Page:The history of the Bengali language (1920).pdf/69

Rh compare to-day, the eastern Bihāri speeches with Bengali on one side, and with what is called Western Bhojpuri on the other, we find that the Eastern Bihāri speeches, in their colloquial and vulgar form, agree in many essential points, with Bengali, and differ much from Western Bhojpuri. This fact has been noted by Hœrnle and Grierson. The fact is, that Bihār of to-day is altogether a changed country on account of the mighty influence of the Westerners, while Bengal continues to be the real heir and representative of old Bihar.

Incessant migrations and displacements of various tribes, make it uncertain as to which people formed the substantial lower stratum in Rāḍha, when the civilisation fostered in Karṇasuvarṇa, was humanizing the frontier lands of Vaṅga. The Puṇḍras are found mentioned in the Purāṇas, once in conjunction with the Suhmas and another time in North Bengal, on Assam frontier in the company of two other tribes, namely the Pravijayas and the Bhārgavas. It seems that the Puṇḍras thrived better in North Bengal, while in Rāḍha they could not secure any prominent position. Of the other tribes mentioned in the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa, either under the general name the Pravangas (i.e., the tribes of Vaṅga frontier), or as stray tribes such as Māla, Māhiṣika, and Mānabattika, we get to-day the representatives of the Māl people in Bānkura and Mānbhūm, and the Mānas or the Mānabattikas may only be surmised to have been the originators of the geographical name Mānbhūm.

The epigraphic records of a line of rulers of some parts of Orissa and Dakṣina Kośala, during the tenth and eleventh centuries, disclose some facts which are of real interest in the history of Bengal. I have given elsewhere these rulers, the designation Kośalendras, as their political activities lay principally in the Sambalpur tract.