Page:The Pālas of Bengal.djvu/42

72 after which he turns back to the West to defeat Mahīpāla in North Bengal and again rushes to North Gujarat or Berar to conquer it. The more natural explanation is that Rājendra Coḷa defeated Raṇaśūra, the ruler of Southern Rāḍhā, and then passed on through that country to invade Vaṅga. From very early times a part of Bengal has been called Rāḍhā. It occurs in a dated inscription of the Indo-Scythian period as Rārā. This inscription is at present in the Indian Museum, in Calcutta, but it was discovered in Mathurā in the United Provinces. The record mentions the erection of a Jaina image in the year 62 of the Kuṣana era = 150 A.D. at the request of a Jaina monk who was an inhabitant of the country of Rārā. In comparatively modern times the name has been found on two copper-plate inscriptions:—


 * (1) The newly discovered grant of the Sena king Vallālasena, found at Sitāhāṭī, near Kāṭwā, in the Burdwān district of Bengal, where we find that the village granted, Vāllahiṭṭi, was situated in the North Rāḍhā (Uttara-Rāḍhā-maṇḍale). The very name Uttara-Rāḍhā occurs in the Tirumalai inscription as we shall see later on. Besides this, the kings of the Sena dynasty seem to have ruled in the Rāḍhā country:—


 * Vaṁśe tasy = ābhyudayini sadācāra-caryā-niruḍhi-prauḍhāṁ Rāḍhām-akalita-carair = bhūṣayantoऽnubhāvaiḥ,
 * Śaśvad = viśv-ābhaya-vitaraṇa-sthūla-lakṣyāvalakṣaiḥ kīrtty-ullolaiḥ snapita-viyato jajñire rājaputrāḥ.—verse 3.

There being a Uttara-Rāḍhā we can say from immediate inference, that there was a Dakṣiṇa-Rāḍhā, which in Tamil becomes "Takkana-Lāḍam."


 * (2) Besides this the Kenduāpatna plates of Narasiṁhadeva II of Orissa, dated Śaka 1217 = 1296 A.D., show very clearly that Rāḍhā and Vārendrī were well-known names of divisions of Bengal:—


 * Rāḍhā-Vārendra-yavanī-nayan-āñjan-āśru-pūreṇa dūra-viniveśitakālima-śrīḥ,
 * Tad-vipralambha-karaṇ-ādbhuta-nistaraṅgā Gaṅgāpi nūnam-amunā Yamun = ādhun = ābhūt.—verse 84.

At the time of the Coḷa invasion a king named Raṇaśūra was ruling Southern Rāḍhā. In Bengal there is a tradition that a dynasty of kings with the affix Śūra ruled in Bengal before the Pālas. We have no reliable evidence for this. But three kings of this family, at least with the word Śūra affixed to their names, have been mentioned in epigraphs. These are: Raṇaśūra, of the Tirumalai inscription; Lakṣmīśūra, a king of a division of Bengal named Apara-Mandāra, a contemporary of Rāmapāla, who was the headman of all feudatories of Forest lands (samastāṭavika-sāmanta-cakra-cuḍāmaṇiḥ); a man named Damaśūra, who is mentioned in a newly-discovered inscription of the time of Gopāla III, found at Manda in the Rājshāhi district of Bengal. After conquering Southern Rāḍhā, the Coḷa king did not proceed to subdue the northern portion of it, but on the other hand, passed eastwards towards Vaṅga,