Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

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VII. On the Chronology of the Hindus
by the President (Sir William Jones)
Written in January 1788
Asiatic Researches, Volume 2
1788
Page 88-114

Sir W. Jones himself led the way in the discussion of the chronology of the hindus.* [A.R. vol. i. p. 71.] After a speculative dissertation, tending to an identification or reconciliation, in some particular points, of the hindu with the mosaic history, he has with all that fascination which his richly stored mind enabled him to impart to all his discussions, developed the scheme of hindu chronology, as explained to him from hindu authorities, by Radhacanta Serman [Radha Canta Sarman], "a pundit of extensive learning and great same among the hindus.” The chronology treated of in this dissertation, extends back through “the four ages,” which are stated to embrace the preposterous period of 4,320,000 years; and contains the genealogies of kings collected from the puranas, which were then considered works of considerable antiquity. It is only in the middle of the “fourth age,” when he comes to the Magadha dynasty, that hindu authorities enable him to assign a date to the period at which any of those kings ruled. On obtaining this “point d'appui,” [strategic point] Sir W. Jones thus expresses himself: —
Paranjaya, son of the twentieth king, was put to death by his minister, Sunara, his own son Pradyota on the throne of his master; and this revolution constitutes an epoch of the highest importance in our present inquiry; first, because it happened, according to the Bhagawatanwerta, two years before Baddha's appearance in the same kingdom: next, because it is believed by the hindus to have taken place 3333 years ago, or 2100 before Christ; and, lastly, because a regular chronology, according to the number of years in each dynasty, has been established, from the accession of Pradyota, to the subversion of the genuine hindu government, and that chronology I will now lay before you, after observing only, that Radhacanta himself says nothing of Buddha in this part of his work, though he particularly mentions two preceding avataras in their proper places.
Kings of Magadha / Y.B.C. Pradyota

Palaca / 2100
Visachayupa
Rajaca
Nandiwerdhana / 5 reigns = 133
Sisunaga
Cacaverna / 1962
Cshemadherman
Cshetrajnya
Vidhisara
Ajatasatru
Darbhaca
Ajaya
Nandiverdhana
Mahanandi / 10 reigns = 360 years 1602
Nanda

"This prince, of whom frequent mention is made in the Sanscrit books is said to have been murdered, after a reign of a hundred years, by a very learned and ingenious, but passionate and vindictive, brahman, whose name was Chanacya [Chanakya], and who raised to the throne a man of the Maurya race, named Chandragupta. By the death of Nanda and his sons, the Cshatriya family of Pradyota became extinct.
Maurya Kings / Y.B.C.

Chandragupta / 1502
Varisara
Asocaverdhana
Sunyasas
Desaratha / 5
Sangata
Salisuca
Somasarman
Satadhanwas
Vrihadratha / 10 reigns = 137

"On the death of the tenth Maurya king, his place was assumed by his commander-in-chief, Pushamitra, of the Sanga nation or family."

It is thus shown that, according to the hindu authorities, Chandragupta, the Sandracottus, who was contemporary with Alexander and Sileucus Nicator, to whose court at Palibothra Megasthenes was deputed, is placed on the throne about B.C. 1502; which is at once an anachronism of upwards of eleven centuries.

Sir W. Jones sums up his treatise by commenting on this fictitious chronology of the hindus, with the view to reconciling it, by rational reasoning, founded on the best attainable data, with the dates which that reasoning would suggest, as the probably correct periods of the several epochs named by him.

The whole of that paper, but more particularly as it treats of the "fourth age,” bears a deeply interesting relation to the question of the authenticity of the buddhistical chronology; and it exhibits, in a remarkable degree, the unconscious approaches to truth, as regards the history of the Buddhos, made by rational reasoning, though constantly opposed by the prejudices and perversions of hindu authorities, and his hindu pundit, in the course of the examination in which Sir W. Jones was engaged.


-- The Mahawanso [Mahavamsa] in Roman Characters With the Translation Subjoined And an Introductory Essay on Pali Buddhistical Literature, In Two Volumes, Volume I, Containing the First Thirty Eight Chapters, by the Hon. George Turnour, Esq., Ceylon Civil Service, 1837


The great antiquity of the Hindus is believed so firmly by themselves, and has been the subject of so much conversation among Europeans, that a short view of their Chronological System, which has not yet been exhibited from certain authorities, may be acceptable to those, who seek truth without partiality to receive opinions, and without regarding any consequences, that may result from their inquiries: the consequences, indeed, of truth cannot but be desirable, and no reasonable man will apprehend any danger to society from a general diffusion of its light; but we must not suffer ourselves to be dazzled by a false glare, nor mistake enigmas and allegories for historical verity. Attached to no system, and as much disposed to reject the Mosaic history, if it be proved erroneous, as to believe it, if it be confirmed by sound reasoning from indubitable evidence, I propose to lay before you a concise account of Indian Chronology extracted from Sanscrit books, or collected from conversations with Pandits, and to subjoin a few remarks on their system, without attempting to decide a question, which I shall venture to start, "whether it is not in fact the same with our own, but embellished and obscured by the fancy of their poets and the riddles of their astronomers."

One of the most curious books in Sanscrit, and one of the oldest after the Vedas, is a tract on religious and civil duties, taken, as it is believed, from the oral instructions of Menu, son of Brahma, to the first Inhabitants of the earth: a well-collated copy of this interesting law-tract is now before me; and I begin my dissertation with a few couplets from the first chapter of it:

"The sun causes the division of day and night, which are of two sorts, those of men and those of the Gods; the day, for the labour of all creatures in their several employments; the night for their slumber. A month is a day and night of the Patriarchs; and it is divided into two parts; the bright half is their day for laborious exertions; the dark half, their night for sleep. A year is a day and night of the Gods; and that is also divided into two halves; the day is, when the sun moves toward the north; the night, when it moves toward the south. Learn now the duration of a night and day of Brahma, with that of the ages respectively and in order. Four thousand years of the Gods they call the Crita, (or Satya) age, and its limits at the beginning and at the end are, in like manner, as many hundreds. In the three successive ages, together with their limits at the beginning and end of them, are thousands and hundreds diminished by one. This aggregate of four ages, amounting to twelve thousand divine years, is called an age of the Gods; and a thousand such divine ages added together must be considered as a day of Brahma: his night has also the same duration. The before-mentioned age of the Gods, or twelve thousand of their years, multiplied by seventy-one, form what is named here below a Manwantara. There are alternate creations and destructions of worlds through innumerable Manwantaras: the Being Supremely Desirable performs all this again and again.”


Such is the arrangement of infinite time, which the Hindus believe to have been revealed from heaven, and which they generally understand in a literal sense: it seems to have intrinsic marks of being purely astronomical; but I will not appropriate the observations of others, nor anticipate those in particular, which have been made by two or three of our members, and which they will, I hope, communicate to the Society. A conjecture, however, of Mr. PATERSON has so much ingenuity in it, that I cannot forbear mentioning it here, especially as it seems to be confirmed by one of the couplets just-cited: he supposes, that, as a month of mortals is a day and night of the Patriarchs from the analogy of its bright and dark halves, so, by the same analogy, a day and night of mortals might have been considered by the ancient Hindus as a month of the lower world; and then a year of such months will consist only of twelve days and nights, and thirty such years will compose a lunar year of mortals; whence he surmises, that the four million three hundred and twenty thousand years, of which the four Indian ages are supposed to consist, mean only years of twelve days; and, in fact, that sum, divided by thirty, is reduced to an hundred and forty-four thousand: now a thousand four hundred and forty years are one pada, a period in the Hindu astronomy, and that sum, multiplied by eighteen, amounts precisely to twenty-five thousand nine hundred and twenty, the number of years in which the fixed stars appear to perform their long revolution eastward. The last mentioned sum is the product also of an hundred and forty four, which, according to M. Bailly, was an old Indian cycle, into an hundred and eighty, or the Tartarian period, called Van, and of two thousand eight hundred and eighty into nine, which is not only one of the lunar cycles, but considered by the Hindus as a mysterious number and an emblem of Divinity, because, if it be multiplied by any other whole number, the sum of the figures in the different products remains always nine, as the Deity, who appears in many forms, continues One immutable essence. The important period of twenty-five thousand nine hundred and twenty years is well known to arise from, the multiplication of three hundred and sixty into seventy-two, the number of years in which a fixed star seems to move through a degree of a great circle; and, although M. Le Gentil assures us, that the modern Hindus believe a complete revolution of the stars to be made in twenty-four thousand years, or fifty-four seconds of a degree to be passed in one year, yet we may have reason to think, that the old Indian astronomers had made a more accurate calculation, but concealed their knowledge from the people under the veil of fourteen Menwantara's, seventy-one divine ages, compound cycles, and years of different sorts, from those of Brahma to those of Patala, or the infernal regions. If we follow the analogy suggested by Menu, and suppose only a day and night to be called a year, we may divide the number of years in a divine age by three hundred and sixty, and the quotient will be twelve thousand, or the number of his divine years in one age: but, conjecture apart, we need only compare the two periods 4320000 and 25920, and we shall find, that among their common divisors, are 6, 9, 12 &c. 18, 36, 72, 144, &c, which numbers with their several multiples, especially in a decuple progression, constitute some of the most celebrated periods of the Chaldeans, Greeks, Tartars, and even of the Indians. We cannot fail to observe, that the number 432, which appears to be the basis of the Indian system, is a 60th part of 25920, and, by continuing the comparison, we might probably solve the whole enigma. In the preface to a Varanes Almanac I find the following wild stanza:

"A thousand Great Ages are a day of Brahma; a thousand such days are an Indian hour of Vishnu; six hundred thousand such hours make a period of Rudra; and a million of Rudras (or two quadrillions five hundred and ninety-two thousand trillions of lunar years), are but a second to the Supreme Being."


The Hindu theologians deny the conclusion of the stanza to be orthodox: Time, they say, exists not at all with God; and they advise the Astronomers to mind their own business without meddling with theology. The astronomical verse, however, will answer our present purpose; for it shows, in the first place, that cyphers are added at pleasure to swell the periods; and, if we take ten cyphers, from a Rudra or divide by ten thousand millions, we shall have a period of 259200000 years, which, divided by 60 (the usual divisor of time among the Hindus) will give 4320000, or a great Age, which we find subdivided in the proportion of 4, 3, 2, 1, from the notion of virtue decreasing arithmetically in the golden, silver, copper, and earthen, ages. But, should it be thought improbable, that the Indian astronomers in very early times had made more accurate observations than those of Alexandria, Bagdad, or Maraghah, and still more improbable that they should have relapsed without apparent cause into error, we may suppose, that they formed their divine age by an arbitrary multiplication of 24000 by 180 according to M. Le Gentil, or of 21600 by 200, according to the comment on the Surya Siddhanta. Now, as it is hardly possible, that such coincidences should be accidental, we may hold it nearly demonstrated, that the period of a divine age was at first merely astronomical, and may consequently reject it from our present inquiry into the historical or civil chronology of India. Let us, however, proceed to the avowed opinions of the Hindus, and see, when we have ascertained their system, whether we can reconcile it to the course of nature and the common sense of mankind.

The aggregate of their four ages they call a divine age, and believe that, in every thousand such ages, or in every day of Brahma, fourteen Menu’s are successively invested by him with the sovereignty of the earth: each MENU, they suppose, transmits his empire to his sons and grandsons during a period of seventy-one divine ages; and such a period they name a Manwantara; but, since fourteen multiplied by seventy-one are not quite a thousand, we must conclude, that six divine ages are allowed for intervals between the Manwantaras, or for the twilight of Brahma's day. Thirty such days, or Calpas, constitute, in their opinion, a month of Brahma; twelve such months, one of his years; and an hundred such years, his age; of which age they assert, that fifty years have elapsed. We are now then, according to the Hindus, in the first day or Calpa of the first month of the fifty first year of Brahma’s age, and in the twenty-eighth divine age of the seventh Manwantara, of which divine age the three first human ages have passed, and four thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight of the fourth.

In the present day of Brahma the first Menu was surnamed Swayamuhuva, or Son of the Self existent; and it is He, by whom the Institutes of Religious and Civil Duties are supposed to have been delivered: in his time the Deity descended at a Sacrifice, and, by his wife Satarupa, he had two distinguished sons, and three daughters. This pair was created, for the multiplication of the human species, after that new creation of the world, which the Brahmans call Padmacalpiya, or the Lotos-creation.

If it were worth while to calculate the age of Menu's Institutes according to the Brahmans, we must multiply four million three hundred and twenty thousand by six tines seventy-one, and add to the product the number of years already past in the seventh Manwantara. Of the five Menu’s, who succeeded him, I have seen little more than the names; but the Hindu writings are very diffuse on the life and posterity of the seventh Menu, surnamed Vaivaswata, or Child of the Sun: he is supposed to have had ten sons, of whom the eldest was Icshwacu; and to have been accompanied by seven Rishis, or holy persons, whose names were, Casyapa, Atri, Vasishtha, Viswamitra, Gautama, Jamadagni, and Bharadwaja; an account, which explains the opening of the fourth chapter of the Gita:

"This immutable system of devotion, says Crishna, I revealed to Vivaswat, or the Sun; Vivaswat declared it to his son Menu; Menu explained it to Ichwacu: thus the Chief Rishis know this sublime doctrine delivered from one to another.”


In the reign of this Sun-born Monarch the Hindus believe the whole earth to have been drowned, and the whole human race destroyed by a flood, except the pious Prince himself, the seven Rishi's, and their several wives; for they suppose his children to have been born after the deluge. This general pralaya, or destruction, is the subject of the first Purana, or Sacred Poem, which consists of fourteen thousand Stanza's; and the story is concisely, but clearly and elegantly, told in the eighth book of the Bhagawata, from which I have extracted the whole, and translated it with great care, but will only present you here with an abridgement of it.

“The demon Hayagriva having purloined the Vedas from the custody of Brahma, while he was reposing at the close of the sixth Manwantara, the whole race of men became corrupt, except the seven Rishis and Satyavrata, who then reigned in Dravira, a maritime region to the south of Carnata: this prince was performing his ablutions in the river Critamala, when Vishnu appeared to him in the shape of a small fish, and, after several augmentations of bulk in different waters, was placed by Satyavrata in the ocean, where he thus addressed his amazed votary: 'In seven days all creatures, who have offended me, shall be destroyed by a deluge, but thou shalt be secured in a capacious vessel miraculously formed: take therefore all kinds of medicinal herbs and esculent grain for food, and, together with the seven holy men, your respective wives, and pairs of all animals, enter the ark without fear; then shalt thou know God face to face, and all thy questions shall be answered.'

Saying this, he disappeared; and, after seven days, the ocean ‘began to overflow the coasts, and the earth to be flooded by constant showers, when Satyavrata, meditating on the Deity, saw a large vessel moving on the waters: he entered it, having in all respects conformed to the instructions of Vishnu; who, in the form of a vast fish, suffered the vessel to be tied with a great sea-serpent, as with a cable, to his measureless horn. When the deluge had ceased, Vishnu slew the demon, and recovered the Veda's, instructed Satyavrata in divine knowledge, and appointed him the seventh MENU by the name of Vaivaswata.'"


Let us compare the two Indian accounts of the Creation and the Deluge with those delivered by Moses. It is not made a question in this tract, whether the first chapters of Genesis are to be understood in a literal, or merely in au allegorical, sense: the only points before us are whether the creation described by the first MENU, which the Brahmans call that of the Lotos, be not the same with that recorded in our Scripture, and whether the story of the seventh Menu be not one and the same with that of Noah. I propose the questions, but affirm nothing; leaving others to settle their opinions, whether Adam be derived from adim, which in Sanscrit means the first, or Menu from Nuh, the true name of the Patriarch; whether the Sacrifice, at which God is believed to have descended, allude to the offering of Abel; and, on the whole, whether the two Menus can mean any other persons than the great progenitor; and the restorer, of our species.

On a supposition, that Vaivaswata, or Sun-born, was the Noah of Scripture, let us proceed to the Indian account of his posterity, which I extract from the Puranarthaprecasa, or The Puranas Explained, a work lately composed in Sanscrit by Radhacanta Sarman, a Pandit of extensive learning and great fame among the Hindus of this province. Before we examine the genealogies of kings, which he has collected from the Puranas, it will be necessary to give a general idea of the Avataras, or Descents, of the Deity: the Hindus believe innumerable such descents or special interpositions of providence in the affairs of mankind, but they reckon ten principal Avatara's in the current period of four ages; and all of them are described, in order as they are supposed to occur, in the following Ode of Jayadeva, the great Lyric Poet of India.

1. Thou recoverest the Veda in the water of the ocean of destruction, placing it joyfully in the bosom of an ark fabricated by thee; O Cesava, assuming the body of a fish: be victorious, O Heri, lord of the Universe!

2. The earth stands firm on thy immensely broad back, which grows larger from the callus occasioned by bearing that vast burden, O Cesava, assuming the body of a tortoise: be victorious, O Heri, lord of the Universe!

3. The earth, placed on the point of thy tusk, remains fixed like the figure of a black antelope on the moon, O Cesava, assuming the form of a boar: be victorious, O Heri, lord of the Universe!

4. The claw with a stupendous point, on the exquisite lotos of thy lion's paw, is the black bee, that stung the body of the embowelled Hiranyacasipu, O Desava, assuminng the form of a man-lion: be victorious, O Heri, lord of the Universe.

5. By thy power thou beguilest Bali, O thou miraculous dwarf, thou purifier of men with the water (of Ganga) springing from thy feet, O Cesava, assuming the form of a dwarf: be victorious, O Heri, lord of the Universe!

6. Thou bathest in pure water, consisting of the blood of Cshatriyas, the world, whose offences are removed and who are removed from the pain of other births, O Cesava, assuming the form of Parasu-Rama: be victoriou, O Heri, lord of the Universe!

7. With ease to thyself, with delight to the Genii of the eight regions, thou scatterest on all sides in the plain of combat the demon with ten heads, O Cesava, assuming the form of Rama-Chandra: be victorious, O Heri, lord of the Universe!

8. Thou wearest on thy bright body a mantle shining like a blue cloud, or like the water of Yamuna tripping toward thee through fear of thy furrowing plough share, O Cesava, assuming the form of Bala-Rama: be victorious, O Heri, lord of the Universe!

9. Thou blamest, (oh, wonderful!) the whole Veda, when thou seest, O kind-hearted, the slaughter of cattle prescribed for sacrifice, O Cesava, assuming the body of Buddha: be victorious, O Heri, lord of the Universe!

10. For the destruction of all the impure thou drawest thy cimeter like a blazing comet, (how tremendous!) O Cesava, assuming the body of Calci: be victorious, O Heri, lord of the Universe!


These ten Avataras are by some arranged according to the thousands of divine years in each of the four ages, or in an arithmetical proportion from four to one; and, if such an arrangement were universally received, we should be able to ascertain a very material point in the Hindu Chronology; I mean the birth of Buddha, concerning which the different Pandits, whom I have consulted, and the same Pandits at different times, have expressed a strange diversity of opinion. They all agree, that Calci is yet to come, and that Buddha was the last considerable incarnation of the Deity; but the Astronomers at Varanes place him in the third age, and Radhacant insists, that he appeared after the thousandth year of the fourth: the learned and accurate author of the Dabistan, whose information concerning the Hindus is wonderfully correct, mentions an opinion of the Pandits, with whom he had conversed, that Buddha began his career ten years before the close of the third age; and Goverdhana of Cashmir, who had once informed me, that Crishna descended two centuries before Buddha, assured me lately, that the Cashmirians admitted an interval of twenty-four years (others allow only twelve) between those two divine persons. The best authority, after all, is the Bhagawat itself, in the first chapter of which it is expressly declared, that “BUDDHA, the son of Jina, would appear at Cioata, for the purpose of confounding the demons, just at the beginning of the Caliiyug." I have long been convinced, that, on these subjects, we can only reason satisfactorily from written evidence, and that our forensic rule must be invariably applied, to take the declarations of the Brahmans most strongly against themselves, that is, against their pretensions to antiquity; so that, on the whole, we may safely place Buddha just at the beginning of the present age: but what is the beginning of it? When this question was proposed to Radhacant, he answered:  

of a period comprising more than four hundred thousand years, the first two or three thousand may reasonably be called the beginning."


On my demanding written evidence, he produced a book of some authority, composed by a learned Goswami, and entitled Bhagawatamrita, or, the Nectur of the Bhagawat, on which it is a metrical comment; and the couplet, which he read from it deserves to be cited: after the just mentioned account of Buddha in the text, the commentator says,

Asau vyactah calcrabdasahasradwitaye gate,
Murtih pat alaverna sya dwibhuja chicurojj hita.

He became visible, the thousand-and-second-year-of-the-Cali-age being past; his body of-a-colour-between-white-and-ruddy, with- two-arms, without-hair on his head.'


Cicata, named in the text as the birth place of Buddha, the Goswami supposes to have been Dhermaranya, a wood near Gaya, where a colossal image of that ancient Deity still remains: it seemed to me of black stone; but, as I saw it by torch-light, I cannot be positive as to its colour, which may, indeed, have been changed by time.

The Brahmans universally speak of the Bauddhas with all the malignity of an intolerant spirit; yet the most orthodox among them consider BUDDHA himself as an incarnation of Vishnu: this is a contradiction hard to be reconciled; unless we cut the knot, instead of untying it, by supposing with Giorgi, that there were two Buddhas, the younger of whom established the new religion, which gave so great offence in India, and was introduced into China in the first century of our era. The Cashmirian before mentioned asserted this fact, without being led to it by any question that implied it; and we may have reason to suppose, that Buddha is in truth only a general word for a Philosopher: the author of a celebrated Sanscrit Dictionary, entitled from his name Amaracosha, who was himself a Bauddha, and flourished in the first century before Christ, begins his vocabulary with nine words, that signify heaven, and proceeds to those, which mean a deity in general; after which come different classes of Gods, Demigods, and Demons, all by generic names; and they are followed by two very remarkable heads; first, (not the general names of Buddha, but) the names of a Buddha-in- general, of which he gives us eighteen, such as Muni, Sastri, Munindra, Vinayaca, Samantabhadra, Dhermaraja, Sugata, and the like; most of them significative of excellence, wisdom, virtue, and sanctity; secondly, the names of a-particular-Buddha-Muni-who- descended-in-the-family-of-Sacya, (those are the very words of the original) and his titles are, Sacyamuni, Sacyasinha, Servarthasiddha, Saudhodani, Gautama, Arcabandhu, or Kinsman of the Sun, and Mayadevisuta, or Child of Maya: thence the author passes to the different epithets of particular Hindu Deities. When I pointed out this curious passage to Radhacant, he contended, that the first eighteen names were general epithets, and the following seven, proper names, or patronymics, of one and the same person; but Ramalochan, my own teacher, who, though not a Brahman, is an excellent scholar and a very sensible unprejudiced man, assured me, that Buddha was a generic word, like Deva, and that the learned author, having exhibited the names of a Devata in general, proceeded to those of a Buddha in general, before he came to particulars: he added, that Buddha might mean a Sage or a Philosopher, though Budha was the word commonly used for a mere wise man without supernatural powers. It seems highly probable, on the whole, that the Buddha, whom Jayadeva celebrates in his Hymn, was the Sacyasinha, or Lion of Sacya, who, though he forbade the sacrifices of cattle, which the Vedas enjoin, was believed to be Vishnu himself in a human form, and that another Buddha, one perhaps of his followers in a later age, assuming his name and character, attempted to overset the whole system of the Brahmans, and was the cause of that persecution, from which the Bauddhas are known to have fled into very distant regions. May we not reconcile the singular difference of opinion among the Hindus as to the time of Buddha’s appearance, by supposing that they have confounded the Two Buddhas, the first of whom was born a few years before the close of the last age, and the second, when above a thousand years of the present age had elapsed? We know, from better authorities, and with as much certainty as can justly be expected on so doubtful a subject, the real time, compared with our own era, when the ancient Buddha began to distinguish himself; and it is for this reason principally, that I have dwelled with minute anxiety on the subject of the last Avatar.

