Dinesh Chandra Bhattacharya

Reference: Dinesh Chandra Bhattacharya, A Forgotten Family of Royal Poets : The Sura Kings of Вhulua
Dinesh Chandra Bhattacharya, Bengal: Past and Present , Vol-XLVIII, 1934, pg 17-22

Bhulua is the largest pargana in the district of Noakhali and gave the name to the district down to the year 1868. A romantic and semi- historical account of the first Hindu king of Bhulua, which originally comprised the major portion of the whole district, is still current among the people and a short history of the family was first published by Dr. Wise of Dacca is his famous article on the Bara-Bhuiyas of Bengal (J.A.S.B. 1874). It has subsequently found place іп a number of later works in Bengali on local history. Unfortunately, almost all the writers had to rely solely on local traditional and their accounts are thus mixed up with much that is false and fanciful. The latest account is from the pen of our learned friend Mr. Bhattasali of the Dacca Museum (Bengal: Past and Present, Vol. XXXV, p. 38-9) who, we are glad to note, has been able to clear most of the current errors in the history of the family. It is now possible in light of newer materials to improve considerably upon the brief sketch of Мг. Bhattasali, where a few errors have unwittingly crept in and to present a more comprehensive account of this almost forgotten family.

The essential facts of the story are (i) that a Prince named Biswambhar Sura son of Adisura of a Kastriya family of Mithila founded the kingdom of Bhulua and (ii) that the exact date of the event is given as 1203 A.D. It is universally admitted that the family was soon absorbed into the Kayastha community of Bengal.

Attempts have recently been made to connect the family with the famous king Adisura of Bengal and it is put forth for the first time in the District Gazetteer that probably “they were Kayasthas of West Bengal.” These do not seem to take into proper account the important fact that a few families claiming descent from Prince Biswambhar along with a few Brahmin families which originally migrated with the Prince are even now partly ruled by customs prevalent only in Mithila and not found in Bengal. This confirms in our opinion the Maithil origin of the family. The date of the event roughly coincides with the invasion of Bengal and Magadha by Bakhtiyar Khilji and that itself lends support to its probability. We have to reject this date, for only seven generations are found to intervene between Biswambhar and, Laksmanamanikya, the most famous ruler of the dynasty whose date is known to be about 1600 A.D.— seven generations to four centuries cannot be accepted as history.

In several districts of Eastern Bengal a new era called the Parganati San is found used in the dating of older records, the starting of the era falling variously between 1199-1203 A.D. The origin of this era is still unknown. Mr. Bhattasalli suggested (Ind. Ant. 1923 pp. 314-20) that it probably refers to the conquest of Bengal by Bakhtiyar. This era, I have found largely used in the older records of Bhulua dated in the 17th and 18th centuries A.D. It is our surmise that the mention of this era might have led the people of Bhulua to wrongly ascribe it to their local hero Visvambhar, not knowing that the era was current in other districts specially Tippera and Dacca.

The genealogy points to about 1400 A.D. as the probable date of Visvambhar the first king of Bhulua. The foundation of this kingdom is preceded, according to the legends, by the discovery and installation by that king of a black stone image of a Goddess, Varahi Devi, which at once became the presiding deity, so to speak, of the entire Pargana and has ever since been worshipped by the Hindus with uniform devotion. The Goddess is regarded as a type of the well-known Hindu deity Durga. I shall never forget the shock that a distinguished old Pandit of Bhulua received from me when I disclosed to him that the image does not at all belong to the Hindu pantheon but it is really a well-known Buddhist Goddess named Marichi with eight arms and three faces and the five Dhyani Buddhas are depicted there as an infallible sign of its Buddhistic origin. (cf. Bhattasali : Iconography p. 272)

The worship of Gods of the Buddhist Pantheon by the later Hindus after the fall of Buddhism is not unknown elsewhere. But it is certainly strange that Bhulua which once formed an important seat of Sanskrit learning should let this fiction survive through half a millennium and that we might say with impunity. For, the Goddess far from disowning Her alien devotees preferred to become a ‘living deity” with them, if we are to believe in the stories current in the Pargana about the remarkable powers of the Goddess. It is said before any calamity attending the royal family the image would be found to ‘sweat’ profusely.

