________________ 310 Homage to Vaisait can get out of it only if we explain the fact as due to unsophisticated Sakuntala's inability to bear the sight of the King in Majesty and hence an isolated, abnormal one having no social significance. Or in the face of the objective evidence in form of the terracottas and coins, we may summarily dismiss the subjective reference occurring in a literary composition whose form undergoes changes almost each time it changes hands, terms and expressions often leaving out their original meanings and taking on new ones. Under such circumstances, we may not even be sure if 3990s means the cover for the face. We have deliberately kept from discussing the date of the Vaisali terracottas. We refer the reader for discussions of the same to the articles of T. Bloch and D. B. Spooner in the Archaeological Survey of India Annual Reports for 1903-04 and 1913-14. The palaeography of the inscriptions on the coins and the seals as well as the strata in which the terracottas have been found point definitely to the period 300 A. D. -500 A. D. as their date. It has been deduced from the coins and the seals that Vaisali was the seat of the governor of the province of Tirabhukti (Modern Tirhut) under the Imperial Guptas. NDID