The Brahmans, who assisted Abulfazl in his curious, but superficial, account of his master’s Empire, informed him, if the figures in the Ayini Acbari be correctly written, that a period of 2962 years had elapsed from the birth of Buddha to the 40th year of Acbar's reign, which computation will place his birth in the 1366th year before that of our Saviour; but, when the Chinese government admitted a new religion from India in the first century of our era, they made particular inquiries concerning the age of the old Indian BUDDHA, whose birth, according to COUPLET, they place in the 41st year of their 28th cycle, or 1036 years before Christ, and they call him, says he, Foe the son of Moye or Maya; but M. De Guignes, on the authority of four Chinese Historians, asserts, that Fo was born about the year before Christ 1027, in the kingdom of Cashmir: Giorgi, or rather Cassiano, from whose papers his work was compiled, assures us, that, by the calculation of the Tibetians, he appeared only 959 years before the Christian epoch; and M. Bailly, with some hesitation, places him 1031 years before it, but inclines to think him far more ancient, confounding him, as I have done in a former tract, with the first Budha, or Mercury, whom the Goths called WODEN, and of whom I shall presently take particular notice. Now, whether we assume the medium of the four last-mentioned dates, or implicitly rely on the authorities quoted by De Guignes, we may conclude, that Buddha was first distinguished in this country about a thousand years before the beginning of our era, and whoever, in so early an age, expects a certain epoch unqualified with about or nearly, will be greatly disappointed, Hence it is clear, that, whether the fourth age of the Hindus began about one thousand years before CHRIST, according to Goverdhan's account of Buddha's birth, or two thousand, according to that of Radhacant, the common opinion, that 4888 years of it are now elapsed, is erroneous; and here for the present we leave Buddha, with an intention of returning to him in due time; observing only, that, if the learned Indians differ so widely in their accounts of the age, when their ninth Avatar appeared in their country, we may be assured, that they have no certain Chronology before him, and may suspect the certainty of all the relations concerning even his appearance.

The received Chronology of the Hindus begins with an absurdity so monstrous, as to overthrow the whole system; for, having established their period of seventy-one divine ages as the reign of each Menu, yet thinking it incongruous to place a holy personage in times of impurity, they insist, that the Menu reigns only in every golden age, and disappears in the three human ages that follow it, continuing to dive and emerge, like a waterfowl, till the close of his Manwantara: the learned author of the Puranarthapracasa, which I will now follow step by step, mentioned this ridiculous opinion with a serious face; but, as he has not inserted it in his work, we may take his account of the seventh Menu according to its obvious and rational meaning, and suppose, that Vaivaswata, the son of Surya, the son of Casyapa, or Uranus, the son of Marichi, or Light, the son of Brahma, which is deafly an allegorical pedigree, reigned in the last golden age, or, according to the Hindus, three million eight hundred and ninety-two thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight years ago. But they contend, that he actually reigned on earth one million seven hundred and twenty-eight thousand years of mortals, or four thousand eight hundred years of the Gods; and this opinion is another monster so repugnant to the course of nature and to human reason, that it must be rejected as wholly fabulous, and taken as a proof, that the Indians know nothing of their Sun- born Menu, but his name and the principal event of his life; I mean the universal deluge, of which the three first Avatars are merely allegorical representations, with a mixture, especially in the second, of astronomical Mythology.

From this Menu the whole race of men is believed to have descended; for the seven who were preserved with him in the ark, are not mentioned as fathers of human families; but, since his daughter Ila was married, as Indians tell us, to the first Budha, or Mercury, the son of Chandra, or the Moon, a male Deity, whose father was Atri, son of Brahma, (where again we meet with an allegory purely astronomical or poetical) his posterity are divided into two great branches, called the Children of the Sun from his own supposed father, and the Children of the Moon, from the parent of his daughter’s husband: the lineal male descendants in both these families are supposed to have reigned in the cities of Ayodhya, or Audh, and Pratishthana, or Vitora, respectively till the thousandth year of the present age, and the names of all the princes in both lines having been diligently collected by Radhacant from several Puranas I exhibit them in two columns arranged by myself with great attention.

SECOND AGE.

CHILDREN OF THE

SUN / MOON.


Icshwacu / Budha
Vicucshi / Pururavas
Cacutstha / Ayush
Anenas / Nahusha
5. Prithu / Yayati, 5
Viswagandhi / Puru
Chandra / Janamejaya
Yuvanaswa / Prachinwat
Srava / Pravira
10. Vrihadaswa / Menasyu, 10
Dhundhumara / Charupada
Dildhaswa / Sudyu
Heryaswa / Bahugava
Nicumbha / Sanyati
15. Crisaswa / Ahanyati, 15
Senajit / Raudraswa,
Yuvanaswa / Riteyush
Mahdhatri / Rantinava
Purucutsa / Sumati
20. Trasadasyu / Aiti, 20
Anaranya / Dushmanta
Heryaswa / Bharata
Praruna / Vitatha
Trivindhana / Manyu
25. Satyavrata / Viihatcshetra, 25
Trisancu / Hastin
Harischandra / Ajamidha
Rohita / Ricsha
Harita / Samwarana
30. Champa / Curu, 30
Sudeva / Jahnu
Vijaya / Suratha
Bharuca / Viduratha
Vrica / Sarvabhauma
35. Bahuca / Jayatsena, 35
Sagara / Radhica
Asamanjas / Ayutayush
Ansumat / Acrodhana
Bhagiratha / Devatithi
40. Sruta / Ricsha, 40
Nabha / Dilipa
Sindhudwipa / Pratipa
Ayutayush / Santanu
Ritaperna / Vichitravirya
45. Saudasa / Pandu, 45
Asmaca / Yudhishthir
Mulaca / --
Dasaratha / --
Aidabidi / --
50. Vis'wasaha / --
Chatwanga / --
Dirghabahu / --
Raghu / --
Aja / --
55. Dasaratha / --
Rama / --


It is agreed among all the Pandits, that Rama, their seventh incarnate Divinity, appeared as king of Ayodhya, in the interval between the silver and the brazen ages; and, if we suppose him to have begun his reign at the very beginning of that interval, still three thousand three hundred years of the Gods, or a million one hundred and eighty-eight thousand lunar years of mortals will remain in the silver age, during which the fifty-five princes between Vaivaswata and Rama, must have governed the world; but, reckoning thirty years for a generation, which is rather too much for a long succession of eldest sons, as they are said to have been, we cannot, by the course of nature, extend the second age of the Hindus beyond sixteen hundred and fifty solar years: if we suppose them not to have been eldest sons, and even to have lived longer than modern princes in a dissolute age, we shall find only a period of two thousand years; and, if we remove the difficulty by admitting miracles, we must cease to reason, and may as well believe at once whatever the Brahmans choose to tell us.

In the Lunar pedigree we meet with another absurdity equally fatal to the credit of the Hindu system: as far as the twenty-second degree of descent from Vaivaswata, the synchronism of the two families appears tolerably regular, except that the Children of the Moon were not all eldest sons; for king Yayati appointed the youngest of his five sons to succeed him in India, and allotted inferior kingdoms to the other four, who had offended him; part of the Dacshin or the South, to Yadu, the ancestor of Crishna; the north, to Anu; the east, to Druhya; and the west, to Turvasu, from whom the Pandits believe, or pretend to believe, in compliment to our nation, that we are descended. But of the subsequent degrees in the lunar line they know so little, that, unable to supply a considerable interval between Bharat and Vitatha, whom they call his son and successor, they are under a necessity of asserting, that the great ancestor of Yudhishthir actually reigned seven and twenty thousand years; a fable of the same class with that of his wonderful birth, which is the subject of a beautiful Indian Drama: now, if we suppose his life to have lasted no longer than that of other mortals, and admit Vitatha and the rest to have been his regular successors, we shall fall into another absurdity; for, then, if the generations in both lines were nearly equal, as they would naturally have been, we shall find Yudhishthir, who reigned confessedly at the close of the brazen age, nine generations older than Rama, before whose birth the silver age is allowed to have ended. After the name of Bharat, therefore, I have set an asterisk to denote a considerable chasm in the Indian History, and have inserted between brackets, as out of their places, his twenty-four successors, who reigned, if at all, in the following age immediately before the war of the Mahabharat. The fourth Avatar, which is placed in the interval between the first, and second ages, and the fifth which soon followed it, appear to be moral fables grounded on historical facts: the fourth was the punishment of an impious monarch by the Deity himself bursting from a marble Column in the shape of a lion; and the fifth was the humiliation of an arrogant Prince by so contemptible an agent as a mendicant dwarf. After these, and immediately before Buddha, come three great warriors all named Rama; but it may justly be made a question, whether they are not three representations of one person, or three different ways of relating the same History: the first and second Ramas are said to have been contemporary; but whether all or any of them mean Rama, the son of Cush, I leave others to determine. The mother of the Second Rama was named Caushalya, which is a derivative of CUSHALA, and, though his father be distinguished by the title or epithet of Dasaratha signifying, that his War-chariot bore him to all quarters of the world, yet the name of Cush, as the Cashmirians pronounce it, is preserved entire in that of his son and successor, and shadowed in that of his ancestor Vicucshi; nor can a just objection be made to this opinion from the nasal Arabian vowel in the word Ramah mentioned by MOSES, since the very word begins with the same letter, which the Greeks and Indians could not pronounce; and they were obliged, therefore, to express it by the vowel, which most resembled it. On this question, however, I assert nothing; nor on another, which might be proposed: “whether the fourth and fifth Avatars be not allegorical stories of the two presumptuous monarchs, Nimrod and Belus." The hypothesis, that government first established, laws enacted, and agriculture encouraged in India by Rama about three thousand eight hundred years ago, agrees with the received account of Noah's death, and the previous settlement of his immediate descendants.

THIRD AGE

CHILDREN OF THE

SUN / MOON


Cusha / --
Atithi / --
Nishadha / --
Nabhas / --
5. Pundarica / --
Cshemadhanwas / Vitatha
Devanica / Manyu
Ahinagu / Vrihatcshetra
Paripatra / Hastin
10. Ranachhala / Ajamidha, 5
Vajranabha / Ricsha
Arca / Samwarana
Sugana / Curu
Vidhriti / Jahnu
15. Hiranyanabha / Suratha, 10
Pushya / Viduratha
Dhruvasahdhi / Sarvabhauma
Sudersana / Jayatsena
Agniverna / Radhica
20. Sighra / Ayutayush, 15
Maru, supposed to be still alive / Acrodhana
Prasusruta / Devatithi
Sandhi / Ricsha
Amersana / Diliopoa
25. Mahaswat / Pratipa, 20
Viswabhahu / Santanu
Prasenajit / Vichitravirya
Tacshaca / Pandu
Vrshadbala / Yudhishthira
30. Vrihadrarna, Y. B. C. 3100 / Paricshit, 25


Here we have only nine and twenty princes of the solar line between Rama and Vrihadrana exclusively; and their reigns, during the whole brazen age, are supposed to have lasted near eight hundred and sixty-four thousand years, a supposition evidently against nature; the uniform course of which allows only a period of eight hundred and seventy, or, at the very utmost, of a thousand, years for twenty-nine generations. Paricshit, the great nephew and successor of Yudhishthir, who had recovered the throne from Duryodhan, is allowed without controversy to have reigned in the interval between the brazen and earthen ages, and to have died at the setting in of the Calijug; so that, if the Pandits of Cashmir and Varanes have made a right calculation of Buddha’s appearance, the present, or fourth, age must have begun about a thousand years before the birth of Christ, and consequently the reign of Icshwacu, could not have been earlier than four thousand years before that great epoch; and even that date will, perhaps, appear, when it shall be strictly examined, to be near two thousand years earlier than the truth. I cannot leave the third Indian age, in which the virtues and vices of mankind are said to have been equal, without observing, that even the close of it is manifestly fabulous and poetical, with hardly more appearance of historical truth, than the tale of Troy or of the Argonauts; for Yudhishthir, it seems, was the sort of Dherma, the Genius of Justice; Bhima of Pavan, or the God of Wind; Arjun of Indra, or the Firmament; Nacul and Sahadeva, of the two Cumars, the Castor and Pollux of India; and Bihshma their reputed great uncle, was the child of Ganga, or the Ganges, by Santanu, whose brother Devapi is supposed to be still alive in the city of Calapa; all which fictions may be charming embellishments of an heroic poem, but are just as absurd in civil History, as the descent of two royal families from the Sun and the Moon.

FOURTH AGE

CHILDREN OF THE

SUN / MOON


Urucriya / Janamajaya
Vatsavriddha / Satanica
Prativyoma / Sahasranica
Bhanu / Aswamedhaja
5. Devaca / Asimacrishna, 5
Sahadeva / Nemichacra
Vira / Upta
Viihadaswa / Chitraratha
Bhanumat / Suchiratha
10. Praticaswa / Dhritimat, 10
Supratica / Sushena
Marudeva / Sunitha
Sunacshatra / Nrihacshuh
Pushcara / Suchinala
15. Antaricsha / Pariplava, 15
Sutapas / Sunaya
Amitrajit / Medhavin
Vrihadraja / Nripanjaya
Barhi / Derva
20. Ciitanjaya / Timi, 20.
Rananjaya / Vrihadratha
Sanjaya / Sudasa
Slocya / Satanica
Suddhoda / Durmadana
25. Langalada / Rahinara, 25
Prasenajit / Dandapani
Cshudraca / Nimi
Sumitra, Y. B. C. 2100 / Cshemaca


In both families, we see, thirty generations are reckoned from Yudhishthir and from Vrihadbala his contemporary, (who was killed, in the war of Bharat, by Abhimanyu, son of Arjun and father of Paricshit), to the time, when the Solar and Lunar dynasties are believed to have become extinct in the present divine age; and for these generations the Hindus allot a period of one thousand years only, or a hundred years for generations; which calculation, though probably too large, is yet moderate enough, compared with their absurd accounts of the preceding ages: but they reckon exactly the same number of years for twenty generations only in the family of Jarasandha, whose son was contemporary with Yudhishthir, and founded a new dynasty of princes in Magadha, or Bahar; and this exact coincidence of the time, in which the three races are supposed to have been extinct, has the appearance of an artificial chronology, formed rather from imagination than from historical evidence; especially as twenty kings, in an age comparatively modern, could not have reigned a thousand years. I, nevertheless, exhibit the list of them as a curiosity; but am far from being convinced, that all of them ever existed: that, if they did exist, they could not have reigned more than seven hundred years, I am fully persuaded by the course of nature and the concurrent opinion of mankind.

KINGS OF MAGADHA.

Sahadeva / Suchi
Marjari / Cshema
Srutasravas / Suvrata
Ayutayush / Dhermasutra
5. Niramitra / Srama, 15.
Sunacshatra / Dridhasena
Vrihetsena / Sumati
Carmajit / Subala
Srutanjaya / Sunita
10. Vipra / Satyajit, 20.


Puranjaya, son of the twentieth king, was put to death by his minister Sunaca, who placed his own son Pradyota on the throne of his master; and this revolution constitutes an epoch of the highest importance in our present inquiry; first, because it happened according to the Bhagawatamrtta, two years exactly before BUDDHA'S appearance in the same kingdom; next, because it is believed by the Hindus to have taken place three thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight years ago, or two thousand one hundred years before Christ; and lastly, because a regular chronology, according to the number of years in each dynasty, has been established from the accession of Pradyota to the subversion of the genuine Hindu government; and that chronology I will now lay before you, after observing only, that Radhacant himself says, nothing of Buddha in this part of his work, though he particularly mentions the two preceding Avataras in their proper places.

KINGS OF MAGADHA

King / Y.B.C.


Pradyota / 2100
Palaca / --
Visachayupa / --
Rajaca / --
Nandiverdhana, 5 reigns=138 years / --
Sisunaga / 1962
Cacaverna / --
Cshemadherman / --
Cshetrajnya / --
Vidhisara, 5 / --
Ajatasatru / --
Darbhaca / --
Ajaya / --
Nandiverdhana / --
Mahanandi, 10 r=360 y. / --
Nanda / 1602


This prince, of whom frequent mention is made in the Sanscrit books, is said to have been murdered, after a reign of a hundred years, by a very learned and ingenious, but passionate and vindictive, Brahman, whose name was Chanacya, and who raised to the throne a man of the Mauya race,, named Chandragupta: by the death of Nanda, and his sons, the Cshatriya family of Pradyota became extinct.

MAURYA KINGS.

King / Y.B.C.


Chandragupta / 1502
Varisara / --
Asocaverdhana / --
Suyasas / --
Desaratha, 5 / --
Sangata / --
Salisuca / --
Somasarman / --
Satadhawas / --
Vrihadratha, 10 r=137 y.


On the death of the tenth Maurya king, his place was assumed by his Commander-in-Chief, Pushpamitra, of the Sunga nation or family.

SUNGA KINGS.

King / Y.B.C.


Pushpamitra / 1365
Agnimitra / --
Sujyeshtha / --
Vasumitra / --
Abhadraca, 5. / --
Pulinda / --
Ghosha / --
Vajramitra / --
Bhagavata / --
Devabhuti, 10 r=112 y.


The last prince was killed by his minister Vasudeva, of the Canna race, who usurped the throne of Magadha.

CANNA KINGS.

King / Y.B.C.


Vasudeva / 1253
Bhumitra / --
Narayana / --
Susarman, 4 r=345 y.


A Sudra, of the Andhra family, having murdered his master Susarman, and seized the government, founded a new dynasty of

ANDHRA KINGS.

King / Y.B.C.


Balin / 908
Crishna / --
Srisantacarna / --
Paurnamasa / --
Lambodara / --
Vivilaca / --
Meghaswata / --
Vatamana / --
Talaca / --
Sivaswati / --
Purishabheru / --
Sunandana / --
Chacoraca / --
Bataca / --
Gomatin, 15. / --
Purimat / --
Medasiras / --
Sirascandha / --
Yajnasasri / --
Vijaya, 20. / --
Chandrabija, 21 r= 456 y. / --


After the death of Chandrabija, which happened, according to the Hindus, 396 years before Vicramaditya, or 452 B.C. we hear no more of Magadha as an independent kingdom; but Radhacant has exhibited the names of seven dynasties, in which seventy-six princes are said to have reigned one thousand three hundred and ninety-nine years in Avabhriti, a town of the Dacshin, or South, which we commonly call Decan; the names of the seven dynasties, or of the families who established them, are Abhira, Gardabhin, Canca, Yavana, Turushcara, Bhurunda, Maula; of which the Yavanas are by some, not generally, supposed to have been Ionians, or Greeks, but the Turushcars and Maulas are universally believed to have been Turcs Moglus; yet Radhacant adds; “when the Maula race was extinct, five princes, named Bhunanda, Bangira, Sisunandi, Yasonandi, and Praviraca, reigned an hundred and six years (or till the year 1053) in the city of Cilacila," which, he tells me understands to be in the country of the Maharashtras, or Mahratas; and here ends his Indian Chronology; for “after Praviraca, says he, this empire was divided among Mlechhas, or Infidels.” This account of the seven modern dynasties appears very doubtful in itself, and has no relation to our present inquiry; for their dominion seems confined to the Decan, without extending to Magadha; nor have we any reason to believe, that a race of Greecian princes ever established a kingdom in either of those countries: as to the Moguls, their dynasty still subsists, at least nominally; unless that of Chengiz be meant, and his successors could not have reigned in any part of India for the period of three hundred years, which is assigned to the Maulas; nor is it probable, that the word Turc, which an Indian could have easily pronounced and clearly expressed in the Nagari letters, should have been corrupted into Turushcara. On the whole we may safely close the most authentic system of Hindu Chronology, that I have yet been able to procure, with the death of Chandrabija. Should any farther information be attainable, we shall, perhaps, in due time attain it either from books or inscriptions in the Sanscrit language; but from the materials, with which we are at present supplied, we may establish as indubitable the two following propositions; that the three first ages of the Hindus are chiefly mythological. whether their mythology was founded on the dark enigmas of their astronomers or on the heroic fictions of their poets, and, that the fourth, or historical, age cannot be carried farther back than about two thousand years before CHRIST. Even in the history of the present age, the generations of men and the reigns of kings are extended beyond the course of nature, and beyond the average resulting from the accounts of the Brahmans themselves; for they assign to an hundred and forty-two modern reigns a period of three thousand one hundred and fifty-three years, or about twenty-two years to a reign one with another; yet they represent only four Canna princes on the throne of Magadha for a period of three hundred and forty-five years; now it is even more improbable, that four successive kings should have reigned eighty-six years and three months each, than that Nanda should have been king a hundred years and murdered at last. Neither account can be credited; but, that we may allow the highest probable antiquity to the Hindu government, let us grant, that three generations of men were equal on an average to an hundred years, and that Indian princes have reigned, one with another, two and twenty: then reckoning thirty generations from Arjun, the brother of Yudhishthira, to the extinction of his race, and taking the Chinese account of BUDDHA'S birth from M. DeGuignes, as the most authentic medium between Abulfazl and the Tibetians, we may arrange the corrected Hindu Chronology according to the following table, supplying the word about or nearly, (since perfect accuracy cannot be attained and ought not to be requireed), before every date.

King / Y.B.C.