Nothing is known about the immediate descendants of Visvambhar. Possibly the earliest mention of the kingdom of Bhulua is found in the recently published Chronicles of Tippera, the Rajamala, from which it is learned that King Devamanikya (1520-35) of Tippera conquered Bhulua perhaps for the first time ; for, Bhulua is not included among the extensive conquests of his predecessor Dhanyamanikya who raided upto Chittagong. (Rajamala Vol.II р. 35) The first specific mention of a King of Bhulua is also made in the same work Rajmala ; king Amaramanikya (1577-86 A.D.) of Tippera is stated therein to have conquered Durlabha Roy of Bhulua in the year 1578 A.D. (Ib. Vol. П р. 83,306). We propose to identify this Durlabha with the grandfather of king Laksmanamanikya whose name is given in all tables as Rajavallabha. Probably the correct name was Rajadurlabha ; for in Bengali Mss. the two words Rajadurlabha and Rajavallabha are likely to be misread as one another.

Rajadurlabha was succeeded by his son Gandharvamanikya who is mentioned in the Rajamala as defeated soon after 1600 A.D. by king Yasomanikya (1600-1620) of Tippera. Мг. Bhattasali’s finding that he probably came after both Laksmanamanikya and Anantamanikya is totally wrong. For, Gandharva is named and eulogised in elegant verses as the father of King Laksmana in a contemporary work the Kautukaratnakara. This short farcical play in Sanskrit was written by the family priest of Laksmana. In the prelude after a glowing description of the capital of the kingdom, also named Bhulua, the father of the poet’s patron is thus praised :—

“His father was king Gandharvamanikya, who was more handsome than Cupid, who had his charming fame formed into a white parasol and who was the Full Moon (rising) out of the ocean of the Sura family.”

In a subsequent verse the poet describes eloquently the big elephant on which the king rode to fight his battles. A Ms. of the play exists in the library of the India Office, London (Eggeling: Catal. p. 1618) and another has recently been secured for the Dacca University, Among a large number of copies of land grants preserved in the Tippera Collectorate we were able to discover a copy of an important copperplate grant of this king Gandharvamanikya. This happens to be the only copperplate inscription discovered in the district of Noakhali, though the original can no longer be traced.

The transcript evidently made by an ordinary clerk suffers consequently from a number of errors. There was a seal attached to the plate but the emblem does not appear in the copy. On one side of the seal occurs the name of the donor and on the other the name apparently of his minister. The entire inscription is in Sanskrit verse except one sentence in prose in the middle.

The number of lines in the original plate cannot be ascertained from the copy. The translation of the inscription as far as we have been able to restore it is as follows :—

Translation

vv. 1-4. Hail! By the great king Sri-Gandharvamanikya the wise, who was a bee in the lotus feet of Srikrisna, who destroyed his enemies by means of arrows thrown with ease from a bow, who was in his soul devoted to the two feet of Govinda and who had come down with the (knowledge of) all — arts of a great councillor, —(landed) properties were given, for increasing (the life) in Heaven of his father, to Brahmins viz. the wise Ramachandra, Ramananda Sarma and the learned Hridayananda, who was celibate.

v. 5. In (villages) Kachihata and Nazirpur . . . . lands upto the home-stead of Raghuya (?) &c.

The tax of 5 per cent. (?) of the village full of houses (?) is remitted ; let it be enjoyed at will even through sons, grandsons &c.

v. 6. At whatever different times anyone owns the land, to him belongs the fruit of that land-grant. Hence the property given by me to the Brahmins should be maintained by (future) kings.

v. 7. And also, Whoever takes away a Brahmin’s property given by himself or by others becomes for 60,000 years a worm in dirt.

