North Indian Inscriptions

SOCIAL HISTORY

it is the Nagara-Brāhmaṇas,¹ we are told, who enter the ȥenana with the object of offering flowers and even with the knowledge of the king, but end in having illicit union with the in-mates thereof. Who could these Nagara-Brāhmaṇas be? Are they the Brāhmaṇas of the town or towns? It means practically nothing. The Brāhmaṇas of Gauḍa were by no means better in this respect. But they are referred to simply as Brāhmaṇas, and not as Nagara-Brāhmaṇas. When the latter are thus associated with the palaces of Aṅga, Vaṅga and Kaliṅga, whom are we to understand thereby? Obviously they are Brāhmaṇas, hailing from Nagara. It is well known that the Nāgar Brāhmaṇas of Gujarāt and Kāṭhiāwāḍ point to Nagar or Ānandapura as their native place and that this place has been identified with Vaḍnagar in North Gujarāt. Further, it is a well-known practice of a people or tribe to name the places, provinces or rivers of their new settlement after the old one from which they have migrated. We have elsewhere pointed out the those Nāgar Brāhmaṇas, before coming down to Gujarāt, must have originally been at Nagar or Nagarkōṭ, the old name of Kāṅgḍā, which is situated in the Panjab in the Sawālakh or Sapādalaksha hills. Just as they migrated south to Gujarāt, they must have migrated east to Aṅga, Vaṅga and Kaliṅga, if there were at all any Nāgar Brāhmaṇas there. The question that now arises is whether there were any places or provinces in East India named Nagara or Ānandapura. An epigraphist need not be told that whereas the Deo Barṇārk inscription, found in the Shahabad District, Bihar, speaks of Nagara-bhukti,² the Nālandā plate of Samudragupta (No. 3 below) speaks of the victorious camp of Ānandapura. So far as Bengal is concerned, there is one village called Nagar in the Dacca District, and another in Sylhet.

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There are, again, two rivers of that name in North Bengal,-one running from Purnea to Dinajpur and the other from Bogra to Rajshahi.³ Further and now, if we turn to the Karatōyā-māhātmya which describes the holy sites of Mahāsthāna, or old Puṇḍravardhana, which is in the Bogra District of Bengal (now in Bangladesh) and which stands on the west bank of the river, we find that there is a reference, not once, but twice, to the Sapādalaksha Brāhmaṇas.⁴ It is worthy of note that all the places mentioned above are not far removed from the Maldah District, where was discovered the Khālimpur charter of Dharmapāla of the Pāla dynasty. It says that Nārāyaṇavarman, a feudatory chieftain of his, had installed a god called Nanna-Nārāyaṇa who was, we are told, placed chiefly in the charge of the Lāṭa Brāhmaṇas (dvijas).⁵ Four villages were granted by Dharmapāla to them for this god. And the question arises: who could these Lāṭa Brāhmaṇas be? It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that they were Nāgar Brāhmaṇas who hailed from Ānandapura or Nagara, that is, from Vaḍnagar in Gujarāt, the ancient name of which was Lāṭa. As a reminiscence of their early migration to East India may be mentioned again the fact that the names of Nagara and Ānandapura are traceable in inscriptions of the Gupta period. Even to this day not only is Nagar found as the name of a village in Dacca and Sylhet but also Gujarāt in Howrah. Keshab Chandra Bhattacharya’s Vaṅgē Dākshiṇātya-Vaidika⁶ speaks of one such family not only as having migrated from this village called Gujarāt, but also being surnamed Vaidya. Vaidya, as a family name, is found among the Nāgar Brāhmaṇas of Gujarāt and Kāṭhiāwāḍ but not among the members of any high caste of Bengal except the Dākshiṇātya Vaidika. When all these pieces of evidence are brought to a focus, the conclusion is irresistible that the Nāgar Brāhmaṇas were settled in Bengal about this time.
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¹ Kāmasūtra, verse 6,41 (p. 301 of Bombay edn.).
² CII., Vol. III, 1888, p. 216, line 6.
³ Ind. Ant., Vol. LXI, o. 46 and note 20.
⁴ Mahasthan and its Environs (Varendra Res. Soc.’s Monograph No. 2), p. 11 and p. 26, verses 22 and 24; also Kāyastha-Samāj (Nasik), B.S. 1336, pp. 496-97.
⁵ Ep. Ind., Vol. IV, p. 250, lines 50-51.
⁶ P. 46.