Abhimanyu son of Arjun / 2029
Pradyota / 1029
Buddha / 1027
Nanda / 699
Balin / 149
Vicramaditya / 56
Devapala, king of Gaur / 23


If we take the date of Buddha's appearance from Abulfazl, we must place Abhimanyu 2368 years before CHRIST, unless we calculate from the twenty kings of Magadha, and allow seven hundred years, instead of a thousand, between Arjun and Pradyota, which will bring us again very nearly to the date exhibited in the table; and, perhaps, we can hardly approach nearer to the truth. As to Raja Nanda, if he really sat on the throne a whole century, we must bring down the Andhra dynasty to the age of Vicramaditya, who with his feudatories had probably obtained so much power during the reign of those princes, that they had little more than a nominal sovereignty, which ended with Chandrabija in the third or fourth century of the Christian era; having, no doubt, been long reduced to insignificance by the kings of Gaur, descended  from Gopala. But, if the author of the Dabistan be warranted in fixing the birth of Buddha ten years before the Caliyug, we must thus correct the Chronological Table:

King / Y.B.C.

Buddha / 1027
Paricshit / 1017
Pradyota, (reckoning 20 or 30 generations) / 317 or 17
Nanda / 13 or 313


This correction would oblige us to place Vicramaditya before NANDA, to whom, as all the Pandits agree, he was long posterior; and, if this be an historical fact, it seems to confirm the Bhagawatamrita, which fixes the beginning of the Caliyug about a thousand years before BUDDHA; besides that Balin would then be brought down at least to the sixth and Chandrabija to the tenth century after CHRIST, without leaving room for the subsequent dynasties, if they reigned successively.

Thus have we given a sketch of Indian History through the longest period fairly assignable to it, and have traced the foundation of the Indian empire above three thousand eight hundred years from the present time; but, on a subject in itself so obscure, and so much clouded by the fictions of the Brahmans, who, to aggrandize themselves, have designedly raised their antiquity beyond the truth, we must be satisfied with probable conjecture and just reasoning from the best attainable data; nor can we hope for a system of Indian Chronology, to which no objection can be made, unless the Astronomical books in Sanscrit shall clearly ascertain the places of the colures in some precise years of the historical age, not by loose traditions, like that of a coarse observation by CHIRON, who possibly never existed, (for he lived, says Newton, in the golden age,'’ which must long have preceded the Argouautic expedition) but by such evidence as our own astronomers and scholars shall allow to be unexceptionable.

A CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE, according to one of the Hypotheses intimated in the preceding tract.

CHRISTIAN and MUSELMAN / HINDU / Years from 1788 of our era

Adam / Menu I. Age I. / 5794
Noah / Menu II. / 4737
Deluge / -- / 4138
Nimrod / Hiranyacasipu, Age II. / 4006
Bel / Bali / 3892
Rama / Rama. Age III. / 3817
Noah's death / -- / 3787
-- / Pradyota / 2817
-- / Buddha. Age IV. / 2815
-- / Nanda / 2487
-- / Balin / 1937
-- / Vicramaditya / 1844
-- / Devapala / 1811
Christ / -- / 1787
-- / Narayanpala / 1721
-- / Saca / 1709
Walid / -- / 1080
Mahmud / -- / 786
Chengiz / -- / 548
Tatmur / -- / 391
Babur / -- / 276
Nadirshah / -- / 49
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

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Gandhara
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 1/26/22

Image
Gandhāra
गन्धार (Sanskrit)
c. 800 BCE–c. 500 CE
Gandhara is located in Pakistan
Location of Gandhara in South Asia (Afghanistan and Pakistan)
Image
Approximate geographical region of Gandhara centered on the Peshawar Basin, in present-day northwest Pakistan.
Capital: Kapisi (Bagram); Puṣkalavati (Charsadda); Puruṣapura (Peshawer); Takshashila (Taxila)' Udabhandapura (Hund)
Government: Monarchy
• c. 750 BCE: Nagnajit
• c. 518 BCE: Pushkarasakti (last ruler of Gandhara kingdom)
• c. 500 CE: Kandik
Historical era Ancient Era
• Established: c. 800 BCE
• Disestablished: c. 500 CE
Preceded by: Gandhara grave culture
Succeeded by: Alchon Huns
Today part of: Afghanistan; Pakistan

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19th century map of northern Gandhara.

Image
A modern satellite view of Gandhara (October 2020).

Gandhāra was an ancient region comprising Kabul, Peshawar, Swat, and Taxila areas of what are now northwestern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan.[1][2][3] The cultural influence of "Greater Gandhara" extended across the Indus River into the Potohar Plateau of Punjab, westward into Bamyan, and northward up to the Karakoram range.[4][5][6] The wider region around Gandhara, including Sattagydia (Bannu basin) in the south, was also known as Paropamisadae.[7] In the 6th century BCE, Paropamisadae became a taxation district of the Achaemenid Empire and was known in Old Persian as Gandāra.

Famed for its unique Gandharan style of art which is heavily influenced by the classical Greek and Hellenistic styles, Gandhara attained its height from the 1st century to the 5th century CE under the Kushan Empire, who had their seasonal capitals at Bagram (Kapisi) and Peshawar (Puruṣapura). Gandhara "flourished at the crossroads of Asia," connecting trade routes and absorbing cultural influences from diverse civilizations; Buddhism thrived until the 8th or 9th centuries, when Islam first began to gain sway in the region.[8] It was also the centre of Vedic and later forms of Hinduism.[9]


Gandhara's existence is attested since the time of the Rigveda (c. 1500 – c. 1200 BCE),[10][11] as well as the Zoroastrian Avesta, which mentions it as Vaēkərəta, the sixth most beautiful place on earth created by Ahura Mazda. Gandhara was conquered by the Persian Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century BCE, Alexander the Great in 327 BCE, and later became part of the Maurya Empire before being a centre of the Indo-Greek Kingdom.

Many of the dates, territories, and relationships between Indo-Greek kings are tentative...

The following list of kings, dates and territories after the reign of Demetrius is derived from the latest and most extensive analysis on the subject, by Osmund Bopearachchi and R. C. Senior.

The invasion of northern India, and the establishment of what would be known as the "Indo-Greek kingdom", started around 200 BCE when Demetrius, son of the Greco-Bactrian king Euthydemus I, led his troops across the Hindu Kush. Apollodotus, may have made advances in the south, while Menander, led later invasions further east. Following his conquests, Demetrius received the title ανικητος ("Anicetus", lit. invincible), a title never given to any king before.

-- History of the Indo-Greek Kingdom, by Wikipedia


The region was a major centre for Greco-Buddhism under the Indo-Greeks and Gandharan Buddhism under later dynasties. Gandhara was also a central location for the spread of Buddhism to Central Asia and East Asia.[12]

The region steadily declined after the violent invasion by Alchon Huns in 6th century, and the name Gandhara disappeared after Mahmud Ghaznavi's conquest in 1001 CE.[13]

Terminology

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Cremation urn, Gandhara grave culture, Swat Valley, c. 1200 BC.

Gandhara was known in Sanskrit as Gandhāra ([x]), in Avestan as Vaēkərəta, in Old Persian as Gadāra (Old Persian cuneiform: [x], Gadāra, also transliterated as Gandāra since the nasal "n" before consonants was omitted in the Old Persian script, and simplified as Gandara),[14] in Akkadian and Elamite as Paruparaesanna (Para-upari-sena),[15] in Chinese as T: [x]/S: [x] (Qiántuóluó), and in Greek as Γανδάρα (Gandhara).[16]

Etymology

One proposed origin of the name is from the Sanskrit word गन्ध gandha, meaning "perfume" and "referring to the spices and aromatic herbs which they (the inhabitants) traded and with which they anointed themselves.".[17][18] The Gandhari people are a tribe mentioned in the Rigveda, the Atharvaveda, and later Vedic texts.[19] They are recorded in the Avestan language of Zoroastrianism under the name Vaēkərəta. The name Gāndhāra occurs later in the classical Sanskrit of the epics.[citation needed]

A Persian form of the name, Gandara, mentioned in the Behistun inscription of Emperor Darius I,[20][21] was translated as Paruparaesanna (Para-upari-sena, meaning "beyond the Hindu Kush") in Babylonian and Elamite in the same inscription.[15]

Kandahar is sometimes etymologically associated with Gandhara. However, Kandahar was not part of the territory of Gandhara.[22] It is instead etymologically related to "Alexandria".[23]

Geography

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Female spouted figure, terracotta, Charsadda, Gandhara, 3rd to 1st century BCE Victoria and Albert Museum

The boundaries of Gandhara varied throughout history. Sometimes the Peshawar Valley and Taxila were collectively referred to as Gandhara; sometimes the Kabul Valley and Swat (Sanskrit: Suvāstu) were included.[24] The kingdom was ruled from capitals at Kapisi (Bagram),[25] Pushkalavati (Charsadda), Taxila, Puruṣapura (Peshawar) and in its final days from Udabhandapura (Hund) on the River Indus.[citation needed]

Early History

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Mother Goddess (fertility divinity), possibly derived from the Indus Valley Civilization, terracotta, Sar Dheri, Gandhara, 1st century BC, Victoria and Albert Museum

Stone age

Evidence of the Stone Age human inhabitants of Gandhara, including stone tools and burnt bones, was discovered at Sanghao near Mardan in area caves. The artefacts are approximately 15,000 years old. More recent excavations point to 30,000 years before the present[citation needed].

Gandhara grave culture

Main articles: Gandhara grave culture and Indo-Aryan migration

Gandhara’s first recorded civilization was the Grave Culture that emerged c. 1400 BCE and lasted until 800 BCE,[26] and named for their distinct funerary practices. It was found along the Middle Swat River course, even though earlier research considered it to be expanded to the Valleys of Dir, Kunar, Chitral, and Peshawar.[27] It has been regarded as a token of the Indo-Aryan migrations, but has also been explained by local cultural continuity. Backwards projections, based on ancient DNA analyses, suggest ancestors of Swat culture people mixed with a population coming from Inner Asia Mountain Corridor, which carried Steppe ancestry, sometime between 1900 and 1500 BCE.[28]

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Early Vedic Culture (1700-1100 BCE)

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Late Vedic Culture (1100-500 BCE)

Vedic Gandhāris and Gandhāras

The first mention of the Gandhāris is attested once in the Rigveda as a tribe that has sheep with good wool. In the Atharvaveda, they are mentioned alongside the Mūjavants, the Aṅgas. and the Magadhas in a hymn asking Fever "Takman" to leave the body of the sick man and instead go those aforementioned tribes. The tribes listed were the furthermost border tribes known to those in Madhyadeśa, the Aṅgas and Magadhas in the east, and the Mūjavants and Gandhāris in the north.[29][30]

The later form of the name is Gandhāra, and in the Chāndogya Upaniṣad, the Gandhāras are stated to be far away from the composer. In the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa, Nagnajit, a king of Gandhāra is stated to be consencrated by Paravata and Nārada. The Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa states that Svarjit is his son.[31]

Gandhara Kingdom

Main article: Gandhara Kingdom

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Kingdoms and cities of ancient Buddhism, with Gandhara located in the northwest of this region, during the time of the Buddha (c. 500 BC).

The Gandhara Kingdom was one of sixteen mahajanapadas of Buddhism.[32][33] The primary cities of Gandhara were Puruṣapura (Peshawar), Takṣaśilā (Taxila), Sagala (Sialkot) and Pushkalavati (Charsadda) - The latter remained the capital of Gandhara until the 2nd century CE, when the capital was moved to Peshawar. Gandhara produced influential thinkers such as the philosopher Kautilya, and Panini, whose grammar works standardized ancient Sanskrit.

Gandhara is mentioned in the Hindu epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, as a western kingdom that was founded by the Druhyu prince Gandhara who was the son of King Angara. According to the epic poem Ramayana. In Dvapara Yuga, Gandhara prince Shakuni was the root of all the conspiracies of Duryodhana against the Pandavas, which finally resulted in the Kurukshetra War.

Achaemenid Gandhara

Main article: Gandāra

See also: Achaemenid invasion of the Indus Valley

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Xerxes I tomb, Gandāra soldier, circa 470 BC.

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Athens coin (c. 500/490–485 BCE) discovered in Pushkalavati. This coin is the earliest known example of its type to be found so far east.[34] Such coins were circulating in the area as currency, at least as far as the Indus, during the reign of the Achaemenids.[35][36][37][38]

During the reign of Gandharan king Pushkarasarin, the region’s security was fractured by him engaging in power struggles against his local rivals. King Darius I of the Achaemenid Empire took advantage of the opportunity and planned for an invasion. In 518 BCE, Darius led his army through the Khyber Pass and southwards in stages, eventually reaching the Arabian Sea coast in Sindh by 516 BCE.

Under Persian rule, a system of centralized administration, with a bureaucratic system, was introduced into the Indus Valley for the first time. Provinces or "satrapy" were established with provincial capitals.

Gandhara satrapy, established 518 BCE with its capital at Pushkalavati (Charsadda).[39] Gandhara Satrapy was established in the general region of the old Gandhara grave culture, in what is today Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. During Achaemenid rule, the Kharosthi alphabet, derived from the one used for Aramaic (the official language of Achaemenids), developed here and remained the national script of Gandhara until 200 CE.

The inscription on Darius' (521–486 BCE) tomb at Naqsh-i-Rustam near Persepolis records Gadāra (Gandāra) along with Hindush (Hənduš, Sindh) in the list of satrapies. By about 380 BC the Persian hold on the region had weakened. Many small kingdoms sprang up in Gandhara.

In 327 BCE, Alexander the Great conquered Gandhara as well as the Indian satrapies of the Persian Empire. The expeditions of Alexander were recorded by his court historians and by Arrian (around 175 CE) in his Anabasis Alexandri and by other chroniclers many centuries after the event.

Macedonian Gandhara

Main article: Paropamisadae

See also: Indian campaign of Alexander the Great and Macedonian Empire

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"Victory coin" of Alexander the Great, minted in Babylon c. 322 BC, following his campaigns in Bactria and the Indus Valley. Obverse: Alexander being crowned by Nike. Reverse: Alexander attacking king Porus on his elephant. Silver. British Museum.

In the winter of 327 BCE, Alexander invited all the chieftains in the remaining five Achaemenid satraps to submit to his authority. Ambhi, then ruler of Taxila in the former Hindush satrapy complied, but the remaining tribes and clans in the former satraps of Gandhara, Arachosia, Sattagydia and Gedrosia rejected Alexander's offer.[citation needed]

The first tribe they encountered were the Aspasioi tribe of the Kunar Valley, who initiated a fierce battle against Alexander, in which he himself was wounded in the shoulder by a dart. However, the Aspasioi eventually lost and 40,000 people were enslaved. Alexander then continued in a southwestern direction where he encountered the Assakenoi tribe of the Swat & Buner valleys in April 326 BCE. The Assakenoi fought bravely and offered stubborn resistance to Alexander and his army in the cities of Ora, Bazira (Barikot) and Massaga. So enraged was Alexander about the resistance put up by the Assakenoi that he killed the entire population of Massaga and reduced its buildings to rubble. A similar slaughter then followed at Ora,[40] another stronghold of the Assakenoi. The stories of these slaughters reached numerous Assakenians, who began fleeing to Aornos, a hill-fort located between Shangla and Kohistan. Alexander followed close behind their heels and besieged the strategic hill-fort, eventually capturing and destroying the fort and killing everyone inside. The remaining smaller tribes either surrendered or like the Astanenoi tribe of Pushkalavati (Charsadda) were quickly neutralized where 38,000 soldiers and 230,000 oxen were captured by Alexander.[41] Eventually Alexander's smaller force would meet with the larger force which had come through the Khyber Pass met at Attock. With the conquest of Gandhara complete, Alexander switched to strengthening his military supply line, which by now stretched dangerously vulnerable over the Hindu Kush back to Balkh in Bactria.[citation needed]

After conquering Gandhara and solidifying his supply line back to Bactria, Alexander combined his forces with the King Ambhi of Taxila and crossed the River Indus in July 326 BCE to begin the Archosia (Punjab) campaign. Alexander nominated officers as Satraps of the new provinces, and in Gandhara, Oxyartes was nominated to the position of Satrap in 326 BCE.[citation needed]

Mauryan Empire

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Coin of Early Gandhara Janapada: AR Shatamana and one-eighth Shatamana (round), Taxila-Gandhara region, c. 600–300 BCE

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A monetary silver coin of the satrapy of Gandhara about 500–400 BCE. Obv: Gandhara symbol representing 6 weapons with one point between two weapons; At the bottom of the point, a hollow moon. Rev: Empty. Dimensions: 14 mm Weight: 1.4 g.

After a battle with Seleucus Nicator (Alexander's successor in Asia) in 305 BCE, the Mauryan Emperor extended his domain up to and including present Southern Afghanistan. With the completion of the Empire's Grand Trunk Road, the region prospered as a centre of trade. Gandhara remained a part of the Mauryan Empire for about a century and a half.

Ashoka, the grandson of Chandragupta, was one of the greatest Indian rulers. Like his grandfather, Ashoka also started his career in Gandhara as a governor. Later he became a Buddhist and promoted Buddhism. He built many stupas in Gandhara. Mauryan control over the northwestern frontier, including the Yonas, Kambojas, and the Gandharas, is attested from the Rock Edicts left by Ashoka. According to one school of scholars, the Gandharas and Kambojas were cognate people.[42][43][44] It is also contended that the Kurus, Kambojas, Gandharas and Bahlikas were cognate people and all had Iranian affinities,[45] or that the Gandhara and Kamboja were nothing but two provinces of one empire and hence influencing each other's language.[46] However, the local language of Gandhara is represented by Panini's conservative bhāṣā ("language"), which is entirely different from the Iranian (Late Avestan) language of the Kamboja that is indicated by Patanjali's quote of Kambojan śavati 'to go' (= Late Avestan šava(i)ti).[note 1]

Ancient Era

Indo-Greek Kingdom


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Greco-Buddhist statue of standing Buddha, Gandhara (1st–2nd century), Tokyo National Museum

The decline of the Mauryan Empire left Gandhara open to Greco-Bactrian invasions. Present-day southern Afghanistan was absorbed by Demetrius I of Bactria in 180 BCE. Around about 185 BCE, Demetrius moved into Indian subcontinent; he invaded and conquered Gandhara and the Punjab. Later, wars between different groups of Bactrian Greeks resulted in the independence of Gandhara from Bactria and the formation of the Indo-Greek kingdom. Menander I was its most famous king. He ruled from Taxila and later from Sagala (Sialkot). He rebuilt Taxila (Sirkap) and Pushkalavati. He became a Buddhist and is remembered in Buddhist records for his discussions with the great Buddhist philosopher, Nāgasena, in the book Milinda Panha.[citation needed]

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Marine deities, Gandhara.

Around the time of Menander's death in 140 BCE, the Central Asian Kushans overran Bactria and ended Greek rule there.

Indo-Scythian Kingdom

Around 80 BCE, the Sakas, diverted by their Parthian cousins from Iran, moved into Gandhara and other parts of Pakistan and Western India. The most famous king of the Sakas, Maues, established himself in Gandhara.[citation needed]

Indo-Parthian Kingdom

By 90 BCE the Parthians had taken control of eastern Iran and, around 50 BCE, they put an end to the last remnants of Greek rule in today's Afghanistan. Eventually an Indo-Parthian dynasty succeeded in taking control of Gandhara. The Parthians continued to support Greek artistic traditions. The start of the Gandharan Greco-Buddhist art is dated to about 75–50 BCE. Links between Rome and the Indo-Parthian kingdoms existed.[47] There is archaeological evidence that building techniques were transmitted between the two realms. Christian records claim that around 40 CE Thomas the Apostle visited the Indian subcontinent and encountered the Indo-Parthian king Gondophares.[48]

Kushan Gandhara

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Casket of Kanishka the Great, with Buddhist motifs

The Parthian dynasty fell in about 75 to another group from Central Asia. The Kushans, known as Yuezhi in the Chinese source Hou Han Shu (argued by some[who?] to be ethnically Asii) moved from Central Asia to Bactria, where they stayed for a century. Around 75 CE, one of their tribes, the Kushan (Kuṣāṇa), under the leadership of Kujula Kadphises gained control of Gandhara. The Kushan empire began as a Central Asian kingdom, and expanded into Afghanistan and northwestern India in the early centuries CE.[49]

The Kushan period is considered the Golden Period of Gandhara. Peshawar Valley and Taxila are littered with ruins of stupas and monasteries of this period. Gandharan art flourished and produced some of the best pieces of sculpture from the Indian subcontinent. Many monuments were created to commemorate the Jatakas.[citation needed]

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Head of a bodhisattva, c. 4th century CE

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The Seated Buddha, dating from 300 to 500 AD, was found near Jamal Garhi, and is now on display at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco.

Gandhara's culture peaked during the reign of the great Kushan king Kanishka the Great (127 CE – 150 CE). The cities of Taxila (Takṣaśilā) at Sirsukh and Purushapura (modern day Peshawar) reached new heights. Purushapura along with Mathura became the capital of the great empire stretching from Central Asia to Northern India with Gandhara being in the midst of it. Emperor Kanishka was a great patron of the Buddhist faith; Buddhism spread from India to Central Asia and the Far East across Bactria and Sogdia, where his empire met the Han Empire of China. Buddhist art spread from Gandhara to other parts of Asia. Under Kanishka, Gandhara became a holy land of Buddhism and attracted Chinese pilgrims eager to view the monuments associated with many Jatakas.[citation needed]

In Gandhara, Mahayana Buddhism flourished and Buddha was represented in human form. Under the Kushans new Buddhists stupas were built and old ones were enlarged. Huge statues of the Buddha were erected in monasteries and carved into the hillsides. Kanishka also built a great 400-foot tower at Peshawar. This tower was reported by Chinese monks Faxian, Song Yun, and Xuanzang who visited the country. This structure was destroyed and rebuilt many times until it was finally destroyed by Mahmud of Ghazni in the 11th century.[citation needed]

Kidarites

The Kidarites conquered Peshawar and parts of northwest Indian subcontinent including Gandhara probably sometime between 390 and 410 from Kushan empire,[50] around the end of the rule of Gupta Emperor Chandragupta II or beginning of the rule of Kumaragupta I.[51] It is probably the rise of the Hephthalites and the defeats against the Sasanians which pushed the Kidarites into northern India. Their last ruler in Gandhara was Kandik, around 500 CE.

