A History of Assam c8.38

c8.38

The only clue as to the period when they ruled is furnished by the statement in the copper-plate inscriptions of Ratna Pāl that twenty kings intervened between Sāla Stambha and Brahma Pāl. The inscriptions in question appear, from the form of the letters, to have been prepared between 1010 and 1050 A.D., and as the grants recorded in them were executed in the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth years of Ratna Pāl's reign, we may perhaps take 1000 A.D. as the date when his father, the founder of the dynasty, ascended the throne. Allowing an average of sixteen years for each of the previous twenty-one kings, we get 664 A.D., as the approximate date of Sāla Stambha's accession to power. It would thus appear that he subverted the dynasty of Bhāskara Varman not many years after Hiuen Tsiang's visit to the country. It must, however, be remembered that the date assumed for Ratna Pāl's plates depends solely on palæographical considerations, and that there may be an error of fifty years, or even more, in the figure thus obtained.