert an opinion expressed by Mr. R. D. Banerji in a meeting of the Bangiya Sahitya Parishad on the same subject.
The author of the paper having implicit confidence in Minhaj's statement says that a composition executel by an artist of some note has succeeded in stirring up the studente of history of our country to examine the story in a critical way. The author should have been aware that the “ fresh stir" was not created by the painting referred to by him, but that a note of disbelief bad already been struck, and that an attempt at criticising the statement which the author accepts as unquestionably true was first made by the late Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyâya.
Mr. R. D. Banerji, whom Prof. Bhattakáli controverts, has already laid on the table of the Asiatic Society of Bengal the results of his investigation on the subject, which when published will perhaps yield the soundest arguments and go a great way to establish the historical validity of the statement alleged to have been made by Mr. Banerji. The object of the present note is to point out the fallacies, which are apparent in Prof. Bhattaśáli's peper. “Every School boy" is aware no doubt of the daring deeds of the son of Bakhtyar. Bat does this at all prove that the account is necessarily true ? Our school books are not always well-chosen, and the authors, whose profession it is to get them up, do so anyhow, without taking much intelligent interest in their work.
About the four inscriptions which Prof. Bhattaśali has referred to, we have here only a few remarks to make. The name of the king mentioned in these inscriptions is Asokachalladeva and not Asokavalladeve, the reading which has been accepted by Prof. Bhattaśáli. The name was first correctly read by Dr. Bhagawânlal Indraji, and was afterwards emended by Cunningham without much reason for doing so. If Prof. Bbattagált referred to the inscriptions themselves, or had examined the impressions taken from them, he wonld have, no doubt, been convinced that the inscriptions, Nos. 2 and 4, on which Conningham's emendation was based, could not be relied upon. They seem to be very carelessly incised and abound in orthographical errors, and, on a minute examination, it will be found that in these practically very little difference exists between v and ch.
1 Prabandham 8.4.