Alchon Huns

The Alchon invasion of the Indian subcontinent eradicated the Kidarite Huns who had preceded them by about a century, and contributed to the fall of the Gupta Empire, in a sense bringing an end to Classical India.[52][53]

Hephthalite Empire

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Gandhara fortified city depicted in a Buddhist relief

The Hūṇas (as they were known in India) were initially based in the Oxus basin in Central Asia and established their control over Gandhara in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent by about 465 CE.[54] From there, they fanned out into various parts of northern, western, and central India. The Hūṇas are mentioned in several ancient texts such as the Rāmāyaṇa, Mahābhārata, Purāṇas, and Kalidasa's Raghuvaṃśa.[55]

Numerous incidents of violence were reported during this period. The Dharmarajika Stupa at Takṣaśilā has evidence of a massacre there by the Huns.[56] Mihirakula is said to have become a "terrible persecutor" of Buddhism which may have contributed to decline of Buddhism in the Gandhara region.[57] Xuanzang tells us that initially Mihirakula was interested in learning about Buddhism, and asked the monks to send him a teacher; the monks insulted him by recommending a servant of his own household for the purpose. This incident is said to have turned Mihirakula virulently anti-Buddhist, although some have suggested the anti-Buddhist reputation was exaggerated. [58] It is possible that Mihirakula, who may have been inclined toward Shaivism (although his coins also have representations of other deities such as the goddess Lakshmi), was inimical toward both Buddhists and Jainas.[59]

The travel records of many Chinese Buddhist pilgrims record that Gandhara was going through a transformation during these centuries. Buddhism was declining, and Hinduism was rising.[citation needed] Faxian traveled around 400, when Prakrit was the language of the people, and Buddhism was flourishing. 100 years later, when Song Yun visited in 520, a different situation was described: the area had been destroyed by the White Huns and was ruled by Lae-Lih, who did not practice the laws of the Buddha. Xuanzang visited India around 644 CE and found Buddhism on the wane in Gandhara and Hinduism in the ascendant. Gandhara was ruled by a king from Kabul, who respected Buddha's law, but Taxila was in ruins, and Buddhist monasteries were deserted.[citation needed]

Later History

Kabul Shahi


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Sharing of the Buddha's relics, above a Gandhara fortified city.

After the fall of the Sassanid Empire to the Arabs in 651 CE, the region south of the Hindukush along with Gandhara came under pressure from Muslims. After failure of multiple campaigns by Arabs they failed to extend their rule to Gandhara.[citation needed]

Gandhara was ruled from Kabul by the Kabul Shahi for next 200 years. Sometime in the 9th century the Kabul Shahi were replaced by the Hindu Shahi.

Hindu Shahi and Decline

Main article: Hindu Shahi

Based on various records it is estimated that Hindu Shahi was formed in 850 CE. According to Al-Biruni (973–1048), Kallar, a Brahmin minister, founded the Hindu Shahi dynasty around 843 CE. The dynasty ruled from Kabul, later moved their capital to Udabhandapura. They built great temples all over their kingdoms. Some of these buildings are still in good condition in the Salt Range of the Punjab.[citation needed]

Jayapala was the last great king of the Hindu Shahi dynasty. His empire extended from west of Kabul to the river Sutlej. However, this expansion of Gandhara kingdom coincided with the rise of the powerful Ghaznavid Empire under Sabuktigin. Defeated twice by Sabuktigin and then by Mahmud of Ghazni in the Kabul valley, Jayapala gave his life on a funeral pyre. Anandapala, a son of Jayapala, moved his capital near Nandana in the Salt Range. In 1021 the last king of this dynasty, Trilochanapala, was assassinated by his own troops which spelled the end of Gandhara. Subsequently, some Shahi princes moved to Kashmir and became active in local politics.[citation needed]

The city of Kandahar in Afghanistan is said to have been named after Gandhara. According to H.W. Bellow, an emigrant from the collapsing Gandhara region in the 5th century brought this name to modern Kandahar.

Writing in c. 1030, Al Biruni reported on the devastation caused during the conquest of Gandhara and much of north-west India by Mahmud of Ghazni following his defeat of Jayapala in the Battle of Peshawar at Peshawar in 1001:

Now in the following times no Muslim conqueror passed beyond the frontier of Kâbul and the river Sindh until the days of the Turks, when they seized the power in Ghazna under the Sâmânî dynasty, and the supreme power fell to the lot of Nâṣir-addaula Sabuktagin. This prince chose the holy war as his calling, and therefore called himself al-Ghâzî ("the warrior/invader"). In the interest of his successors he constructed, in order to weaken the Indian frontier, those roads on which afterwards his son Yamin-addaula Maḥmûd marched into India during a period of thirty years and more. God be merciful to both father and son ! Maḥmûd utterly ruined the prosperity of the country, and performed there wonderful exploits, by which the Hindus became like atoms of dust scattered in all directions, and like a tale of old in the mouth of the people. Their scattered remains cherish, of course, the most inveterate aversion towards all Muslims. This is the reason, too, why Hindu sciences have retired far away from those parts of the country conquered by us, and have fled to places which our hand cannot yet reach, to Kashmir, Benares, and other places. And there the antagonism between them and all foreigners receives more and more nourishment both from political and religious sources.[60]

During the closing years of the tenth and the early years of the succeeding century of our era, Mahmud the first Sultan and Musalman of the Turk dynasty of kings who ruled at Ghazni, made a succession of inroads twelve or fourteen in number, into Gandhar – the present Peshawar valley – in the course of his proselytizing invasions of Hindustan.[61]

Fire and sword, havoc and destruction, marked his course everywhere. Gandhar which was styled the Garden of the North was left at his death a weird and desolate waste. Its rich fields and fruitful gardens, together with the canal which watered them (the course of which is still partially traceable in the western part of the plain), had all disappeared. Its numerous stone built cities, monasteries, and topes with their valuable and revered monuments and sculptures, were sacked, fired, razed to the ground, and utterly destroyed as habitations.[61]


Rediscovery

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Many stupas, such as the Shingerdar stupa in Ghalegay, are scattered throughout the region near Peshawar.

By the time Gandhara had been absorbed into the empire of Mahmud of Ghazni, Buddhist buildings were already in ruins and Gandhara art had been forgotten. After Al-Biruni, the Kashmiri writer Kalhaṇa wrote his book Rajatarangini in 1151. He recorded some events that took place in Gandhara, and provided details about its last royal dynasty and capital Udabhandapura.

In the 19th century, British soldiers and administrators started taking an interest in the ancient history of the Indian Subcontinent. In the 1830s coins of the post-Ashoka period were discovered, and in the same period Chinese travelogues were translated. Charles Masson, James Prinsep, and Alexander Cunningham deciphered the Kharosthi script in 1838. Chinese records provided locations and site plans for Buddhist shrines. Along with the discovery of coins, these records provided clues necessary to piece together the history of Gandhara. In 1848 Cunningham found Gandhara sculptures north of Peshawar. He also identified the site of Taxila in the 1860s. From then on a large number of Buddhist statues were discovered in the Peshawar valley.

Archaeologist John Marshall excavated at Taxila between 1912 and 1934. He discovered separate Greek, Parthian, and Kushan cities and a large number of stupas and monasteries. These discoveries helped to piece together much more of the chronology of the history of Gandhara and its art.

After 1947 Ahmed Hassan Dani and the Archaeology Department at the University of Peshawar made a number of discoveries in the Peshawar and Swat Valley. Excavation of many of the sites of Gandhara Civilization are being done by researchers from Peshawar and several universities around the world.
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Part 2 of 2

Language

Main article: Gandhari language

The Gandharan Buddhist texts are both the earliest Buddhist as well as Asian manuscripts discovered so far. Most are written on birch bark and were found in labelled clay pots. Panini has mentioned both the Vedic form of Sanskrit as well as what seems to be Gandhari, a later form of Sanskrit, in his Ashtadhyayi.[citation needed]

Gandhara's language was a Prakrit or "Middle Indo-Aryan" dialect, usually called Gāndhārī. Under the Kushan Empire, Gāndhārī spread into adjoining regions of South and Central Asia. It used the Kharosthi script, which is derived from the Aramaic script, and it died out about in the 3rd century CE, though Indo-Aryan languages like Punjabi, Hindko and Kohistani are still spoken in the region today.[62][63]

Religion

Buddhism


Further information: Silk Road transmission of Buddhism and Gandharan Buddhism

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Maitreya Bodhisattva, Gautama Buddha, and Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva. 2nd–3rd century CE, Gandhāra

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Bronze statue of Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva. Fearlessness mudrā. 3rd century CE, Gandhāra

Mahāyāna Buddhism

Mahāyāna Pure Land sutras were brought from the Gandhāra region to China as early as 147 CE, when the Kushan monk Lokakṣema began translating some of the first Buddhist sutras into Chinese.[64] The earliest of these translations show evidence of having been translated from the Gāndhārī language.[65] Lokakṣema translated important Mahāyāna sūtras such as the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra, as well as rare, early Mahāyāna sūtras on topics such as samādhi, and meditation on the Buddha Akṣobhya. Lokaksema's translations continue to provide insight into the early period of Mahāyāna Buddhism. This corpus of texts often includes and emphasizes ascetic practices and forest dwelling, and absorption in states of meditative concentration:[66]

Paul Harrison has worked on some of the texts that are arguably the earliest versions we have of the Mahāyāna sūtras, those translated into Chinese in the last half of the second century AD by the Indo-Scythian translator Lokakṣema. Harrison points to the enthusiasm in the Lokakṣema sūtra corpus for the extra ascetic practices, for dwelling in the forest, and above all for states of meditative absorption (samādhi). Meditation and meditative states seem to have occupied a central place in early Mahāyāna, certainly because of their spiritual efficacy but also because they may have given access to fresh revelations and inspiration.


Some scholars believe that the Mahāyāna Longer Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtra was compiled in the age of the Kushan Empire in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, by an order of Mahīśāsaka bhikṣus which flourished in the Gandhāra region.[67][68] However, it is likely that the longer Sukhāvatīvyūha owes greatly to the Mahāsāṃghika-Lokottaravāda sect as well for its compilation, and in this sutra there are many elements in common with the Lokottaravādin Mahāvastu.[67] There are also images of Amitābha Buddha with the bodhisattvas Avalokiteśvara and Mahāsthāmaprāpta which were made in Gandhāra during the Kushan era.[69]

The Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa records that Kaniṣka of the Kushan Empire presided over the establishment of the Mahāyāna Prajñāpāramitā teachings in the northwest.[70] Tāranātha wrote that in this region, 500 bodhisattvas attended the council at Jālandhra monastery during the time of Kaniṣka, suggesting some institutional strength for Mahāyāna in the north-west during this period.[70] Edward Conze goes further to say that Prajñāpāramitā had great success in the north-west during the Kushan period, and may have been the "fortress and hearth" of early Mahāyāna, but not its origin, which he associates with the Mahāsāṃghika branch of Buddhism.[71]

Destruction of Buddhist relics by Taliban

Swat Valley in Pakistan has many Buddhist carvings, and stupas, and Jehanabad contains a Seated Buddha statue.[72] Kushan era Buddhist stupas and statues in Swat valley were demolished after two attempts by the Taliban and the Jehanabad Buddha's face was dynamited.[73][74][75] Only the Buddhas of Bamiyan were larger than the carved giant Buddha statues in Swat near Manglore which the Taliban attacked.[76] The government did nothing to safeguard the statue after the initial attempts to destroy the Buddha, which did not cause permanent harm. But when a second attack took place on the statue, the feet, shoulders, and face were demolished.[77] Taliban and looters destroyed many of Pakistan's Buddhist artefacts from the Buddhist Gandhara civilization especially in the Swat Valley.[78]

Buddhist translators

Gandharan Buddhist missionaries were active, with other monks from Central Asia, from the 2nd century CE in the Han-dynasty (202 BC – 220 CE) at China's capital of Luoyang, and particularly distinguished themselves by their translation work. They promoted scriptures from Early Buddhist schools as well as those from the Mahāyāna. These translators included:

• Lokakṣema, a Kushan and the first to translate Mahāyāna scriptures into Chinese (167–186)
• Zhi Yao (fl. 185), a Kushan monk, second generation of translators after Lokakṣema
• Zhi Qian (220–252), a Kushan monk whose grandfather had settled in China during 168–190
• Zhi Yue (fl. 230), a Kushan monk who worked at Nanjing
• Dharmarakṣa (265–313), a Kushan whose family had lived for generations at Dunhuang
• Jñānagupta (561–592), a monk and translator from Gandhāra
• Śikṣānanda (652–710), a monk and translator from Oḍḍiyāna, Gandhāra
• Prajñā (fl. 810), a monk and translator from Kabul, who educated the Japanese Kūkai in Sanskrit texts

Textual finds

The Chinese Buddhist monk Xuanzang visited a Lokottaravāda monastery in the 7th century, at Bamiyan, Afghanistan. The site of this monastery has since been rediscovered by archaeologists.[79] Birchbark and palm leaf manuscripts of texts in this monastery's collection, including Mahāyāna sūtras, have been discovered at the site, and these are now located in the Schøyen Collection. Some manuscripts are in the Gāndhārī language and Kharoṣṭhī script, while others are in Sanskrit and written in forms of the Gupta script. Manuscripts and fragments that have survived from this monastery's collection include the following source texts:[79]

• Pratimokṣa Vibhaṅga of the Mahāsāṃghika-Lokottaravāda (MS 2382/269)
• Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, a sūtra from the Āgamas (MS 2179/44)
• Caṃgī Sūtra, a sūtra from the Āgamas (MS 2376)
• Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra, a Mahāyāna sūtra (MS 2385)
• Bhaiṣajyaguru Sūtra, a Mahāyāna sūtra (MS 2385)
• Śrīmālādevī Siṃhanāda Sūtra, a Mahāyāna sūtra (MS 2378)
• Pravāraṇa Sūtra, a Mahāyāna sūtra (MS 2378)
• Sarvadharmapravṛttinirdeśa Sūtra, a Mahāyāna sūtra (MS 2378)
• Ajātaśatrukaukṛtyavinodana Sūtra, a Mahāyāna sūtra (MS 2378)
• Śāriputrābhidharma Śāstra (MS 2375/08)

A Sanskrit manuscript of the Bhaiṣajyaguruvaiḍūryaprabhārāja Sūtra was among the textual finds at Gilgit, Pakistan, attesting to the popularity of the Medicine Buddha in Gandhāra.[80] The manuscripts in this find are dated before the 7th century, and are written in the upright Gupta script.[80]

Art

See also: Greco-Buddhist art

Image
Greco-Buddhist Portraits from the site of Hadda, Gandhara, 3rd century, Guimet Museum

Gandhāra is noted for the distinctive Gandhāra style of Buddhist art, which shows influence of Parthian, Scythian, Roman, Graeco-Bactrian and local Indian influences from the Gangetic Valley.[81] This development began during the Parthian Period (50 BCE–75 CE). The Gandhāran style flourished and achieved its peak during the Kushan period, from the 1st to the 5th centuries. It declined and was destroyed after the invasion of the White Huns in the 5th century. Siddhartha shown as a bejeweled prince (before the Sidhartha renounces palace life) is a common motif.[82]

Stucco, as well as stone, were widely used by sculptors in Gandhara for the decoration of monastic and cult buildings.[82] Stucco provided the artist with a medium of great plasticity, enabling a high degree of expressiveness to be given to the sculpture. Sculpting in stucco was popular wherever Buddhism spread from Gandhara – Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Central Asia, and China.[citation needed]

Buddhist imagery combined with some artistic elements from the cultures of the Hellenistic world. An example is the youthful Buddha, his hair in wavy curls, similar to statutes of Apollo.[82]

Sacred artworks and architectural decorations used limestone for stucco composed by a mixture of local crushed rocks (i.e. schist and granite which resulted compatible with the outcrops located in the mountains northwest of Islamabad.[83]

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Standing Bodhisattva (1st–2nd century)

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Buddha head (2nd century)

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Buddha head (4th–6th century)

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Buddha in acanthus capital

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The Greek god Atlas, supporting a Buddhist monument, Hadda

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The Bodhisattva Maitreya (2nd century)

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Wine-drinking and music, Hadda (1st–2nd century)

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Maya's white elephant dream (2nd–3rd century)

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The birth of Siddharta (2nd–3rd century)

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The Great Departure from the Palace (2nd–3rd century)

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The end of ascetism (2nd–3rd century)

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The Buddha preaching at the Deer Park in Sarnath (2nd–3rd century)

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Scene of the life of the Buddha (2nd–3rd century)

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The death of the Buddha, or parinirvana (2nd–3rd century)

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A sculpture from Hadda, (3rd century)

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The Bodhisattva and Chandeka, Hadda (5th century)

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The Buddha and Vajrapani under the guise of Herakles

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Hellenistic decorative scrolls from Hadda, Afghanistan

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Hellenistic scene, Gandhara (1st century)

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A stone plate (1st century).

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"Laughing boy" from Hadda

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Bodhisattva seated in meditation

Important Gandharans

Main article: list of people from Gandhara

Important people from ancient region of Gandhara are as follows;

• Pāṇini (4th century BCE), he was a Sanskrit philologist, grammarian, and a revered scholar from Gandhara. Pāṇini is known for his text Aṣṭādhyāyī, a sutra-style treatise on Sanskrit grammar.
• Chanakya (4th century BCE), he was an ancient Gandharan teacher, philosopher, economist, jurist and royal advisor. Chanakya assisted the first Mauryan emperor Chandragupta in his rise to power, and his work Arthashastra is considered Pioneer of field of political science in India.

Image
Chanakya

• Garab Dorje (1st century CE), founder of Dzogchen (Great Perfection) tradition.
• Kumāralāta (3rd century), Kumāralāta was the founder of Sautrāntika school of Buddhism.
• Vasubandhu (4th century), Vasubandhu is considered one of the most influential thinkers in the Gandharan Buddhist philosophical tradition. In Jōdo Shinshū, he is considered the Second Patriarch; in Chan Buddhism, he is the 21st Patriarch. His writing Abhidharmakośakārikā ("Commentary on the Treasury of the Abhidharma") is widely used in Tibetan and East Asian Buddhism.

Image
Vasubandhu: Wood, 186 cm height, about 1208, Kofukuji Temple, Nara, Japan
Part of a series on


• Asanga (4th century), he was "one of the most important spiritual figures" of Mahayana Buddhism and the "founder of the Yogachara school". His book Mahāyānasaṃgraha (MSg) is the key work of the Yogācāra school of Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy.
• Padmasambhāva (8th century), he is considered the Second Buddha by the Nyingma school, the oldest Buddhist school in Tibet known as "the ancient one".

Major cities

Major cities of ancient Gandhara are as follows:

• Puṣkalavati (Charsadda), Pakistan
• Takshashila (Taxila), Pakistan
• Puruṣapura (Peshawer), Pakistan
• Sagala (Sialkot), Pakistan
• Oddiyana (Swat), Pakistan
• Chiniotis (Chiniot), Pakistan
• Kapisi (Bagram), Afghanistan

Timeline

• c. 2300 – c. 1400 BCE Indus Valley civilization
• c. 1400 – c. 800 BCE Gandhara grave culture
• c. 1200 – c. 800 BCE Gandhari people mentioned in Rigveda and Atharvaveda.
• c. 800 – c. 518 BCE Gandhara Kingdom
• c. 518 – c. 326 BCE Persian Empire. Under direct Persian control and/or local control under Achaemenid suzerainty.
• c. 326 – c. 305 BCE Occupied by Alexander the Great and Macedonian generals
• c. 305 – c. 185 BCE Controlled by the Maurya dynasty, founded by Chandragupta. Converted to Buddhism under King Ashoka (273–232 BC)
• c. 185 – c. 97 BCE Under control of the Indo-Greek Kingdom, with some incursions of the Indo-Scythians from around 100 BC
• c. 97 BCE – c. 7 CE Saka (Indo-Scythian) Rule
• c. 7 – c. 75 CE Parthian invasion and Indo-Parthian Kingdom, Rule of Commander Aspavarman?.
• c. 75 – c. 230 CE Kushan Empire
• c. 230 – c. 440 CE Kushanshas under Persian Sassanid suzerainty
• c. 450 – c. 565 CE White Huns (Hephthalites)
• c. 565 – c. 644 CE Nezak kingdom, ruled from Kapisa and Udabhandapura
• c. 644 – c. 870 CE Kabul Shahi, ruled from Kabul
• c. 870 – 1021 CE Hindu Shahi, ruled from Udabhandapura
• c. 1021 – c. 1100 CE Conquered and controlled by the Ghaznavid empire

See also

• Gandhari people
• History of India
• History of Pakistan
• Kambojas
• Kashmir Smast
• Mahajanapadas
• Mankiala

Notes

1. NOTE: See long discussion under mahajanapada from the Ancient Buddhist text Anguttara Nikaya's list of mahajanapadas.

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Sources

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Further reading

• Lerner, Martin (1984). The flame and the lotus: Indian and Southeast Asian art from the Kronos collections. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 0-87099-374-7.
• Rehman, Abdur (2009). "A Note on the Etymology of Gandhāra". Bulletin of the Asia Institute. 23: 143–146. JSTOR 24049432.
• Filigenzi, Anna (2000). "Reviewed Work: A Catalogue of the Gandhāra Sculpture in the British Museum, Vol. I: Text, Vol. II: Plates by Wladimir Zwalf". Wladimir Zwalf, Review by: Anna Filigenzi. Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente (IsIAO). 50 (1/4): 584–586. JSTOR 29757475.

External links

• Gandharan Connections Project (Cambridge, 2016-2021)
• Livius.org: Gandara
• The Buddhist Manuscript project
• University of Washington's Gandharan manuscript
• Coins of Gandhara janapada
• Gandhara Civilization- National Fund for Cultural Heritage (Pakistan)
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Part 1 of 7

An Essay on the Hindu History of Cashmir [Raja Taringini of Calhana Pandit]
by Horace Hayman Wilson, Esq., Sec. A.S.
Asiatic Researches, Volume 15
1825

pgs. 1-119

THE only Sanscrit composition yet discovered, to which the title of History, can with any propriety be applied, is the Raja Taringini, a history of Cashmir. This work was first introduced to the knowledge of the Mohammedans by the learned minister of Acber, Abulfazl, but the summary which he has given of its contents, was taken as he informs us from a Persian translation of the Hindu original, prepared by order of Acber. The example set by that liberal Monarch, introduced amongst his successors, and the literary men of their reigns, a fashion of remodelling, or retranslating the same work, and continuing the History of the Province, to the periods at which they wrote.

The earliest work of this description, after that which was prepared by order of Acber, is one mentioned by Bernier, who states an abridged translation of the Raja Taringini into Persian, to have been made, by command of Jehangir; he adds that he was engaged upon rendering this into French, but we have never heard anything more of his translation: at a subsequent period, mention is made in a later composition, of two similar works, by Mulla Husein, Kari, or the reader, and by Hyder Malec, Chadwaria* [A summary taken from this work, and which appears to have been the one alluded to by Bernier, is given in the Description de l'Inde from Tieffenthaler (1. 89.)] whilst the work, in which this notice occurs, the Wakiat-i-Cashmir was written in the time of Mohammed Shah, as was another History of the Province, entitled the Nawadir-ul-Akhbar. The fashion seems to have continued to a very recent date, as Ghulam Husein† [Seir Mutakherin— 3. 210.]  notices the composition of a History of Cashmir having been entrusted to various learned men, by order of Jivana the Sich, then Governor of the Province, and we shall have occasion to specify one History of as recent a date, as the reign of Shah-Alem.

