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Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c18: XIV. Kṛmilā

Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c18

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XIV. Kṛmilā

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The Monghyr plate of king Devapāla (*circa* 810-50 A.D.) of the Pāla dynasty of Bengal and Bihar was discovered as early as 1780. It was first published in 1788 in the *Asiatic Researches*, Vol.I, pp. 13 ff. The inscription was re-edited by F. Kielhorn in the *Indian Antiquary*, Vol. XXI, 1892, pp. 254 ff. ; by A. K. Maitreya in the *Gauḍalekhamālā*, B.S. 1319 (1913 A.D.), pp. 33 ff. ; and by L. D. Barnett in the *Epigraphia Indica*, Vol. XVIII, 1925-26, pp. 304 ff.

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The grant was issued by the *Paramasaugata-Parameśvara-Parambhaṭṭāraka-Mahārājādhirāja* Devapāladeva in the 33rd year of his reign from his *jaya-skandhāvāra* at Mudga-giri, *i.e.* modern Monghyr, the headquarters of a District of that name in Bihar. By this charter, the Pāla king granted the village called Meṣikā-grāma in favour of a Brāhmaṇa named Vihekarāta-miśra. The village was situated in the *viṣaya* or district of Kṛmilā which formed a part of the *bhukti* or province of Śrīnagara. From the inscriptions of the Pālas, we come to know of the existence of two *bhuktis* or provinces in Bihar, viz., Śrīnagara-bhukti and Tira-bhukti.¹ The word *tira* refers to the banks of the Ganges. Tira-bhukti is the same as the modern Tirhut Division and apparently indicated parts of Bihar lying to the north of that river. The expression *Śri-nagara* meaning ‘the illustrious city,’ *i.e.*, the city *par excellence*, referred to the celebrated ancient city of Pāṭaliputra (of which the modern representative is Pāṭnā derived from Sanskrit *pattana* or township) and the Śrīnagara *bhukti* no doubt included the districts of South Bihar having their administrative headquarters at the above city.² Of the *viṣayas* or districts forming the Tira *bhukti* in the age of the Pālas, we know only of the Kakṣa *viṣaya*, and, of those forming the Śrīnagara bhukti, such districts as Gayā-viṣaya, Rājagṛha-viṣaya and Kṛmilā-viṣaya are known from inscriptions.¹ Of these viṣayas, those of Gayā and Rājagṛha can be easily identified as the tracts of land round respectively the modern towns of Gayā and Rājgir (i.e., Rājagṛha), the latter being now situated in the administrative division known as the Patna District of Bihar. But the exact situation of Kakṣa viṣaya in the Tira bhukti and the Kṛmilā-viṣaya in the Śrīnagara bhukti could not be satisfactorily determined. Recently we discovered certain new inscriptions of the Pāla period, which throw interesting light on the location of the Kṛmilā viṣaya.

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¹ History of Bengal, Vol. I, Dacca University, p. 273.

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² Cf. the commentary on Vātsyāyana’s Kāmasūtra, VI, 5, 30: Nāgarikā iti Pāṭaliputrikāḥ, etc.

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¹ Ray, *Dynastic History of Northern India*, Vol. I, pp. 274, 400.

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About the begining of January 1950, I visited, in course of a search for inscriptions, certain villages in the neighbourhood of the Kiul and Luckeesarai railway stations on the former East Indian Railway (now Eastern Railway) about the western fringe of the Monghyr District of Bihar. Long ago, Alexander Cunningham made an epigraphical survey of many villages of South Bihar and the interesting results of that survey are recorded in his celebrated Reports. But it is doubtful if it was possible for him to visit all the villages. Moreover, images both inscribed and uninscribed, are being discovered every year in various villages of that area at the point of the cultivator's ploughshare and the workman's spade and a large number of them, discovered after Cunningham's survey, have accumulated in many villages. There is no doubt that many of such images have often been carried away from the find-spots by interested persons; but the epigraphic survey conducted by me only in a few villages convinced me fully that very good results may still be obtained if the images (unfortunately broken in most cases), scattered over almost all old villages in South Bihar, are made the object of a careful search in the line initiated by Cunningham more than eighty years back but not seriously continued afterwards.

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There is a village called Valgūdar (often said to be Vargūjar), near Rajauna and Chauki, on the side of the railway line between the Luckeesarai and Mankatha railway stations.

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I visited the village on the 9th of January and discovered no less than three interesting inscriptions. A stone pedestal of a lost image in a locality, called Saṅgat owing to its being a Sikh religious establishment in the village, was found to bear a very important inscription dated both in the 18th regnal year of king Madanapāla of the Pāla dynasty and in the Śaka year 1083. The importance of the date of this record has been discussed elsewhere; but the fact it records is no less interesting. It says that two Vaiṣṇava brothers of a Brāhmaṇa family established an image of the god Nārāyaṇa at Krimilā. The second inscription discovered and examined by me at Valgūdar was found on a broken image of a goddess with a child on her lap and with a lion as her emblem, lying in the veranda of the Kutchery of Babu Dalipnarayan Sinha who is a zamindar of Bhagalpur. It may be mentioned here that images representing the Devī with a child seem to have been very popular in all parts of South Bihar. We have noticed such images in many villages. One such image is now in the Asutosh Museum of Indian Art of the University of Calcutta and it bears an inscription of the time of Rāmapāla. The find-spot of this image also seems to us to be some village of South Bihar. A similar image at Rajauna near Valgūdar is known, from the inscription on it, to have been called Puṇḍeśvarī. It is possible that this rural deity, apparently not unconnected with the conception of Pārvatī with Skanda on her lap as indicated by the theme of Kālidāsa's Kumārasambhava, and of the Buddhist Hārītī, was worshipped under different local names in various localities.¹ The inscription on the Valgūdar image of the Devī with a child says that it was installed by a person named Nṛkaṭṭa at the adhiṣṭhāna or city of Kṛmilā. It may be

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¹ A similar image, but with four arms and without the lion emblem, was found near Dacca and has been tentatively identified by Bhattasali (Iconography, pp. 63 ff.; Plate XX) with Hārītī. Another form of the same primitive Mother-goddess with a child on her lap was conceived with a snake-canopy over her head and was worshipped both in Bihar and Benga. I found one such image on the bank of the Saṃsārpokhrī at Luckeesarai. In Bengal, this deity later came to be identified with the snake-goddess Manasā (cf. ibid., pp. 212 ff.; His. Beng., op. cit., pp. 460 f.); but that she was originally worshipped under different local names is suggested by the Marāil (Dinajpur District) image of the goddess known to have been called Bhaṭṭiṇī Maṭṭuvā.

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