348 THE MEDLEVAL KINGDOMS OF THE NORTH The administration of the aged Lakhmaniya must have been hopelessly inefficient to permit a foreign army to march unobserved across Bengal, and to allow of the surprise of the palace by an insignificant party of eight- een horsemen. Notwithstanding the manifest rottenness of their system of government, the " Sena " kings were suffi- ciently conceited to establish a special era of their own, which they called by the name of Lakshmana-sena. The first current year, according to this computation, corresponded with 1119 - 20 A. D., and the epoch was apparently the date of either the accession or corona- tion of Lakshmana-sena, who seems to have been iden- tical with the aged Rai Lakhmaniya of the Moham- medan historians. One form of the tradition represents this king as having come to the throne in 510 A. H., equivalent to 1116 - 17 A. D., just eighty lunar years previous to the easy victory of the Moslem invader, and the era was invented presumably to mark the date of Lakshmana-sena 's coronation in October, 1119 A. D.