The ill directed and limited enquiries of the first European settlers in India, were not likely to have traced the original of these Mohammedan compositions, and its existence was little adverted to, until the translation of the Ayia Acberi by the late Mr. Gladwin was published. The abstract then given naturally excited curiosity, and stimulated enquiry, but the result was unsatisfactory, and a long period intervened before the original work was discovered.‡ [A. R. i. 431; and iv. 188.] Sir Wm. Jones was unable to meet with it, although the history of India from the Sanscrit-Cashmir authorities, was amongst the tasks his undaunted and indefatigable intellect had planned, and it was not until the year 1805, that Mr. Colebrooke§ [A. R. ix. 294.] was successful in his search. At that time he procured a copy of the work from the heirs of a Brahman, who died in Calcutta, and about the same time, or shortly afterwards, another transcript of the Raja Taringini was obtained by the late Mr. Speke from Lucknow. To these two copies I have been able to add a third, which was brought for sale in Calcutta; and I have only to add, that both in that city and at Benares, I have been hitherto unable to meet with any other transcript of this curious work.

The Raja Taringini has hitherto been regarded as one entire composition: it is however in fact a series of compositions, written by different authors, and at different periods; a circumstance that gives greater value to its contents, as with the exception of the early periods of the history, the several authors may be regarded almost as the chroniclers of their own times. The first of the series is the Raja Taringini of Calhana Pandit, the son of Champaca, who states his having made use of earlier authorities, and gives an interesting enumeration of several which he had employed. The list includes the general works of Suvrata and Narendra; the History of Gonerda and hrs three successors, by Hela Raja, an Ascetic; of Lava, and his successors to Asoca, by Padma Mihira; and of Asoca and the four next princes by Sri Chhavillacara. He also cites the authority of Nila Muni, meaning probably the Nila Purana, a Purana known only in Cashmir; the whole forming a remarkable proof of the attention bestowed by Cashmirian writers upon the history of their native country: an attention the more extraordinary, from the contrast it affords, to the total want of historical enquiry in any other part of the extensive countries peopled by the Hindus. The history of Calhana commences with the fabulous ages, and comes down to the reign of Sangrama Deva, the nephew of Didda Rani, in Saca 949 or A.D. 1027, approaching to what appears to have been his own date, Saca 1070 or A.D. 1148.

The next work is the Rajavali of Jona Raja, of which I regret to state I have not yet been able to meet with a copy. It probably begins where Calhana stops, and it closes about the time of Zein ul Ab-ad-din, or the year of the Hijra 815, as we know from the next of the series.

The Sri Jaina Raja Taringini is the work of Sri Vara Pandita, the pupil of Jona Raja, whose work it professes to continue, so as to form with it, and the history of Calhana, a complete record of the Kingdom of Cashmir. It begins with Zein ul Ab-ed-din, whose name the unprepared reader would scarcely recognise, in its Nagari transfiguration, of Sri Jaina Ollabha Dina, and closes with the accession of Fatteh Shah, in the year of the Hijra 882, or A.D. 1477. The name which the author has chosen to give his work of Jaina Taringini has led to a very mistaken notion of its character: it has been included amongst the productions of Jaina literature, whilst in truth the author is an orthodox worshipper of Siva, and evidently intends the epithet he has adopted as complimentary to the memory of Zein ul Ab-ed din, a prince who was a great friend to his Hindu subjects, and a liberal patron of Hindu letters, and literary men.

The fourth work, which completes the aggregate current under the name of Raja Taringini, was written in the time of Acber, expressly to continue to the latest date, the productions of the author's predecessors, and to bring the history down to the time at which Cashmir became a province of Acber's empire. It begins accordingly where Sri Vara ended, or with Fatteh Shah, and closes with Nazek-Shah; the historian apparently, and judiciously, avoiding to notice the fate of the kingdom during Hamayun's retreat into Persia. The work is called the Raja vali Pataca, and is the production of Punya or Prajnya Bhatta.

Of the works thus described, the manuscript of Mr. Speke, containing the compositions of Calhana and Sri Vara, came into my possession at the sale of that gentleman's effects. Of Mr. Colebrooke's manuscript, containing also the work of Punya Bhatta, I was permitted by that gentleman, with the liberality I have had former occasion to acknowledge, to have a transcript made; and the third manuscript, containing the same three works, I have already stated I procured by accidental purchase. Neither of the three comprises the work of Jona Raja, and but one of them, the transcript of Mr. Colebrooke's manuscript, has the third Tarang or section of CALHANA's history. The three manuscripts are all very inaccurate; so far so indeed, that a close translation of them, if desirable, would be impracticable. The leading points, however, may be depended upon, agreeing not only in the different copies, but with the circumstances narrated in the Compendium of Abulfazl, and in the Mohammedan or Persian histories which I have been able to procure.

The Persian works which I have consulted are the following: the Nawa-dir-ul Akhhar, the work of Refiuddin Mohammed, the Wakiat-i-Cashmir by Mohammed Azim, the Tarikh Cashmir of Narayan Cul, and the Goheri Alem Tohfet us shahi, by Badia ud-din. The first of these authors has the advantage of being a Cashmirian by birth, although descended of a Ballch family. He alludes to the work of Calhana Pandit, which he avows his purpose of correcting where at variance with the true faith; and it must be acknowledged, that he has altered without remorse, although it may be questioned, whether he has corrected. His chief disagreements are those of omission however, as in the Hindu portion of his history, he occasionally passes over whole dynasties, and connects the disjuncta membra of his original, with very little regard to accuracy of time or descent. The date of his work is 1133 of the Hijra, in the reign of Mohammed Shah.

The Wakiat-i-Cashmir contains a much fuller account of the Province, and is a closer approximation to the Hindu original. The History follows the order of the Sanscrit work very regularly, but the work is not confined to the History of Cashmir, two of the three portions into which it is divided being appropriated to the description of the country, its natural and artificial curiosities, and the religious and literary characters it has given birth to since the establishment of Islam. Mohammed Azim, the author, calls himself the son of Kheir-uz-zeman Khan, and writes in the year of the Hijra 1140: living therefore, as well as Rafi-ad-din, in the Reign of Mohammed Shah. The same reign produced the third work, which is professedly a translation of the Raja Taringinii. It has all the usual defects of oriental translation, and follows the original with a whimsical interchange of fidelity and variation; some passages, especially those of a legendary character, being minutely given, whilst others of more historical importance are imperfectly rendered or altogether omitted. The author, Narayan Cul, was a Hindu Brahman, and a native of Cashmir.

The last work enumerated is of very modern date, having been written in the time of the last Shah Alem: the author Bedia-ud-din was the son of Mohammed Azim, the author of the Wakiat, whose omissions he purposes to supply, from authorities peculiarly his own, and of which he had subsequently become possessed. He particularly specifies the Nur Namah, an ancient history of Cashmir, written by Sheikh Nur-ad-din Wali in the Cashmirian language, and rendered into Persian by Moulavi Ahmed Almeh, in the reign of Zein ul ab-ad-din. A copy of this the author had procured from one of the descendants of the last independent princes of Cashmir, who were settled as private individuals in Akberabad or Agra; and it is to be presumed that to this work Bedia-ud-din owes the extraordinary additions which he has made occasionally to the labours of his predecessors, and their common original. None of the works above particularised, offer much valuable illustration of the Sanscrit original history; nor do they furnish any additions of historical importance. As well as the summary of Abulfazl however they are very useful in corroborating or explaining many parts of the Sanscrit text, whilst they do comprise a few additional circumstances, which are curious at least in their origin and character, although very questionable in point of probability or truth. The chief value of these works, however, is the notice they take, of the comparatively modern condition of many towns and temples, the foundation of which is commemorated by the Hindu writers, and the existence of which at all, cannot perhaps now be verified, except upon the testimony of these Mohammedan authors; the short interval that has elapsed since their days, having been sufficient to sweep away the vestiges of antiquity, which in their time continued to bear witness to the public spirit, and munificence, of the Hindu Sovereigns of Cashmir.

In the utter darkness which envelopes the history of India previous to the Musselman invasion, the appearance of such a record as that furnished us by the Cashmirian writers acquires an importance, not otherwise derived from the value of the record itself, nor the character of the transactions it commemorates, Its being the sole luminary, however, of the gloomy interval alluded to, renders us naturally curious to follow the track it singly serves to light, and the history of Cashmir, has accordingly attracted the attention of those best competent to have prosecuted the investigation. I have already stated it to be one of the Desiderata of Sir Wm. Jones; and at the time that Mr. Colebrooke announced the discovery of the manuscript, he also declared his intention of giving to the public an account of its contents. The execution of his purpose has probably been impeded by other more important labours, and the too contracted term of Sir Wm. Jones's splendid career, disappointed his hope of performing this, and greater undertakings. A more satisfactory account of the contents of the Raja Taringini than that furnished by Abulfazl is therefore still a desideratum, and in the little probability that now exists of the task being undertaken by living talent more adequate to its accomplishment, I have been induced to prepare, from it chiefly, the following sketch of the Hindu history of Cashmir.

The want of a copy of the connecting series of Jon a Raja, and the occupation of the works of Sri Vara and Punya BHATTA by Musselman transactions, will prevent me, at present at least, from extending the limits of my essay, beyond those of Calhana Pandit, or following any other Hindu guide. His work as a historical composition is clear and consistent, and contains fewer extravagancies than most of the works to which the name of History has been assigned, by the unphilosophical and credulous natives of the East. Like the mass of the Hindu compositions on all subjects, it is written in verse, and as a poem, it contains many passages of merit, both in sentiment and style. The summary of its contents given by Abulfazl is too concise to be of much service, and in the transformation of names occasioned by the difficulty of expressing the Nagari alphabet in Persian characters, excites not unfrequently a doubt, whether the persons named were possessed of Hindu appellations. Farther, it is in many places inaccurate, and it does not therefore preclude a necessity, for some such fuller account of the Raja Taringini and its contents, as is attempted in the essay now submitted to the Society, and which, whilst it follows the order and authority of Calhana Pandit, proposes to comprehend such occasional illustration of his history of Cashmir, as may be derived from the Mohammedan writers above mentioned, or from classical authorities, or more modern investigation.

AN ESSAY ON THE HINDU HISTORY OP CASHMIR.

THE Hindu History of Cashmir commences with the statement, that the beautiful valley forming that kingdom was originally a vast Lake, called Satisaras* [[x], a virtuous woman, and [x], a Lake; the original does not give the etymology, but Abulfazl makes it the Lake of Uma, the wife of Mahadeo, one of whose names, it is true, is Sati in the character of a virtuous spouse. [x] Wak. C. so Abulfazl, Gladwin's translation, ii. 169. Bernier says, les Histoires des anciens rois de Cachemire, veulent que tout ce pays n 'ait ete autrefois qu'un grand Lac [Google translate: the stories of the ancient kings of Cashmere, want this whole country to have once been nothing but a great lake.]. And, according to Forster, the Legends of the country assert that Solomon visited the valley, and finding it covered, except one eminence, with a noxious water, which had no outlet, he opened a passage in the mountains, and gave to Cashmir its beautiful plains. From the general concurrence of the Persian writers, with the account of the Hindu historians, must be excepted Bedia ud-din: he begins with the creation, and brings Adam from Serandip, where all Musselman authorities place him after the fall, to Cashmir. The sovereignty of Cashmir continued in the Line of Seth for 1110 years, when the Hindus conquered the Province under Harinand Raja, and his family ruled it till the period of the deluge. After the flood, Cashmir was peopled by a tribe from Turkestan. The inhabitants were taught the worship of one God, by Moses, who died there, and whose tomb or place of sepulture is still to be seen in Cashmir. The relapse of the Cashmirians into the Hindu idolatry was punished by the local inundation of the province, and the solitary supremacy of the Afrit, Jaladeo, as described in the Wakiat-i-Cashmir. See Appendix No. I. These details are sufficient to give an idea of Bedia ud-din's, or probably of the Sheikh Nur-ad-dins, historical merits.] and this assertion has not only been copied by the Mohammedan writers, but it agrees with the local traditions of the Country, and as far as probability is regarded, has received the sanction of that able geographer Major Rennel.* ["So far am I from doubting the tradition respecting the existence of the Lake that covered Cashmir, that appearances alone would serve to convince me without either the tradition or the history." — Memoir of a Map of Hindoostan, 107.]

The draining of the water from the valley is ascribed, by the Hindu Historians to the Saint Casyapa, the son of Marichi, the son of Brahma, the Cashef or Kasheb of the Mohammedans, according to some of whom, he was not the Hindu Seer, but a Deo or Genie, the servant of Suliman, by whose orders he effected the desiccation of Cashmir. The method of doing this was opening a passage through the mountain at Baramouleh,† [The Wakiat-i-Cashmir has another legend relative to the opening on this occasion of the Baramouleh pass, which is ascribed to Vishnu: the story is not worth quoting, except as a curious specimen of a Mohammedan disposition to enlarge upon Hindu fable: not a syllable of the legend is to be found in the Raja Taringini. See Appendix, No. 1.] by which the water passed off; but the Hindu accounts do not specify the channel by which Casyapa originally drained the Valley. As however it is not improbable that the Valley was really submerged, it is equally possible, as Bernier supposes,‡ ["Pour moi Je ne voudrois nier que toute cette terre neut autrefois ete couverte d' eaux: on le ditbien de la Thessalie, et de quelques autrespays, mais J' ai de la peine a croire que cette ouverture soit 1' ouvrage d'un homme parceque la montagne est tres large et tres haute. Jecroirois plutot que quelque grand teemblement de terre, comme ces lieux y sontassez sujets, auroit fait ouvrir quelque caverne souterraine, ou la montagne se seroit enfoncee." [Google translate: "As for me, I would not deny that all this land was once covered with water: says well of Thessaly, and of some other countries, but I find it hard to believe that this opening is the work of a man because the mountain is very wide and very high. I believe rather than some large earthen building, such as these places are quite subject to, would have to open some subterranean cave, where the mountain would have sunk."] — Voyage de Kachemire. The remark made by Bernier continues applicable to the neighbouring and analogous districts; during the labours of Capt. Hodgson in Gerwhal, in 1817, he noticed forty shocks.] that some natural convulsion rent the confining mountainous barrier, and opened to the waters, an outlet to the plains of the Punjab.

The district thus recovered by Casyapa, was also it is said peopled by him, with the assistance of the superior deities, whom he brought from heaven for that purpose, at the beginning of the seventh or present Manwantara. We must of course subject Cashmir to the same periods of destruction and renovation, as the other parts of the universe, if we wish to reconcile this date with the usual chronology, but as this is not very indispensable, it has been overlooked by the original authority. We also have nothing in the Sanscrit text here, respecting the colony of Brahmins, whom Abulfazl says, he introduced into the province, and from which it might be inferred that he then introduced the Brahmanical religion, an event that probably occurred, as we shall see, at a subsequent period; the worship in Cashmir, being in the mean time apparently that of the Nagas or snake Gods;* [See Appendix, No. 2.] a superstition of very obvious occurrence, amongst the rude inhabitants of a country, recently recovered from the waters, and consequently abounding with the venomous reptiles common to slimy and marshy places.† [With respect to the Leader of the colony, Dr. Hamilton correctly observes, much confusion prevails, arising probably from different persons being designated by the name Casyapa. He has endeavoured to distinguish three of the names. 1st. "Casyapa Muni son of Marichi; 2nd. Kasyapa married to the daughter of Dacsha, also named Tarkshya, who led a colony of civilized people into Cashmir. And 3d. Kasyapa married to the daughters of Vaiswanara, grandson of the preceding." — Genealogies of the Hindus. There is reason to fear however that this distinction can scarcely be made out on original authority. Dr. Hamilton's chronology would rather confirm the assertion of the text that it was the son of Marichi who colonised Cashmir, for he places this sage in the 20th century before the Christian Aera, and it appears not unlikely that Cashmir was colonised about that period.]

Prom the period of the first settlement of Cashmir to the reign of Gonerda, the first prince whose name has been recorded, the country was governed by a succession of 52 kings of the Caurava family, whose reigns formed a period of 1266 years;‡ [So also the Ayin Acberi: the author of the Wakiat Cashmir cites Hindu authority, for a Series of 55 Princes and a period of 1919 years. ] these princes were not worthy of record, says our Hindu author, on account of their disregard of the precepts of the Vedas, and their impure and vicious lives; and he assigns a better reason for their being forgotten, did they ever indeed exist, in this expression, [x] which we may employ Horace to translate, Illacrymabiles urgeutur ignotique longa nocte, carent quia vate sacro. [Google translate: Unlamentable and strangers are hard pressed after a long night, because they lack the sacred bard.]

The blank thus left in the history by the Hindu writer, is partly filled up by Mohammedan authority, and we may therefore here desert our usual guide, to contemplate the series of monarchs, derived from another source. According to Bedia ad-din, after the settlement of the country by Suliman, he left the sovereignty to his cousin, Isaun, who reigned over Cashmir twenty-five years, and was succeeded by his son.

2. Cassalgham, who fixed his capital at Islamabad and reigned nineteen years.

3. MAHERKAZ his son succeeded and reigned thirty years; being childless, he adopted for his son and successor.

4. Bandu or Pandu-khan. The birth of this prince was miraculously effected, his mother becoming pregnant from bathing in a reservoir or tank: his death was equally marvellous, as upon batling himself in the same reservoir, he dissolved, and returned to the element whence he sprang: he is said to have had a most numerous offspring, and to have seen in his life time, no fewer than fifteen thousand descendants: these were the Pandavas, afterwards so celebrated in Indian History.

We may here pause to notice the concurrence of this account, with that which we have already extracted from Hindu authority, of the subjection of Cashmir to a long series of Caurava princes, as these are in the estimation of the Hindus, the offspring of a common ancestor, and virtually the same with the Pandava race. This position of the family in the north west of India, is referred to in many works, and the chief scene of their early exploits is the Punjab, and its vicinity; and these traditions therefore although much embarrassed by uncertainty and fiction, seem to support the idea that this part of India was the native seat of the Pandavas. Besides the positive assertions to this effect in the history of Cashmir, I find, that in an unfinished manuscript essay by Colonel Wilford, and liberally put into my hands by that eminent scholar, he has also particularised Cashmir as the birth place of the Pandavas upon Hindu authority, and we find in classical authors* [Appendix, No. 3.] the realm or city of Panda, or of the Pandavas, in a similar direction, although not precisely the same position: at the same time, it is true, that Curu the progenitor of the Caurava and Pandava races is placed by the Pauranic writers in a more central part of India, and made king of Hastinapur: the five suppositious sons of Pandu were however according to the same authorities actually born in the Himalaya mountains,* [[x] Mahabharat Adi Parva (2. 64.) "Thus the five God-given sons of Pandu grew up in the holy mountain of Himavat, endowed with divine force, with the strength, the gait and prowess of lions, expert archers, lovely as the moon, and graced with every auspicious mark, renowned through the World, and honouring the race of Curu." In the first or Anucramanic portion of the Mahabharat a curious passage occurs relative to the spurious descent of the Pandavas, for when the boys are brought to Hastinapur by the Rishis, their preceptors, some of the citizens say, they cannot be the sons of Pandu, for he has long been dead; [x], the passage is not the less remarkable from its being singular, that is to say, it is not adverted to in the subsequent part of the poem which details the event at length. The Anucramanica is a summary of the whole work, and not impossibly the original, the bulk of the poem being merely a repetition and expansion of the brief narration, which it contains.] whither Pandu with his wife Cunti had accompanied the Rishis, and where the Gods descended to rear posterity for the prince: there can be little doubt therefore, that either the original Caurava family, or a very important branch of it, came from the northwest and mountainous parts of India. † [As one additional argument, the complexion of Pandu may be mentioned; it is said in the Mahabharat that he was named Pandu, pale, from the paleness of his colour. Vyasa says to the younger widow of his late brother [x], Maha, Ad. P.]

To return however to the series of princes enumerated by Bedia Ad-din; we have:

5. Ladi-Khan, son of Pandu-Khan.

6. Ledder-Khan, his son.

7. Sunder-Khan in whose reign the idolatry of the Hindu worship again made its appearance: the prince was slain in endeavouring to obstruct its progress, and was succeeded by

8. Cunder-Khan his son, who reigned thirty-five years.

9. Sunder-Khan, the second. Idolatry was now the national religion, and the king- erected a temple to Sadasiva.

10. TUNDU-KHAN.

11. Beddu-Khan, who reigned 115 years.

15. Mahand-Khan.

13. DURBINASH-KHAN.

14. Deosir-Khan.

15. Tehab-Khan. This prince was attacked and slain by his neighbour and relation, the king of Cabul, who seized upon the throne of Cashmir, and reigned under the name of

16. Calju-Khan; after a reign of seven years he was driven out by his Pandava relatives, who raised to the throne

17. Surkhab-Khan; his reign lasted 191 years.

18. Shermabaram-Khan.

19. Naureng-Khan; this prince was a great conqueror and extended his dominions to the kingdom of China.

20. Barigh-Khan.

21. Gawasheh-Khan.

22. Pandu-Khan the second; he recovered the provinces that had been subject to the crown of Cashmir, and which extended to the shores of the Indian sea.

23. Haris-Khan; his reign lasted 23 years.

24. Sanzil-Khan.

25. Akber-Khan.

26. Jaber-Khan.

27. Nauder-Khan, he introduced the worship of fire.

28. Sanker-Khan, who was attacked and slain by Barra-Raj, a neighbouring chief who headed the Cashmirian nobles driven into rebellion by the tyranny of their king.

The six sons of Sanker-Khan succeeded in due order to their father's sovereignty, and also to his fate. Their accession and deaths were the work of a few hours, whence originated the proverb, said to be still current in Cashmir;

[x]

"One Caldron, on one fire, saw seven kings before the flesh was boiled;"


a proverb, which though not of literal, has been in a general sense, of not inappropriate application, to events of eastern history, of a more authentic character, than the one to which its origin is here ascribed.

29. Bacra-Raj then took possession of Cashmlr, and bequeathed it to his descendants: their names are however unknown, and a blank interval precedes the succession of Augnand the first monarch, with whom all the authorities are agreed to commence, what may be regarded, as the dawn of legitimate historical record.

