PREFACE.
THE present volume gives the results of a Tour which I made in the cold season of 1879-80 in Bihâr and Northern Bengal. I first visited Mahâbodhi, or Buddha Gaya, where I had the good fortune to pick up two dated inscriptions, one of which is of considerable importance in fixing the date of the accession of Dharma Pâla, the second Prince of the Pâla dynasty of Bengal. I had already placed the date of his accession in A.D. 830,1[1] but the present inscription affords the means of fixing it absolutely to the following year 831 A.D. The inscription is thus recorded: S. 26—”Bhâdrapada badi 5 Saturday.” The mention of the week day shows that the 26th of Dharma Pâla must have fallen in A.D. 856, and his first year in A.D. 831, and not in 830. I am the more particular in mentioning the above fact, as Babu Rajendra Lâl has asserted publicly that his discovery of the Lakhshmana Sena era of Bengal has up. set my date of the Pâla kings of Bengal.2[2] But, in addition to the above proof of the accuracy of my chronology, I can now refer to a second inscription of Madana Pâla Deva, which is dated in “S. 9 (Navame) Aswina badi ii Friday,” or A.D. ii44; so that the first year of his reign was A.D 1136, or only one year later than the date previously given by me.
The two colossal statues of Yakshas, which are given in Plate II, are of considerable interest on account of their
