The period which follows is entirely different in character, the principal actors having changed. The great Gurjara-Pratīhāra Empire was rapidly dissolving and the Rāṣṭrakūṭa kings were gradually becoming weaker. Rāṣṭrakūṭa and Gurjara invasions became things of the past. New actors were appearing in the political arena. The invasion of the Great Coḷa Conqueror left a deep impression on north eastern India. It gave Bengal a new dynasty of kings and indirectly hastened the ruin of the Pãla Empire. After the Badal pillar inscription of Narāyaṇapāla, there is no other inscription which can throw Hght on the history of Northern Bengal for three generations, i.e. till the time of Mahīpāla I. About this time some Mongolian tribes occupied the whole of the Northern Bengal and either massacred the old inhabitants or gradually forced them back southwards. A monolithic pillar now standing in the grounds of the place of the Mahārājas of Dinajpur bears a record of one of these Mongolian kings, who also claimed to be the lords of Gauḍa (Gauḍeśvara). At present the whole of Northern Bengal is strewn over with pre-MuhammadanKamboja or Mongolian invasion of North Bengal. ruins and so far the general theory had been, that these temples, monasteries and towns were ruined at the time of the Muhammadan occupation of the country. But recently a plausible theory has been started by Mr. Ramā Prasād Canda, B.A., on the basis of Dinājpur pillar inscription, according to which the ruin of these ancient cities of Northern Bengal should be differently interpreted. The inscription on the Dinājpur pillar was brought to notice in 1871 when it was published with a rude lithograph.[1] The late Dr. Bloch examined the inscription during one of his tours and hastily gave a reading which I am afraid cannot be supported. Mr. Canda obtained some very clear and beautiful rubbings of this inscription during one of his many visits and submitted a paper on it to the Asiatic Society of Bengal.[2] According to Mr. Canda, the Koch, Mech and the Palias of the present day are the descendants of the Mongolians who invaded and settled in North Bengal during the latter half of the ninth and the tenth century A.D. The inscription on the Dinājpur pillar, which forms the basis of Mr. Canda's paper, records the erection of a temple of Śiva during the reign of a king of Gauḍa of the Kāmboja race, in the year 888 of some unspecified era. The date is expressed as a chronogram:The date in the Dinājpur inscription.Kuñjara-Ghaṭā-varṣeṇa, which probably means 888. This date cannot be referred to the Vikrama era as in that case it would be equivalent to 831 A.D., which is too early to suit the characters used in this inscription. Neither can it be referred to the