The list above inserted, although of an obviously fabulous construction, still contains matter to excite curiosity, and awaken some speculation as to the possibility of any part of it being true; it seems very probable that it originates with tradition, and is not altogether unfounded, although no doubt much disfigured, and most probably misplaced: the title of Khan attached to the names, few of which too appear to be Hindu, indicates a race of Tartar princes, and we shall have occasion to notice the presence of Tartar rulers in Cashmir, accompanied with something like chasms in the history, which Bedia ad-din's catalogue would enable us to fill, conveniently enough: if we might conjecture from the names of several princes on the west of India, the invasion of Alexander was the period of Tartar rule in this direction, as Oxycanus and Musicanus might easily be resolved into Tartar appellations with the designation Khan attached:* [I am not disposed to attach any importance to etymological conjectures in general, and merely adduce such analogies, as possible identifications in the absence of better guides; at the same time I am very much disposed to think with the learned Dr. Vincent, that "most, if not all of the Indian names, which occur in classical authors, are capable of being traced to native appellations, existing at this day among the Hindoos, at least, if not the Moguls." (Voyage of Nearchus, 129.) Lieut. Pottinger finds a similarity between Musicanus and Mop-Sehwan, the names of two contiguous districts in Sind, and usually connected in utterance. They lie exactly, where we are told, the Greeks found that chief's territories. Travels in Biloochistan.] it may be resting too much on conjecture only, however, to give a period of existence to what are perhaps after all but phantoms, and we must remain satisfied with the possibility, that they were real personages, who ruled Cashmir as foreigners, and that as foreigners, they were extruded from the Hindu annals, and were preserved only by undefined traditions, which have been embodied into the Mohammedan history of Sheik Nuraddin with little regard to chronology, or truth.

As the first named sovereign of the Hindu history of Cashmir, succeeded to the princes who had governed the country for nearly thirteen centuries, there should have been little or no chronological difficulty about the period of his accession: the introduction of Manwantaras and Calpas, has however obscured a system, otherwise clear at least, if not unexceptionable, and has left it doubtful, whether these princes, as well as the first settlement of the country, come within the limits of the Cali-age, and consequently at what date in that age, Gonerda, the Augnand* [In Nagari [x], or in some copies [x], Gonerda or Gonanda; the Persian is [x], Augnand and the author of the Wakiati Cashmir as well as Bedia-AD-DIN leave no doubt of the intention of the Musselman writers as they detail the letters of this and other names, in the manner, common in Arabic and Persian Lexicons.] of the Mohammedan writers, was king of Cashmir: there are other chronological points, connected with his history, that have received the notice of the Hindu historian.

The passage of the original is however here not very distinct, and refers evidently to computations of an uncommon character. Gonerda as appears from the transactions of his reign, was contemporary with Crishna and Yudhishthir, who according to the generally received notions, lived at the end of the Dwapar age: this however the author observes is irreconcileable with the series of Gonerda's successors, which agrees better with the opinion, that places the existence of the Caurava and Pandava princes about the middle of the seventh century of the Cali Yug; a computation it may be remarked which is at variance with Gonerda's succeeding to the throne, after that had been occupied for 1266 years, unless some of those years be carried into the preceding age: it is of very little use however to attempt to reconcile these discrepancies, as the different statements are all probably equally incorrect; and it is only of importance to observe, the disagreement between this author and the popular belief, as to the age of Yudhishthir and Crishna, and the reduction of the antiquity usually assigned to them, which is thus derivable from Hindu authority: any other conclusions, we shall be better prepared to make when we have gone through the different dynasties of princes, and the events recorded to have happened during their reigns.* [Appendix No. 4.] If we may trust the Hindu historian, Gonerda the first was a relation of Jarasandha, king of Magadha, to whose assistance he led an army from Cashmir: the confederates were opposed to Crishna, in the province of Mathura, and were defeated in an engagement upon the banks of the Yamuna by that chief, and his brother Balarama, by whose hands Gonerda was slain, whilst attempting to rally his flying troops:† [Appendix No. 5.]  the prince was succeeded by his son Damodara who in his impatience to revenge his father's death, attacked a party of the friends of Crishna on, their return from a marriage in Gandhar on the Indus;‡ [Appendix No. 6.]  the bride was killed in the affray; but the rage of the bridegroom and his friends was irresistible, and the followers of the prince were defeated, and himself slain; the whole transaction being such as was probably of not unfrequent occurrence, in the history of these mountainous regions, in a state of society much more advanced, than that of which it is narrated. Damodara left his wife Yasovati pregnant, and ill able to resist the victorious Yadava. Crishna however sent Brahmans to appease her anxiety, and establish her in the kingdom, silencing the remonstrances of his friends by this quotation from the Puranas [x], "Cashmir is as Parvati,§ [This appears to be a pun, Parvati meaning both mountainous and the wife of Siva.] and the king is a portion of Hara: if even vicious therefore, he is not to be disrespected by the sage who hopes for heaven."

In due time Yasovati was delivered of a son, who was immediately anointed king|| [There is no other word that can be used to express the Abhishec, considered an essential part of the ceremony of coronation; the word means in fact sprinkling, and implies in these cases, the sprinkling of the king with water from some sacred stream, as the Ganges, &c.] the minister of his father conducting the affairs of the state during his minority: he was named Gonerda* [Abulfazl has Bala; the designation of the infant monarch, or Bala, a child, having been mistaken for his own appellation.] after his grand-father: his tender years prevented him from taking any part in the war that continued during his youth, to rage between the Caurava and Pandava families.

A dark period follows the reign of this prince, and the chasm is filled by a nameless troop of thirty-five kings, who deviating from the precepts of the Vedas were consequently immersed in the waters of oblivion:† [According to Bedia-ad-din they were all of the Pandava race.] to them succeeded a monarch of some celebrity, Lava, the Loo or Looloo of the Mohammedan historians, of whom the only action recorded is the foundation of the city Lolora‡ [Perhaps the Durroo or Lurroo of Forster, ii. 5.], a city which, according to the extravagant accounts of all parties, contained originally an incredible number of stone edifices,§ [Abulfazl has 80 Crore; the original, one Crore minus 16 Lacs or 84,00,000: both Refiuddeen and Mahommed Azim say, that Looloo or Lolot was a populous place in the Pergannah of Camraj, or the western division of Cashmir. Ayeen Acberi, ii. 162.] and which in modern times, continued to be a celebrated and populous Tappa or village. Lava is also said to have been a benefactor of the Brahmanical tribe.

Cusesaya, || [Kishn. Abulfazl, &c.] the son of Lava, succeeded his father, whom he resembled in conferring endowments of land upon the Brahmanical priesthood.** [The term used on these occasions is Agrahara, which imports a portion of land, or a village, given to the Brahmans, with or without a temple or dwelling.] He was followed in habits and sovereignty by his son Khagendra,†† [Khagunder. Abulfazl.] of whom it is recorded that he constructed the towns Khagi and Ehanmusha.‡ ‡ [Cacapur and Gowmoha in the time of the Mohammedan writers.]  Surendra,§§ [Serendair. Abulfazl.] the son of this prince succeeded him, and was actively employed in founding towns and building temples and palaces: one city of his construction was Suraca situated near the Darada country, or at the foot of the mountains.

According to the Mohammedan writers, this prince had a daughter named Catapan Bhanu of great beauty and accomplishments; the reputation of which induced Bahman, the son Isfendiar, who afterwards governed Persia under the name of Ardisheer Dirazdest, to solicit and obtain the princess in marriage. It does not appear from what source they have derived this story, as it is not found in the Hindu records, nor in the hstorical romance of Firdausi, unless we suppose it to have originated in the adventures of Gushtasp, the grandfather of Bahman, who whilst in exile in the west married Kattyoon, the daughter of the Emperor of Room. ( Malcolm's Persia 56.) Had there been any foundation for the tradition, it might have been of some chronological utility, but it is probably either an idle invention, or it is a misrepresentation of the fables which relate to the adventures of Behram Gor, who according to Firdausi, visited India, and there married Sipanud the daughter of Shancal king of Canouj.* [Or rather of the whole tract of country from Canouj to Khorasan, according to the Persian poet. Thus Bahram, he says, sends an embassy to Shancal, who is sovereign of India from the river of Canouj to the borders of Sind [x], the king in his reply tells him, that the region he rules is full of mountains and streams, and extends from Canouj to Iran in one direction, and in the other from Siclab (Sclavonia or Tartary) to China. [x]. The Shancal here mentioned is probably the Shincal of Meerkhond and Ferishta; they have however added to his history, and have made him contemporary with Afrasiab. The union noticed in the text terminated according to Bedia-ad-din unhappily, and Behman was murdered by the attendants of the princess at her instigation, in resentment of his contemptuous mention of her father; and he did not perish, he observes, as said by other reports, of the bite of a snake.]

As Surendra however had no son, he was succeeded by a prince of another family named Godhara;* [Gowdher, Ayin Acberi.] whose successors Suverna, Janaca and Sachinara† [Suren, Jenek and Seijuner. Ibid.] followed him in regular descent, and continued to build cities, and construct and endow temples for the advantage of the Brahmans, and chiefly it would seem for the worship of Siva. Janaca the second of these princes is said by Bedia-ad-din to have sent one of his sons into Persia, with a hostile force during the reign of Homai: the invader however was repelled and slain by the Persians under Darab, the son of Bahman.

The last of these princes being childless, the crown of Cashmir reverted to the family of its former rulers, and devolved on Asoca who was descended from the paternal great uncle of Khagendra. This prince, it is said in the Ayin Acberi, abolished the Brahmanical rites, and substituted those of Jina: from the original however it appears, that he by no means attempted the former of these heinous acts, and that on the contrary, he was a pious worshipper of Siva, an ancient temple of whom in the character of Vijayesa‡ [There are a Vijayesa and Vijaya cshetra at Benares. The Vijaya Linga adjourned, or in other words, his worship was brought, according to the Casi C'hand from Cashmir. Sec. 69. [x]] he repaired. With respect to the second charge, there is better foundation for it, although it appears that this prince did not introduce, but invented or originated the Jina Sasana.§ [Bedia-ad din says, the new faith was brought from Ajem, in which case it must have been, the worship of fire that was introduced, a circumstance of no unlikely occurrence, but which at this period of our history is utterly irreconcilable with the chronology of the original, as if it took place after Darab the son of Homai — it very little preceded Alexander's invasion of India — but we have not yet come to the second Gonerda, who lived, agreeably to the assertion of Calhana pandit, 1182 B.C.— It must not be forgotten that these Persian transactions are taken from the Mohammedan writers, and are not hinted at in the Raja Taringini.] He is said to have founded a city called Srinagar, a different place however from the present capital, which is attributed to a much later monarch.|| [Rafi-ad-deen calls it Babara; the Wahiat-i-Cashmir and Narayan Cul call it Sir, and the latter states that it was in Miraj, or the eastern division of Cashmir, and that traces of its site were visible in his time.] In the reign of Asoca, Cashmir was overrun by the Mlechhas, for whose expulsion the king obtained from Siva a pious and valiant son, as a reward for the austerities he had practised.* [The faith of Asoca is a matter of very little moment, as the prince himself is possibly an ideal personage: as however the comparative antiquity of the Bauddha and Brahmanical creeds in Cashmir has been supposed to be affected by it, and the events subsequently recorded, it may be adviseable to give the passages of the original, which shew that Asoca was a worshipper of Siva: it is not improbable however, if we are to attach credit to any part of this portion of the Cashmirian history, that he permitted heretical, possibly Bauddha doctrines, to be introduced into the kingdom during his reign from his Tartar neighbours. [x] "Then the prince Asoca, the lover of truth, obtained the earth; who sinning in subdued affections, produced the Jina Sasana." This may mean possibly something very different from the received idea, and may imply his neglect of affairs of state through excess of devotion, and his consequently omitting to prevent the intrusion of a foreign power, rather than a foreign faith, into the kingdom, the expulsion of which was the object of his son's birth. [x] "The country being overspread with Mlechhas, the king for their expulsion obtained from Bhutesa (Siva as the Lord of the elements) pleased with his Tapas, an excellent son." — Dr. Buchanan has made a strange misquotation from Abulfazl; (A.R. vi. 165.) He calls Asoca Raja Jennet, and says he established in his reign the Brahmany rites, instead of abolished them as it occurs in the Ayin Acberi; an error which justly drew down the angry censures of the Oriental Critics in the Edinburgh Review for October, 1802, and the Asiatic Annual Register of the same year; the Mlechhas might have been Scythians or Tartars. See the observations on the Tartar princes.]

Jaloca, the son and successor of Asoca, was a prince of great prowess: he overcame the assertors of the Bauddha heresies, and quickly expelled the Mlechhas from the country, thence named Ujjhita dimba: he then carried his victorious arms to foreign regions, and amongst others to the North of Persia, which he subjugated in the reign of Darab,† [Bedia-ad-din.] and then proceeding  in an opposite direction he subdued the country of Canouj.

The conquest of Canyacubja by this prince, is connected with an event not improbable in itself, and which possibly marks the introduction of the Brahmanical creed, in its more perfect form, into this kingdom. Jaloca is said to have adopted thence the distinction of casts, and the practices which were at that time established in the neighbouring districts: he also introduced into the Government the forms and offices elsewhere prevalent, and first assigned titles and duties to the following seven officers of state, the Dhermadhyacsha, the justiciary, or chancellor; Dhana-adhyacsha, treasurer; Cosha-adhyacsha, master of the military stores; Chamupati, commander in chief; Duta, messenger or ambassador; Purodha, the royal chaplain or almoner, and the Daivajnya or chief astrologer. The eighteen offices, and their duties, were also defined by this prince, who appears to have been the first of the Cashmir kings who introduced religion and government into that kingdom. He is said to have particularly worshipped Siva as Mandesa in consequence of having had read to him the Nandipurana by one of Vyasa's scholars: he also erected temples to the same deity as Jyeshta Rudra. This prince was possessed of supernatural powers, and several marvellous stories are narrated of him, which we need not pause to extract: he was also a prince of a generous disposition, and a rigid observer of his word: although devoted to Siva, he forbore in the latter part of his reign from molesting the followers of the Bauddha schism, and even bestowed on them some endowments as the Vihar* [Vihar is a common Sanscrit word usually employed to designate a Bauddha temple as well as an establishment or College of Bauddha priests. It seems to have been also used by the old Persians in a similar sense, and to have been applied to their fire temples. See Ouseley's Persia 126, and note. In the work before us, it has frequently an extended meaning, and also signifies a Royal pleasure house or garden.] called Crityasrama, in honor of one of their female divinities, or spirits named Crityadevi, by whom he had been addressed as a Bodhisatwa himself,. †[The divinity who appeared to the prince to intercede for the Bauddhists explains the term Bodhisatwa; [x] 'Those who are Bodhisatwas trusting to the one great refuge, are desirous of the destruction of darkness; they proceed in the universe of the Lord, from the Lord of the universe, and are not wroth sinfully at the distresses inflicted on animal nature unpervaded by waking truth, but alleviate them by patience. Those who seek to understand themselves, they are strenuous in bearing all." A Bodhisatwa is therefore nothing but a man of patience and piety, and may be regarded as a living type, and figuratively as a lineal descendant of Buddha: his origin from the Lord of the universe (Locanath, an epithet of Buddha) in this passage, may be so intended: at the same time it appears that Bodhisatwa is sometimes considered literally as the son of Buddha; On verra dans la suite de cet ouvrage que Phou sa ou Boudhisatoua, les fils de Bouddha, &c. (Google translate: We will see in the rest of this work that Phou sa or Boudhisatoua, the sons of Buddha) Mons. Rrmusat, on the polyglot Chinese vocabulary. Mines de l'orient vol. iv. 198, note. The continuation he refers to has not yet been received. The term, as a generic appellation of a living Buddha, is common in all Bauddha countries: one of the Bourkhans of the Calmucks is named Khomschin Bodi-Sada (Pallas. Fr. Trans. Oct. ii. 222.) An Indian teacher of Bouddhism, who was invited into Tibet, is named Pothi satho (Giorgi. 240), and according to Loubere one of the names of Sommono Codom (Samana Gotama) amongst the Siamese, is Pouti Sat, or Seigneur Pouti. (Vie de Thevetat.)] After a long and glorious reign, he went on a pilgrimage to Chiramochana Tirtha, where after worshipping Jyeshta Rudra, the prince and his queen were both identified with that deity.

The successor of this celebrated monarch was Damodara, of whose descent various opinions were entertained; some deducing him from Asoca and others considering him as sprung from a different family: he was a devout worshipper of Siva: this prince constructed several stone bridges and causeways, the remains of which were visible in modern times; and there were also two remarkable places, which in the time of Mohammed Azim were connected with the legendary history of this prince; the one a set of small irregular springs, and the other a spot of uneven and marshy ground near the city.

On one occasion as Damodara was proceeding to perform his customary ablutions in the Vitasta, he was importuned for food by some hungry Brahmans; he deferred complying with their solicitations till he had bathed in the river, then at some distance: to shorten the interval they proposed to bring the river to him, and immediately the water of the Vitasta bubbled up from different places near them, forming the springs that are still to be seen; the king was unmoved by this miracle, and being still determined to bathe in the genuine stream, the Brahmans denounced a curse upon him, and transformed him into a snake, in which shape he haunts the ground near the Capital, and is often to be seen: this spot is called Damodar-uder according to the Musselman accounts.* [I understand from some natives of Cashmir that this superstition still exists, and that Damodara, transformed to a serpent, still haunts a lake about seven cos from the Capital, and is still occasionally visible: no doubt, in that form.]

Damodara was succeeded by three princes who divided the country, and severally founded capital cities named after themselves. These princes were called Hushca, Jushca, and Canishca,† [Beyshek, Reshek, Kinshek. Abulfazl. Brothers according to the same authority, but not so termed in the original.] and these appellations are strongly corroborative of an assertion of our author, that they were of Turushca, that is, of Turc or Tartar extraction: they are considered as synchronous, but may possibly be all that are preserved of some series of Tartar princes, who, it is very likely, at various periods, established themselves in Cashmir. The chief event recorded of their reign is the foundation of the three several capitals, named after themselves,‡ [Hushcapur, said by the modern writers to be the modern Shecroh in the Pergannah of Lar, and a town of some extent: Jushcapur and Canishcapur are identified with Dahimpur and Cansapur, two inconsiderable villages in the time of Mohammed Shah.] but another and more important consequence of their Sovereignty is said to have been the almost entire change of the national faith, and the nearly exclusive prevalence of the doctrines of the Bauddhas under a Bodhisatwa or hierarch named Nagarjuna. The period at which this took place is said to have been 150 years before the death of Sucaysinha.§ [Appendix, No. VII.] The presence of the Turushca princes in Cashmir, we may observe, is in harmony with Tartar traditions; according to these, Oghuz their patriarch is represented to have subdued that country, and introduced the religion of Japhet there, so long back as 2800 years before the Christian aera.|| [Oghuz conquit ainsi toute la Bukharie, Balkh, Khor, Kaboul, Ghazna et le Kaschmir ou il y avoit un prince fort puissant nomine Jagma. Des Guignes Tome prem. Partie seconde p. 10. [Google translate: Oghuz thus conquered all of Bukharia, Balkh, Khor, Kabul, Ghazna and Kashmir or there was a very powerful prince named Jagma. Des Guignes Tome prem. Second part p. 10.] We cannot find in the text any name resembling the Jagma of the Tartar tradition, but it is apparently a Hindu appellative, and the omission of its original is easily accounted for; we have an evident chasm in the history here, and the accession or expulsion of the Turushca princes is equally unexplained.] A second Scythian irruption and subjugation of India, bordering on the Sind is also said to have occurred about the middle of the 7th century before Christ:* [Maurice's Ancient History of India, ii. 224; according to Blair, B.C. 624 in the reign of Cyaxares or Kaikaoos. A subsequent irruption took place in the reign of Darius Hystaspes, if he be, as he probably is, the same with Gushtasp: this last was of a decidedly religious character. Malcolm's Persia, i. 62.] neither of these dates will correspond precisely with that of the reigns above described, but they are all perhaps equally of little value, and only corroborate the general fact, that at some remote period the Tartars or Scythians did govern Cashmir, and render it probable, that they first gave the sanction of authority to their national religion, or that of Buddha, in India.

The Tartar princes were succeeded by Abhimanyu, a monarch evidently of a Hindu appellation, and a follower of the orthodox faith, which he reestablished in Cashmir. The chief instrument in this reform was Chandra, a Brahmin celebrated as the author of a grammar, and a teacher of the Mahabhashya.†[The name of Chandra occurs amongst the eight ancient Grammarians of the Hindus. Colebrooke on the Sanscrit and Pracrit Languages, A.R. vii. 204 and 5.] In consequence of the disuse of the prescribed institutes, the abolition of every form of sacrifice, and a departure from the lessons of the Nila Purana‡ [The Purana of the Naga or Serpent god, named Nila.] the Nagas were particularly incensed, and visited the offences of the people with severe and unseasonable storms of rain and snow, in which those especially perished who had adopted the Bauddha heresy:§ [Appendix, No. VIII.] in this situation of the kingdom, Chandra, descended it is said from Casyapa, addressed his prayers to Maheswara as Nila Naga, the tutelary deity of the country, and obtained from him a termination of what our author calls, the double plague of Cashmir, the severity of the seasons, and the predominance of the Bauddhas.
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

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Part 2 of 7

The reign of Abhimanyu closes the first series of princes, and introduces us to a period in which the author of the Raja Taringini affects greater precision than before, and specifies the term of each prince's reign: it is evident however that the reigns of the earliest sovereigns are much too protracted, and they must be considerably reduced to be brought within the limits of probability: the object of the author is evidently to reconcile the details with the gross amount of years, which he has stated to extend, from the first prince of the new series, the third Gonerda, to 1070 of Saca, and which he has made 2330: how far this postulate is correct we are not yet prepared to determine; and must refer its discussion to the close of the history, when we shall have the whole subject before us: in the mean time the chronology of our author may be admitted, and the dates of the various reigns assigned to them on the principles of his computation; commencing accordingly with the year before Christ 1182 corresponding with 2330 years before Saca 1070 or A.D. 1148.

Gonerda* [According to Bedia-ad-din he was not born but elevated to the throne; how, is not mentioned; the same authority makes him subdue, by means of his general Nand Ram, the whole of Hindustan as far as the Nermada.] the third, succeeded Abhimanyu, and prosecuted the reform which that prince had commenced; the ancient ritual agreeably to the Nila precepts, was restored, and the worship of the Nagas and the offering of sacrifices re-established: by acts of this description, the fame of monarchs is perpetuated, and this prince gave the same lustre to his family, as Raghava diffused upon the race of Raghu. He reigned 35 years.

Gonerda was succeeded by several princes of whom we have only recorded the dry list of names, and the duration of their reigns. These were:

Vibhishana, who reigned 53 years; Indrajita, 35 years and 6 months; Havana, 30 years; Vibhishana 2d, 35 years and 6 months;

Making an aggregate of 154 years. Of RAVANA, it is said, that he extended the worship of Siva as the Linga Vateswara, and of the second Vibhishana that he was both a Patron and Cultivator of the art of Music; the Mohammedan writers say, that in their days Tiranehs ascribed to this prince were current in Cashmir.* [Bedia-ad-din here inserts another prince Inderayan, who was a magician and tyrant, and therefore put to death by his brother Cailas Sinh.]