We are unable to restore the topographical portion of the inscription. The grant shows that Gandharvamanikya was a Vaisnava by religion and the gift of a certain measure of land in 2 villages was made by him with the express purpose of enhancing the merits of his deceased father in favour of three Brahmins named Ramachandra, Ramananda and Hridayananda. In the last line there is a figure apparently giving the date of the record, which reads 1403. The reading is evidently wrong, the figure for 5 which had, as is well known to students of epigraphy, a left-hand lateral stroke was apparently misread by the copyist as 4. Referring to the correct date 1503 to the Saka era the date of the record works out to be 1581 A.D. The inscription proves, therefore, that Gandharva’s father died shortly after his defeat at the hands of the king of Tippera about the year 1580-81 A.D. Nothing further is known about Gandharva whose name curiously is omitted in all previous accounts. The chronicles of Tippera refers to him as Gandharva Narayana denying him the title Manikya which attaches to the monarchs of
Tippera.

Gandharva was succeeded soon after 1600 A.D. by his son king Laksmanamanikya by far the most celebrated king of the dynasty about whom many stories are still current. He is popularly included among the famous “12 Bhuiyas’’ of Bengal who struggled for independence against the Mogul Emperors and as early as 1791 A.D. his name is mentioned as such in C. W. B. Rouse’s Dissertation concerning the landed property of Bengal. But his actual participation in this struggle remains yet to be proved. During the times of the famous Isa Khan he did not yet come to the throne. While Islam Khan’s expeditions as narrated in the contemporary work the Baharistan, encountered in Bhulua a prince named Anantamanikya who was evidently his successor. The only struggle in which Laksmanamanikya might have joined is that between Mansingh and Kedar Roy about 1602-3 A.D. One of his Sanskrit dramas the Vikhyata-vijaya was meant originally to be staged before a gathering of princes at Kurukshettra near Delhi. This would presuppose his sojourn to the Mogul Court at Delhi evidently on a peaceful mission and ‘it is not unlikely that he may have been won over by Mansingh after the fall of Kedar Roy in 1603 A.D.

Laksmanamanikya had enmity with the ‘boy’ chief Ramachandra of Bakla (Barisal) and that proved his undoing. For, he was treacherously made a captive and removed to Chandradvipa where he was subsequently put to death about the year 1611-12 A.D. The story of this treachery is even now a household word in Bhulua where the incident has given rise to a pithy line current among the Pandits :— There is no sense in Bakla.

King Laksmana was by the tradition of an exceptionally robust constitution and the coat of mail which he wore is said to be still preserved as a relic in‘ his ruined palace at Kalyanpur, weighing about a maund. Of his considerable literary achievements we shall speak below. The exact nature of his relationship with Anantamanikya, the next ruler of Bhulua mentioned in the Baharistan, has not been ascertained by any previous writer.

One historian of Noakhali (Babu Pyarimohan Sen) prints a table showing three brothers Laksmana, Ananta and Udaya. But all these tables have gone the wrong way in altogether omitting the name of Gandharva. Fortunately a correct genealogy we were able to procure from a direct descendant of Anantamanikya and the name of Gandharva appears there for the first time. According to this account, Gandharva had a younger brother named Prince Udayamanikya whose son was Anantamanikya. He was thus the first cousin and rival to the throne of the great Laksmana. According to a tradition, which I heard from an old Pandit, cousin Ananta was even, more robust in physique than Laksmana who entertained a feeling of jealousy and suspicion against him.