Nara† [Written Booz by the Mohammedan writers.] the son of Vibhishana succeeded his father; this prince began his reign virtuously, but one of his wives having been seduced from her fidelity by a Bauddha ascetic, the king committed a thousand Vihars to the flames, and gave the lands attached to them to the Brahmans; the only measure, which seems to authorise the account of Abulfazl, that in this reign the Brahmans got the better of the followers of Buddha, and burnt down their temples: in fact, however this prince seems to have been as little disposed to regard one sect as the other with complacency, and finally fell a victim, it is said, to the resentment of one of the orthodox priesthood.

The legend which introduces this catastrophe is not without poetical merit, although too purely poetical to be here transcribed at length. A Brahman had become the son-in-law of Susravas, the Naga, whose palace was in a lake, near the borders of the Vitasta, and in a city founded by Nara near that river. The wife of the Brahman, Chandrabaha, residing there with her husband, attracted the illicit affection of the King, and having resisted all his solicitations, obliged him at length to attempt to carry her off by force; the attempt failed; the Brahman invoked the aid of his father-in-law, who rising from the lake in wrath, excited a violent storm which destroyed the guilty monarch and his people. The sister of the snake God aided him in his attack upon the city with a shower of large stones brought from the Ramanya mountain, the cavities whence they were taken are still, says our author, to be seen. The Naga, a little ashamed of his cruelty, deserted the country, taking with him his son-in-law and his daughter; the waters of the lake he formerly inhabited, he changed to the whiteness of milk, as may be seen at the Amareswara yatra; this lake is sometimes called Jamatrisar: the story is recalled to the minds of men, when they visit Upachacra Dhara.* [Chacder near Mabrah, according to the author of the Wakiat-i-Cashmir: Narayana Cul says, there are two fountains, one of the snake and the other of his son-in-law, on the borders of Dutchenpara, and their united water runs to Laider. Abulfazl speaks of a rivulet with a bed of white clay in this situation (Ayin Acberi, ii. 133). The origin of this and similar fables is very obvious: they are invented to account for the various phenomena, especially with regard to lakes and springs, with which Cashmir so plentifully abounds. Abulfazl has a long list of the Ajaibwa Gharaib of this district, and is far from having exhausted the subject, if we may depend upon other authorities. We know less of Cashmir from European enquiry than of almost any other district in the East: it would no doubt amply reward more minute investigation.] We may observe however that the destruction of the city, and death of this prince, are ascribed by Bedia-ad-din to a popular tumult, excited by the conduct which is here stated to have produced the catastrophe.

Nara was succeeded by his son Siddha, who had escaped the late calamity by having been sent with his nurse to Vijayacshetra some time before. He collected the dispersed and frightened people, and restored prosperity to the kingdom: he reigned sixty years.

We have again a barren series of successive princes, whose names and reigns alone are recorded:—

King / Years / Months

Utpalacsha, who reigned / 30 / 6
Hiranyacsha, / 37 / 7
Hiranyacula, / 60 / 0
Vamacula, / 60 / 0


The last of these was succeeded by his son Mihira Cula, [B.C. 765 or 310] † [These names are strangely transformed in the Ayin Acberi to Adutbulabeh; Hernya; Herenkul; Ebeshek, and Mirkhul. The first prince appears to be intended by the name of Puschcaracsha, which means the same thing, 'the lotus-eyed,' who is mentioned in the Mudra Racshasa, as the king of Cashmir, who was one of the princes confederated against Chandragupta or Sandrocottus. The second of the series Hiranyacsha is the hero of a marvellous story in the Vrihat Catha, which leads to his marriage with a Vidhyadhari, a Hindu goddess of an inferior order. The prince is called in the Vrihat Catha, the son of Canacha: in other respects there is no question of the identity.] a prince of violent and cruel propensities; the kingdom upon his accession was crowded with Mlechhas, although whether as attached to the king, or as enemies, does not appear. The violent disposition of this monarch led him to an attack upon Lanca. The cloth of Sinhala was stamped with a golden foot as the seal of its prince; the wife of Mihiracula wearing a jacket of Sinhala cloth, the impression of the seal came off upon her bosom, and the king happening to observe it, was filled with unappeasable indignation, at the idea of the foot of a stranger being impressed upon the bosom of his wife. To revenge the fancied insult, he led his army to Lanca, deposed the king, and placed another on the throne, stipulating that the Sinhali cloths called Yamushadeva should in future bear his own seal, a golden sun. On his way back to Cashmir, he subdued the sovereigns of Chola, Carnata, Lata, and other monarchs of the Decshin. Arrived in Cashmir, he founded the temple of Mihireswara in the capital, and built the city Mihirapur in the district of Holora, in which the Gandhar* [The Mahabharat mentions the Brahmans of this country as of an inferior tribe, as is noticed in Appendix, No. VI.] Brahmans, a low race, and therefore the more highly esteemed by this iniquitous monarch, were permitted to seize upon the endowments of the more respectable orders of the priesthood. According to Mahommed Azim, he also constructed in the purgunah of Ouder the Chandracul canal, which existed in that writer's time.

Two instances of this monarch's ferocious disposition are recorded by the original authority, and have both been transcribed with some alteration by Abulfazl and the other Mohammedan authors: on the return of Mihiracula to his own kingdom, one of his elephants fell, whilst proceeding along a narrow defile, and was crushed to pieces by the fall: the cries of the dying animal were music to the ears of the prince, and so delighted was he with the sound, that he ordered 100 elephants to be precipitated in a similar manner, that his entertainment might be protracted; according to Abulfazl the pass was thence called Hasti Wuttar; Hasti signifying an elephant and Wuttar meaning injury; the latter part of which etymology is scarcely of Sanscrit origin: besides which, that author is a little at variance with himself, as he had previously separated the two words, and told us that they were different portions of the Bember road, through both of which an army might pass. The other anecdote has been supposed to account for the title by which this prince was known of Tricotiha, the slayer of three millions: amongst the ruins of Narapur, destroyed as we have seen in the reign of Nara by the Naga Susravas, some Khasa tribes had taken up their abode: to drive them from the prohibited residence, a large stone fell into the bed of the Chandracula river, and completely obstructed the current: the prince was instructed in a dream that its removal could only be effected by a female of unsullied virtue, and he accordingly commanded women of respectable birth and station, to perform the task: their efforts were unavailing: women of the first families and supposed irreproachable conduct, attempted in vain to remove the stone, and its removal was at last effected by a female of a low class, the wife of a potter: the king incensed by this divine proof of the corrupt lives of the female part of his subjects, ordered them to be put to death, together with their husbands, children, and brothers, as implicated in their disgrace.* [The point of this story is the same as of that related of Pheron by Herodotus, ii. 111. and Ancient Universal History, i. 294.]

111. Now after Sesostris had brought his life to an end, his son Pheros, they told me, received in succession the kingdom, and he made no warlike expedition, and moreover it chanced to him to become blind by reason of the following accident:—when the river had come down in flood rising to a height of eighteen cubits, higher than ever before that time, and had gone over the fields, a wind fell upon it and the river became agitated by waves: and this king (they say) moved by presumptuous folly took a spear and cast it into the midst of the eddies of the stream; and immediately upon this he had a disease of the eyes and was by it made blind. For ten years then he was blind, and in the eleventh year there came to him an oracle from the city of Buto saying that the time of his punishment had expired, and that he should see again if he washed his eyes with the water of a woman who had accompanied with her own husband only and had not knowledge of other men: and first he made trial of his own wife, and then, as he continued blind, he went on to try all the women in turn; and when he had at last regained his sight he gathered together all the women of whom he had made trial, excepting her by whose means he had regained his sight, to one city which now is named Erythrabolos, and having gathered them to this he consumed them all by fire, as well as the city itself; but as for her by whose means he had regained his sight, he had her himself to wife. Then after he had escaped the malady of his eyes he dedicated offerings at each one of the temples which were of renown, and especially (to mention only that which is most worthy of mention) he dedicated at the temple of the Sun works which are worth seeing, namely two obelisks of stone, each of a single block, measuring in length a hundred cubits each one and in breadth eight cubits.

-- The History of Herodotus, by Herodotus, Translated into English by G. C. Macaulay, 1890

The Buddhist and Hindu sources present different versions of how Chandragupta met Chanakya. Broadly, they mention young Chandragupta creating a mock game of a royal court that he and his cowherd friends played near Vinjha forest. Chanakya saw him give orders to the others, bought him from the hunter, and adopted Chandragupta. Chanakya taught and admitted him in Taxila to study the Vedas, military arts, law, and other sastras.

-- Chandragupta Maurya, by Wikipedia

***

114. And when the boy was ten years old, it happened with regard to him as follows, and this made him known. He was playing in the village in which were stalls for oxen, he was playing there, I say, with other boys of his age in the road. And the boys in their play chose as their king this one who was called the son of the herdsman: and he set some of them to build palaces and others to be spearmen of his guard, and one of them no doubt he appointed to be the eye of the king, and to one he gave the office of bearing the messages, appointing a work for each one severally. Now one of these boys who was playing with the rest, the son of Artembares a man of repute among the Medes, did not do that which Cyrus appointed him to do; therefore Cyrus bade the other boys seize him hand and foot, and when they obeyed his command he dealt with the boy very roughly, scourging him. But he, so soon as he was let go, being made much more angry because he considered that he had been treated with indignity, went down to the city and complained to his father of the treatment which he had met with from Cyrus, calling him not Cyrus, for this was not yet his name, but the son of the herdsman of Astyages. And Artembares in the anger of the moment went at once to Astyages, taking the boy with him, and he declared that he had suffered things that were unfitting and said: "O king, by thy slave, the son of a herdsman, we have been thus outraged," showing him the shoulders of his son.

115. And Astyages having heard and seen this, wishing to punish the boy to avenge the honour of Artembares, sent for both the herdsman and his son. And when both were present, Astyages looked at Cyrus and said: "Didst thou dare, being the son of so mean a father as this, to treat with such unseemly insult the son of this man who is first in my favour?" And he replied thus: "Master, I did so to him with right. For the boys of the village, of whom he also was one, in their play set me up as king over them, for I appeared to them most fitted for this place. Now the other boys did what I commanded them, but this one disobeyed and paid no regard, until at last he received the punishment due. If therefore for this I am worthy to suffer any evil, here I stand before thee."

116. While the boy thus spoke, there came upon Astyages a sense of recognition of him and the lineaments of his face seemed to him to resemble his own, and his answer appeared to be somewhat over free for his station, while the time of the laying forth seemed to agree with the age of the boy. Being struck with amazement by these things, for a time he was speechless; and having at length with difficulty recovered himself, he said, desiring to dismiss Artembares, in order that he might get the herdsman by himself alone and examine him: "Artembares, I will so order these things that thou and thy son shall have no cause to find fault"; and so he dismissed Artembares, and the servants upon the command of Astyages led Cyrus within. And when the herdsman was left alone with the king, Astyages being alone with him asked whence he had received the boy, and who it was who had delivered the boy to him. And the herdsman said that he was his own son, and that the mother was living with him still as his wife. But Astyages said that he was not well advised in desiring to be brought to extreme necessity, and as he said this he made a sign to the spearmen of his guard to seize him. So he, as he was being led away to the torture, 126 then declared the story as it really was; and beginning from the beginning he went through the whole, telling the truth about it, and finally ended with entreaties, asking that he would grant him pardon.

117. So when the herdsman had made known the truth, Astyages now cared less about him, but with Harpagos he was very greatly displeased and bade his spearmen summon him. And when Harpagos came, Astyages asked him thus: "By what death, Harpagos, didst thou destroy the child whom I delivered to thee, born of my daughter?" and Harpagos, seeing that the herdsman was in the king's palace, turned not to any false way of speech, lest he should be convicted and found out, but said as follows: "O king, so soon as I received the child, I took counsel and considered how I should do according to thy mind, and how without offence to thy command I might not be guilty of murder against thy daughter and against thyself. I did therefore thus:—I called this herdsman and delivered the child to him, saying first that thou wert he who bade him slay it—and in this at least I did not lie, for thou didst so command. I delivered it, I say, to this man commanding him to place it upon a desolate mountain, and to stay by it and watch it until it should die, threatening him with all kinds of punishment if he should fail to accomplish this. And when he had done that which was ordered and the child was dead, I sent the most trusted of my eunuchs and through them I saw and buried the child. Thus, O king, it happened about this matter, and the child had this death which I say."

118. So Harpagos declared the truth, and Astyages concealed the anger which he kept against him for that which had come to pass, and first he related the matter over again to Harpagos according as he had been told it by the herdsman, and afterwards, when it had been thus repeated by him, he ended by saying that the child was alive and that that which had come to pass was well, "for," continued he, "I was greatly troubled by that which had been done to this child, and I thought it no light thing that I had been made at variance with my daughter. Therefore consider that this is a happy change of fortune, and first send thy son to be with the boy who is newly come, and then, seeing that I intend to make a sacrifice of thanksgiving for the preservation of the boy to those gods to whom that honour belongs, be here thyself to dine with me."

119. When Harpagos heard this, he did reverence and thought it a great matter that his offence had turned out for his profit and moreover that he had been invited to dinner with happy augury; and so he went to his house. And having entered it straightway, he sent forth his son, for he had one only son of about thirteen years old, bidding him go to the palace of Astyages and do whatsoever the king should command; and he himself being overjoyed told his wife that which had befallen him. But Astyages, when the son of Harpagos arrived, cut his throat and divided him limb from limb, and having roasted some pieces of the flesh and boiled others he caused them to be dressed for eating and kept them ready. And when the time arrived for dinner and the other guests were present and also Harpagos, then before the other guests and before Astyages himself were placed tables covered with flesh of sheep; but before Harpagos was placed the flesh of his own son, all but the head and the hands and the feet, and these were laid aside covered up in a basket. Then when it seemed that Harpagos was satisfied with food, Astyages asked him whether he had been pleased with the banquet; and when Harpagos said that he had been very greatly pleased, they who had been commanded to do this brought to him the head of his son covered up, together with the hands and the feet; and standing near they bade Harpagos uncover and take of them that which he desired. So when Harpagos obeyed and uncovered, he saw the remains of his son; and seeing them he was not overcome with amazement but contained himself: and Astyages asked him whether he perceived of what animal he had been eating the flesh: and he said that he perceived, and that whatsoever the king might do was well pleasing to him. Thus having made answer and taking up the parts of the flesh which still remained he went to his house; and after that, I suppose, he would gather all the parts together and bury them.

120. On Harpagos Astyages laid this penalty; and about Cyrus he took thought, and summoned the same men of the Magians who had given judgment about his dream in the manner which has been said: and when they came, Astyages asked how they had given judgment about his vision; and they spoke according to the same manner, saying that the child must have become king if he had lived on and had not died before. He made answer to them thus: "The child is alive and not dead: and while he was dwelling in the country, the boys of the village appointed him king; and he performed completely all those things which they do who are really kings; for he exercised rule, appointed to their places spearmen of the guard and doorkeepers and bearers of messages and all else. Now therefore, to what does it seem to you that these things tend?" The Magians said: "If the child is still alive and became king without any arrangement, be thou confident concerning him and have good courage, for he shall not be ruler again the second time; since some even of our oracles have had but small results, and that at least which has to do with dreams comes often in the end to a feeble accomplishment."

-- The History of Herodotus, by Herodotus, Translated into English by G. C. Macaulay, 1890

The blood shed by the commands of this sanguinary sovereign, was expiated by his death: suffering under a painful disease and awakened to some sense of his past cruelty, he determined to put a voluntary term to his existence and end his days upon the funeral pile. He found it impossible, however, to meet with persons qualified to conduct the ceremonies of his cremation, as his kingdom was crowded with the impure tribes of Daradas,† [A.R. vi. 417. Daward, the mountainous range north west of Cashmir, and the present residence of the Durds.] Bhoteas and Mlechhas. Revoking therefore his grants to the Gandhara Brahmans, he invited those of Aryadesa, on whom he bestowed a thousand Agraharas in Vijayeswara. The pile was constructed of military weapons, and the king having seated himself on the summit, the fire was applied, and quickly put a period to his sufferings and his crimes. The duration of his reign is said to have been 70 years.

Vaca* [Beck. Ayin Acberi.] the son of Mihira Cula succeeded his father: he founded the city Lavanotsa on the banks of Vacavati river: he was prevailed upon to assist a Yogiswari at a rite, which enabled her to traverse the air at a spot where the impression of her knees is still visible on a rock.† [At Beren or Meren according to Narayan Cul, who adds that she killed the king: the subsequent allusion is not further explained by Calhana Pundit.] He was accompanied by a hundred of his descendants, and the legend of Satacapalesa and the Matrichacra stone is still commemorated at Khira Matha or Khira College: Vaca reigned 63 years and 13 days. The names and reigns of his immediate successors are all that has been recorded of them:

King / Years

Cshitinanda, ruled / 30 years.
Vasunanda, / 52 years and 2 months.
Bara, / 60 years.
Acsha‡ [Kutnund. Vistnund. Nir. Aj. Ayin Acberi.] / 60 years.


A Cama Sastra is ascribed to the second of these princes. Acsha was succeeded by his son Gopaditya,§ [Kulvarit. — Ibid.] a prince of eminent piety, whose virtue brought back the Satya or golden age: he enforced a strict observance of the ritual and distinctions of cast, removed those Brahmans who had adopted impure practices from their endowments, and invited others from distant countries to replace them, and finally he forbad the killing of any animal except for the purpose of sacrifice. According to the Mohammedan authorities, he built a temple, or the mound near the capital of Cashmir, called the Takht Suliman:|| [Bedia-ad-din notices a tradition that the tomb in this building was said to enshrine the remains of a christian apostle.] it was destroyed with other places of Hindu worship by Secander,¶ [This is from Refiaddin, but Narayan Cul asserts that it was still standing in his time. Forster does not notice any ruins or buildings on this spot, but we have mention made of them by Bernier. A 'l opposite de cette montagne il en paorit une aussi avec une petite mosquee avec unjardin et un tres ancien batiment qui marque avoir ete un temple d' Idoles, quoiqon l' appelle Tact Souleman, Le trone de Souleman ii. 274. (Google translate: Opposite this mountain there is also one with a small mosque with a garden and a very old building which shows that it was a temple of Idols, although calls it Tact Souleman, The Throne of Souleman ii. 274.)] one of the first Mohammedan kings of Cashmir, and who, on account of the bigoted assiduity with which he demolished the vestiges of Hindu superstition, is constantly alluded to by the title But Skeken, the idol breaker, Gopaditya, after a reign of 60 years, was succeeded by his son Gokerna,* [Kurren. — Ay. Ac.] of whom it is merely stated that he erected a temple to Gokerneswara.† [The lord of Gokerna, being in fact a LINGA, as whenever that emblem of Siva is set up, it receives the appellation of ISWARA compounded with some word expressive of the divine attributes, as Visweswara, the Lord of all; of the locality of its site, as Gangeswara, Cedareswara, &c. or of the person by whom it is erected, as in the text.]

Narendraditya,‡ [Nurundrawut. — Ay. Ac.] his son, succeeded him, after a reign of 57 years: he reigned 31 years and a few months, and left the crown to his son Yudhishthira§ [Jewdishter. — Ibid.] surnamed the blind, from the smallness of his eyes.

The commencement of this monarch's reign was influenced by the same attention to virtue and propriety, as had governed the conduct of his pious predecessors.[B.C. 216 or 40] As fortune had however decreed that he should be the last of his dynasty, he gradually ceased to regard the lessons of prudence and piety, and addicted himself to sensual pleasures and disgraceful society: he was constantly inebriated with wine: his companions were harlots and buffoons, and he treated with levity and scorn the admonition of his counsellors: the administration of affairs was neglected: the chief nobles defied the royal authority, and foreign princes encroached upon the confines of the kingdom. To prevent the ruin of the state, and to revenge upon the prince the insults they had received or prevent those which they anticipated, the ministers approached the palace with a numerous and well appointed force: as resistance was hopeless, the king precipitately fled from Srinagar, and secreted himself in the woods and mountains with his women and a few followers, doomed now to exchange luxury for privation, the downy couch for the sharp rock, and the harmony of minstrels for the wild dashing of cascades, or the wilder horns of the mountaineers: he at last found a refuge in the courts of some compassionate princes, where, according to general belief he died in exile; according to other accounts, he engaged in unsuccessful attempts to recover his kingdom, in one of which he was taken prisoner by the nobles and thrown into captivity, from which he was released only by his death. The term of his reign was 48 years.

The successor of Yudhishthir was Pratapaditya,* [Pertaubdut. — Ay. Ac.] who was invited from another country: he was a kinsman of the king Vicramaditya; a different monarch, says our author, from the Sacari Vicramaditya, although sometimes identified erroneously with that prince:† [Notwithstanding our author's assertion, it seems probable that the identification is right. Narayan Cul and Bedia-ad-din state that Pratapaditya was related to Vicramaditya, the celebrated prince of Malwa: we shall have occasion to advert hereafter to this subject more fully.] he was a virtuous monarch and enjoyed a prosperous reign of 32 years, leaving his crown to his son,

Jalaucas,‡ [Juggook. — Ay. Ac.] who also reigned 32 years, and was succeeded by his son,

Tunjina,§ [Bunjir. — Ay. Ac.] who with his queen Vacpushta, erected the temple of Tungeswara, and founded the city Haravasantica, in a district watered by the Satahrada, and Payovaha like the bow of Indra, and its string.¶ [The first is the Setlej, the second must be the Beyah, to which the name in the text sufficiently approaches.] In their time existed Chandaca a portion of Dwaipayana, whose Natya is well known.

In the reign of this prince an unseasonable fall of snow in the month Bhadra destroyed the crops, and caused a famine, in which great numbers of people perished: such was the general distress, that all the ties of society were dissolved, and all the duties of life disregarded: modesty and pride, family honor, and public respect were all forgotten; the love of parent and child, of husband and wife, no longer prevailed: every individual sought alone for self-preservation, and although reduced to bones and tendons, the famished skeletons fought with fury for the carcases of the dead.

The king exerted himself to relieve the distresses of his subjects, and exhausted his own treasures, as well as those of his ministers, in procuring supplies of grain: the jewels of his court and queen were appropriated to the same purpose, but the famine still continuing, the monarch, despairing of relieving his afflicted people, and unable to witness their sufferings, determined to put a period to his existence by committing his body to the flames: from this purpose he was dissuaded by his queen, and once more addressing their earnest supplications to the gods, they obtained by their divine interposition, a miraculous shower of pigeons, who fell dead in the streets of the capital everyday for a considerable period, and furnished the inhabitants with food until the products of the earth once more supplied them with subsistence. This prince died after a reign of 36 years: his wife accompanied him on the funeral pile at a place thence called Vacpushtatavi, and to which it was customary, in our author's time, for persons to bring the dead bodies of those husbands to be burnt, whose wives had the virtue to emulate the example of this pious princess.