It is said king Laksmana once contemplated his secret murder and invited him as if out of affection to a sumptuous dinner all alone in his own presence. In one of the rooms of the ruined palace at Kalyappur the poor Prince sat to his meals before Laksmanamanikya seated with drawn sword in the Royal seat and even as he was wondering whatever might be the motive of the king he suddenly grew suspicious and by a desperate leap broke clearly through a window; he ran with his life to the village of Srirampur, a distance of 12 miles and there took shelter with the scion of the Sura family that still survives. It appears that Anantamanikya subsequently sought the help of the Magh ruler of Chittagong and after the tragic fate of Laksmanamanikya he, probably with the help of the Maghs, usurped the kingdom of Bhulua from the immature sons of Laksmana.

According to the Baharistan Anantamanikya was defeated by the forces of Islam Khan in 1613 A.D. and fled to the country of the Maghs. Of the successors of Ananta for about a century nothing practically is known. Mr. Bhattasali deserves all credit for correcting a most curious error, due to a misinterpreted misreading, that has vitiated all the recent works on the subject including the District Gazetteer where Laksmanamanikya is stated to have been succeeded by his son named Balaram Roy about the year 1597 A.D. Balaram actually belonged to the Sura family but his date as we have found in a grant by him is only 1167 BS. (1760 A.D.)

According to two printed tables that have come to our hands Laksmanamanikya had four sons ; the names are given in the following order—Vijaya or Jaya, Amara, Dharma or Varma, and Chandra. This is materially confirmed by Mss. works in Sanskrit that have recently come to light. Laksmana’s eldest son was Dhanyamanikya (misread in the tables as Dharma or Varma) who succeeded to the throne after the overthrow of Ananta and we can easily imagine that he had friendly relations with the conquering Moguls who had then established a permanent outpost at Bhulua. Dhanyamanikya is highly eulogized by two of his younger brothers named Chandramanikya and Amaramanikya in their respective works in Sanskrit. Mr. Bhattasali was clearly wrong in identifying this Dhanyamanikya with the celebrated Tippera king of that name; for, one of the brothers Amaramanikya has given the father’s name Laksmana along with the name of the eldest brother who was then the reigning monarch. Besides, the Chronicles of Tippera do not show any brothers of Dhanyamanikya by the names of Chandra and Amara and the Tippera kings never pretended scholarship in Sanskrit. [Мапаsi for (?) 1334 B.S.]

Dhanyamanikya of Bhulua died childless about the middle of the 17th century and was apparently succeeded by one or more of his three younger brothers. In one document preserved in the Tippera Collectorate (No. 3844 of copies of Revenue free land grants) dated 1167 B.S., there is [a] reference to a previous grant by Raja Amaramanikya who must, therefore, have come to the throne at one time. The last prince of the dynasty is stated to be Rudra Roy or Rudramanikya, son of the youngest son of Laksmana named Vijayamanikya. We came across copies of two land grants by this prince in the Tippera Collectorate where his full name is given as Rudra-rama-gopala Raya.

This prince was, by well-known tradition, from his early life maimed and invalid and the kingdom was ruled successfully by his queen Rani Sasimukhi who had uncommon ability and intelligence and her memory is still universally respected in the Pargana. In tһе earlier of the two land grants (No. 3913 Ibid.) dated in the Parganati year 517 (1719 A.D.) the name of (Rani) Sasimukhi is associated with that of her husband, proving her participation in the affairs of the state. She comes of a rich Kayastha family of Jessore and during her regime, as she was childless, the Pargana was divided into three shares which passed to the hands of the three aristocratic families of Dattapara, Maijdi and Khilpara. This was sometime before the year 1728 A.D. From the other grant dated 534 Parganati Era (1736 A.D.) it appears that the Prince was still alive in that year (No. 3934 Ibid.) The subsequent history of the Pargana is beyond the scope of this paper. The direct line of Laksmanamanikya became extinct with Rudra Roy who died childless. But it is not generally known even in Bhulua that the family of Laksmana’s redoubtable cousin Anantamanikya still survives in the district of Tippera. The great-grandson of Ananta named Pratapamanikya left Bhulua apparently failing to secure any share of the Pargana and settled in a village about 12 miles from the town of Comilla.