As the pure piety of this couple did not permit their having posterity, a prince of another family ascended the throne: he was named Vijaya,* [Bejeery. — Abulfazl.] and built the temple of Vijayeswara in the capital. He reigned 8 years, and was succeeded by his son.

JAYENDRA,† [Chunder.—Ibid.] who was distinguished by the length of his arms, his hands touching his knees: this prince was fortunate at first in a minister of great integrity and talent, named Sandhimati, but influenced by the advice of those who envied the minister's superiority, the king conceived an aversion for him, and dismissed him from his employments: the poverty to which he was thus reduced served only to heighten his reputation: he devoted all his thoughts to religion, but a report, of heavenly origin, soon prevailed, that he was yet destined to wear a crown: when the report reached the king, his fears were excited, and seizing the person of Sandhimati he threw him into prison, and kept him several years in close confinement; at the expiration of that term, the king, feeling his end approach, was determined before his death to frustrate the decrees of fate, and to carry with him into a future state the spirit of his obnoxious minister; accordingly, on the same night on which the monarch's body was burnt, the executioners put Sandhimati to death upon a stake.* [[x]. "Sandhimati being elevated by the savage executioners on the Sula was killed." He was perhaps impaled. Major Wilford however considers the instrument to be a cross. — See A.R. x. But the punishment of impaling has always prevailed in the east: accounts of it in Ceylon, Java, the Burman Empire, &c. are numerous and authentic.] Jayendra reigned 37 years.

When Isana, the Guru of Sandhimati, heard of his death, he repaired to the place of execution, to recover the body, and secure for it funeral rites. On taking the body from the stake, and fastening the feet and head together, in order to remove the corpse more commodiously, he was struck by an inscription on the forehead, which his knowledge enabled him to decypher; it was to this effect, "a life of poverty, ten years' imprisonment, death on a stake, and accession to a throne;" predictions of which three had come to pass, and the fourth was yet to be fulfilled. For the accomplishment of the splendid part of our hero's fate, the Brahman performed those rites which compel the attendance of the ministers of Siva, the Yoginis; who accordingly appeared, and restored animation to the lifeless body of Sandhimati, whom they endowed with singular beauty and supernatural powers, and hailed as future king by the title of Arya Raja.† [Ariraj. — Abulfazl.] The news of this miraculous restoration spread through the kingdom, and all classes of people, impelled by resistless destiny, hastened to salute him as king: they led him in triumph to the capital, and he commenced his pious reign.

Whoever might have been the person, thus made the subject of miraculous tradition, it appears from our author's account, supported by him by reference to local corroboration, that he was an active promoter of the worship of Siva as the Linga, with the usual accompaniments of the Trident and the Bull. Many temples of this description, continued at a long subsequent period, to be ascribed to this reign, and particularly one called Sahasralingam, from its containing a thousand Lingas, constructed of stone, the remains of which were visible in the time of Calhana Pandit.

After reigning 47 years, Arya, the pious monarch, whose court was like the palace of Maheswara, where the articles of fashionable dress were ashes of burnt cowdung, rosaries of the Eleocarpus, and matted locks of hair, and the favorites and companions of the prince were mendicants and ascetics, grew weary of the cares of state, and determined to retire into the seclusion, better suited to his apparently fanatical propensities: having found that a descendant of Yudhishthir still lived, he recommended the youth as his successor, and delivering the government into the hands of the nobles, he divested himself of his royal ornaments, and with no other garment than the Dhoti, bare-footed, and without his turban, carrying with him the Archalinga* [The Jungum profess the exclusive worship of Siva, and an appropriate emblem of that deity, in its most obscene form, inclosed in a diminutive silver or copper shrine or temple, is suspended from the neck of every votary as a sort of personal god. — Wilks's Mysore, i. 501. This is probably the Archalingam of our original, archa meaning worship. The introduction of this sect into the Decshin in the eleventh century must have been long subsequent to its establishment in the north of India, by any calculation that may be adopted.] and observing a strict silence, he came out from the city, followed by an immense concourse of people: at the end of about two miles, he sat down under a tree, and addressed his followers, whom he prevailed upon to disperse: he then resumed his route to the Tirtha of Nandisa or Nandicshetra, where he ended his days in ascetic mortification, and the assiduous worship of the god whom the three worlds obey.

Meghavahana,† [Megdahen. — Abulfazl.]  who was invited to succeed to the throne of his ancestors, was the third in descent from Yudhishthir, being his great grandson: his father had found an asylum at the court of Gopaditya, king of Gandhar, whose assistance had restored him to some degree of opulence and consequence: his son Meghavahana was thence enabled to present himself amongst the candidates for the hand of the princess of Pragjyotish or Asam, and to obtain her election. ‡ [According to Bedia-ad-din the lady was the princess of Khota.] With his wife, and a suitable dower, he had rejoined his father, when the Nobles of Cashmir sent a deputation to solicit and accompany his return to that kingdom, to which he immediately hastened, and of which he assumed the sovereignty.

Meghavahana, although a worshipper of the orthodox divinities, was inclined to adopt the Bauddha doctrine: he encouraged the professors of that heresy to settle in his dominions, and particularly prohibited the destruction of animal life, granting from the public revenue a maintenance to such individuals as followed the business of hunters or butchers, whom his enactments deprived of their accustomed means of support.

Although thus careful of brute existence, he seems to have been less scrupulous about human life; being a warlike and victorious sovereign, and engaging in remote and hostile expeditions he is said to have led his armies  to the sea shore, and by the aid of Varuna, who opened a dry path through the waters for his army, to have crossed over to Lanca or Ceylon, where he ascended, with his troops, the Gem-enshrining peak of the mountain Rohana.* [Adams peak the Rahu ([x]) and Rahun ([x]) of the Mohammedans, according to whom also it contained mines of precious gems. Rohana implies the act or instrument of ascending as steps, a ladder, &c. and may refer to the rude steps and links of iron chain work, described by Valentyn, and more recently by Mr. Percival, and Sir William Ouseley, i. 59.] Whilst encamped on the mountain, the king of the island, the Racshasa Vibhishana,† [After the defeat and death of RAVANA, Rama conferred the sovereignty of Lanca upon Ravana's younger brother VIBHISHANA, who is generally supposed to be still the monarch of Lanca.]  came voluntarily, and submitted to his invader, in consequence of which he was confirmed in his sovereignty, on condition of his no longer permitting in his island the expenditure of animal life,‡ [In other words, he introduced or enforced the Bauddha faith. Whatever credit it may be thought, that these Cashmirian tales of a conquest of Ceylon by one of their kings deserve, they are curiously connected with the Sinhalese traditions of foreign invasion, and consequent introduction of the Bauddha faith. Vijaya Raja, the first monarch of that island, and who introduced the present religion, invaded it, it is said either 534 years before Christ, or A.D. 77 or 106 or 350. A.R. vii. 51 and 421. Molony and Joinville's accounts of Ceylon. Discordancies that admit perhaps of some explanation, the first referring to the period at which Gautama the founder of the Bauddha faith existed, and the others to the date of its introduction in the Island, an event to which foreign conquest was chiefly conducive.] Meghavahana then returned to Cashmir, where the memory of his transmarine expedition, says our Sanscrit guide, is still preserved on the banners, which on particular occasions, are carried before the kings of Cashmir.

The son of the last prince, Sreshtasena,* [Sereshsain. — Abulfazl.] also called Pravarasena, succeeded his father: the Hindu record only commemorates his founding a temple of Pravaresa; but Bedia-ad-din makes considerable additions to his history: according to him, this prince established his mother on the vacant throne of Khota, and extended his own authority to Khatai, Chin and Machin. He reigned 30 years, and left his kingdom to his two sons HIRANYA† [Heren. — Ibid.] and Toramana; the former holding the superior station of the Samrajya, and the latter that of the Yauvarajya, or being respectively Emperor and Caesar, a division of power of considerable antiquity amongst the Hindus, and one which, with them, as well as with the Latin, Greek, or German princes, was often a source of public contention: it proved to be so in the instance before us; the latter having proceeded to strike coins‡ [Dinars: the word is Sanscrit, and although generally signifying a certain weight of gold, also means as above, a gold coin perhaps of the weight of 32 rettis or about 40 grains. The Dinar must have been common in Persia and Syria at the time of the Arabic invasion, as the Arabs to whom an original coinage, was then unknown, adopted both it and the Dirhem or Drachma. According to the Ayin Acberi, the Dinar weighs one miscal, and is equal to 1 and 3-7th of a Dirhem, which weighs from 10 to 5 miscals, or, at 7-1/2, the average giving a proportion of gold and silver, as 1 to 10. According to Ferishta the Dinar was worth 2 Rupees, which will give us about the same proportion. There is an evident etymological affinity between the Dinar of the Hindus and the Denarius of the Romans: the latter, though originally a silver coin, was also of gold, and the author of the Periplus named Adrian's, states, that Denarii, both gold and silver, were amongst the articles exported from Europe and carried to Barygaza or Baroach; the Sanscrit, Dinar, may therefore be derived from the Roman coin.]  in his own name, the elder brother took offence at the measure, and deposed the Yuvaraja, and kept him in close confinement. The wife of Toramana, who was pregnant at the time, effected her escape, and found shelter and privacy in a potter's cottage, where she was delivered of a son: the boy was brought up by the potter as his own, but his high birth betrayed itself, and he was a prince in all his sports and amongst his play-fellows; his juvenile imperiousness having caught the attention of Jayendra, his maternal uncle, then searching for his sister, led to their discovery, and that nobleman privately took home his sister and her son. In the mean time Toramana died in captivity; on which event the princess, to divert her grief, went, accompanied by her son upon a pilgrimage to the south: during her absence the king died, after a reign of thirty years and two months. He left no posterity, and the claims of his nephew being unknown, the throne of Cashmir was vacant, and continued so for a short period.

The ruler of Ujayini at that time was Sriman Hersha Vicramaditya, who after expelling the Mlechchhas, and destroying the Sacas, had established his power and influence throughout India.* [Who was this prince? As the enemy of the Sacas, and also from our author's chronology, he is synchronous with Salivahana, with whom indeed, notwithstanding a difference in date of 135 years, all the Hindu accounts represent him to have been engaged in hostility. We have had a Vicramaditya before him in this history, not the Sacari as expressly remarked by the historian, and therefore we cannot doubt our author's meaning, although we may question his chronological correctness, as I shall hereafter endeavour to shew: it is singular that in a very long eulogium on this prince, which I have not thought it necessary to translate, the author never alludes to Salivahana, nor to any of the literary ornaments usually assigned to Vicrama's court. The name Hersha appears to bear some affinity to Hersha Megha (A.R. ix. 175) father of the Vicrama of the fifth century, in which indeed he may not very improbably be placed. We must however leave these points for the present, as we are not yet prepared for their due discussion. The Mohammedan writers are of no assistance here, as they repeat the name of Bicramajit without any comment on its again occurring.] In his train was a Brahman named Matrigupta, to whom he was much attached: upon hearing of the vacant situation of the Cashmir throne, and the indecision of the nobles with regard to a successor, he sent the Brahman to them, with a letter from himself, recommending him to their election: they complied with the recommendations of a sovereign, whose commands they felt themselves unable to resist, and crowned MATRIGUPTA † [Mater kunt. — Abulfazl.] as their king.

The reign of the Brahman was of limited duration: the death of his powerful protector exposed him to the disaffection of his chief subjects, and to the arms of the lawful heir Pravara Sena, who with a small but resolute band of friends, was approaching Cashmir: he seems to have surprized the Brahman by an unexpected attack upon his camp, or at least to have encountered him upon a journey when unprepared for a contest and although no serious engagement ensued, the issue was Matrigupta's abdication of the throne and his departure to Benares, where he passed the rest of his life in religious duties: he reigned four years and nine mouths.

Pravarasena,* [Pirwirsein. — Abulfazl.] [A.D. 123-476] so named after his grandfather, to whose dominion he had succeeded, was an active and enterprising prince: he invaded the kingdoms of the south, and turned his arms against the son and successor of Vicramaditya, named Pratapa Sila or Siladitya,† [I have not been able yet to trace this son of VICRAMA in any other works with much success. Col. Wilford informs me that in the Cshetra Samasa it is stated that Vicramaditya had a son named Natha Sila whom he is disposed to regard as the grandson of Vicrama, and the son of this Siladitya. A Jain work of some celebrity, the Satrunjaya Mahatmya, is said to have been written by order of Siladitya, king of Surat: the author Dhaneswara Suri, according to a marginal note in the copy I consulted, and which agrees with the traditionary opinion of the Jains, wrote his work in the Samvat year 477. The same work cites a prophetic annunciation, that the famous Vicramaditya would appear after 466 years of his era had elapsed (A.R. ix. 142), which scarcely agrees with the date assigned for the work, as, if Siladitya, the son of Vicramaditya, succeeded his father, it allows but ten years for the reign of the latter. We must revert to this hereafter.] whom he drove from his capital, and took prisoner. He seems to have been contented with this expression of his resentment, and not only to have spared the life of the prince, but put him again in possession of his hereditary kingdom, carrying off however the throne of the Apsarasas, which he transferred to his own capital.‡ [The famous throne supported by thirty-two female images, animated ones, if we are to believe the legend. Accounts agree of its being lost after Vicrama's death, although it is generally thought to have been found again by Bhoja. We have no further notice of it in our history. Bedia-ad-din carries PRAVARA SENA to Bengal also, where he subdues Behar Sinh, ruler of Dhacca, and gives the Government to Palas Sinh, son of Siladitya, a son of the author's, making apparently the words Palas and Dhac, implying the same thing, a sort of tree.] After his return he determined to found a city which should be the capital of his kingdom, and he accordingly constructed the city of Srinagar* ["The city, which in the ancient annals of India was known by the name of Serinaghar, but now by that of the province at large, extends about three miles on each side of the river Jelum, over which are four or five wooden bridges." — Forster ii. 9.] on the banks of the Vitasta, and embellished it with many palaces and temples; he also threw a bridge across the river. His being the founder of this city is confirmed by the Mohammedan writers, although, as one of them observes, it has undergone many vicissitudes since the period of its foundation. Pravara Sena reigned 63 years.

The successors of this prince were his son Yudhishthir, who reigned thirty-nine years and three months, and his son Narendraditya, or Lacshmana,† [Jewdishter. Lekhmen. Zebadut. — Abulfazl.] who ruled thirteen years; he was succeeded by his younger brother, to whose reign the extravagant period of 300 years is assigned; an extravagance the more remarkable, as it is without a parallel in our author's chronology,‡ [Unlike the early periods of the Persian Chronicles, in which such a term is far from uncommon.] and which must therefore have been suggested, either by a necessity for filling up some dark chasm in the annals of Cashmir, or to compensate for an error in the dates of the preceding monarchs, who may have been placed two or three centuries too soon: both causes may perhaps have united for this extraordinary departure from those bounds of possibility, which in all other reigns have been preserved.

The length of Ranaditya's reign is not the only marvel attached to that prince; he had been in fact, in his former life, a man of dissipated habits, but at last, by his devotion to Bhramaravasini, a form of Durga, obtained, as a reward, his resuscitation in a royal race, and the goddess herself as a consort, incarnate as Ranarambha, the daughter of RATISENA, king of Chola.§ [The traditions of the South intimate occasional connexions of a like character between the Chola and Cashmir princes. One of the former entitled in one account Sasi Sechara and in another, Rajadi Raja Chola was married, it is said, to a daughter of the King of Cashmir.] The divine nature of his queen was the immediate cause of the king's protracted reign, as she conferred upon him the Patala Siddha Mantra, by which he was enabled to extend his life as long as he pleased. At last, however, satiated with this world, he entered the cave of Namuchi, in the bed of the Chandrabhaga river, through which he passed to Patala, and acquired a kingdom in the infernal regions: his wife, regarded rather inconsistently as a Sacti of Vishnu, went upon her husband's death to Swetadwipa. The claims of the next monarch to the throne of Cashmir are not stated by our original, and the enumeration of his genealogical progenitors warrants a suggestion that he might have not been the immediate successor of Ranaditya [A.D. 537-568]; he was the son of Vicrameswara the son of Vicramacranta Viswa, and is named himself Vicramaditya, a strange series of appellations, and a further proof of some unaccountable blank in the Cashmirian records: Vicramaditya reigned 42 years, and was succeeded by his younger brother Baladitya. [A.D. 579-592] * [Beckermadut. — Baladut. — Abulfazl. The Mohammedan writers agree with the text except Bedia-ad-bin: he assigns a life of 165 years to this monarch, and a reign of no more than 40 years: he places also the 30th year of his reign as contemporary with the first of the Hijra, and describes his sending an ambassador to Mohammed.]

Baladitva was a prince of a warlike character, and erected his pillars† [Jayastambha, the Pillars of Sesac and the Trophies of the Greeks and Romans: that it was the custom of Hindu princes to erect these pillars is established by concurrent testimonies, and it is probable that it is to this practice we are to ascribe the origin of several solitary stone columns still met with in India, as the Lat of Firoz-shah, the Cuttab minor, the pillar at Allahabad, and those in Tirhut, and other places: in general however they were constructed, like the wooden trophies of the Greeks, of less durable materials, and as observed by Plutarch, "Time has gradually effaced these memorials of national hostility."] of victory on the shores of the eastern sea:‡ [I am especially afraid of my manuscript here: it is alone, in this section of the history, and is very inaccurate. It is said that this prince conquered Bancala or Bengal, a very uncommon name, however, in Hindu books of any period, Gaur or Banga being the usual term.] one result of his victorious excursions was his compelling the subjugated monarchs to beautify Cashmir, and to construct temples and edifices for the accommodation of such of their subjects, as might visit that kingdom.* [Consistently with the former chronology Bedia-ad-din makes this prince contemporary with Yezdejird, from whom he wrested the north eastern districts of Persia, but he confounds Baladitya with Pratapaditya here, and passes over the intermediate monarch altogether.]

It was foretold to this prince by an astrologer, that he should be the last of the race of Gonerda, and his only daughter should transfer the kingdom to a different dynasty of princes.† [We have seen however the crown repeatedly pass into different families, and therefore our author nods; unless indeed he considered the princes so described, as members, not of a different race, but of other branches of the Gonerdiya stock.] The monarch was not well pleased with this prediction, and resolved to prevent its fulfilment, by refusing to grant his daughter in marriage at all: his precautions were unavailing: a descendant of Carcota Naga and protege of the monarch, succeeded in obtaining privately the affections and person of the princess, and the assistance of the chief officers of state secured his accession to the throne, upon the death of the king, which happened shortly afterwards.
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Part 3 of 7

SECTION II.

Durlabha Verddhana,‡ [Dirleyir Dirwun. — Abulfazl. ] the descendant of Carcota,§ [Carcota is one of the Nagas or Serpent demigods: the name occurs, as well as Nila, in the list of them in the Mahabharata: a temple at Benares is also dedicated to this serpent deity.] thus obtained the princess and the kingdom, and founded anew and powerful dynasty: his reign was chiefly distinguished by his encouragement of religion, and the temples he founded, or the endowments he bestowed upon the Brahmans. He reigned 36 years, and was succeeded by his son.

Pratapaditya [A.D. 652] * [Pertaubadut.— Abulfazl.] was the founder of Pratapapur, converted by local pronunciation into Tapar, according to the Mohammedan authorities. In this new city a merchant named Nona, of the Rauhitya race, took up his abode, and founded a college for the residence of Rauhitya Brahmans. Of the wealth of he trader it is stated as a proof, that on one occasion he lighted up his house with diamonds to receive the king, whom he had heard formerly complain of being inconvenienced by the smoke of the ordinary lamps. The familiarity between the prince and merchant led to some unexpected results: the former fell deeply in love with one of the merchant's women, and being unwilling either to commit a breach of hospitably, or to forfeit his fair name by a vicious act, he struggled with his passion and endeavoured to subdue it; the contest induced a fever, which threatened his life; he was saved however by the generosity of his friend, who learning the cause of his disease, not only yielded up the woman to the king, but exerted no small ingenuity in argument to persuade him to accept her: his logic however, made a due impression, and Narendra Prabha was elevated to the royal bed: it was a fruitful one, as she bore the king seven sons, Chandrapira, Tarapira, Abhimuctapira, Amuctapira, Vajraditya, Udayaditya, and Lalitaditya; several of whom succeeded in time to the crown. Pratapaditya died after a reign of 50 years.

CHANDRAPIRA,† [Chandranund.— Abulfazl.] the eldest son and successor of the last monarch, was a prince of exemplary mildness and equity. He punished his own officers, for encroaching on the tenements of a Chamar,‡ [Who as an out-cast could have no rights under a strict Hindu administration.] or worker in leather, in preparing the site of a temple which he wished to erect, and which design he was prepared to abandon if the consent of the leather-worker could not be obtained. A liberal reward and his personal solicitation obtained the acquiescence of the Chamar; his ground was duly made over to the king, and the temple was completed. We have another legend of his equity, and discrimination respecting the means employed by him, to detect the murderer of a Brahman, but it need not be here repeated, as the story has been, told by Abulfazl.* [Ay. Ac ii. 175. I do not find in my copies, the description of the punishment awarded. Abulfazl says the murderer was branded in the forehead with the figure of a headless man, and that something of the kind was inflicted appears from the context, from which a stanza has been probably omitted: the punishment is according to law, which on no account permits the infliction of capital punishment on the person of a Brahman, but substitutes brands, exile and disgrace. In the Danda Viveca the Law is thus laid down from ancient authorities. [x] A Brahman guilty of the greatest crimes is not to be put to death; let the king have him shaved, branded, or exiled. — Vrihaspati. [x] A Brahman who causes abortion, defiles the bed of his teacher, steals gold, or drinks spirits, must be branded with a hot iron on the forehead, with a headless figure, the vulva, the foot of a dog, or a flag, (the vintner's sign) and then be banished. — Baudhayana. [x] A headless  man is to be stamped on the forehead (of a Brahman) who kills a Brahman; the vulva on his who defiles his Guru's bed; a flag on his who drinks wine, and the foot of a dog on his who commits theft; filling the scar with Sichipitta (Peacock's bile, or possibly some caustic substance.)— Nareda.] Chandrapira enjoyed the short reign of no more than eight years and eight months, and was succeeded by his brother Tarapira,† [Taranund.— Abulfazl.] a violent and oppressive sovereign, and an enemy of the priesthood: his reign was fortunately a limited one, and extended to no more than four years and a few days.

A third brother Lalitaditya‡ [Lultadut.— Ibid.] succeeded to the crown: he was a prince of great celebrity, and established by the vigour and success of his arms, his claims to the supreme sovereignty of India, having made with his victorious armies the triumphant circuit of Hindustan. His first, scene of action was in the Antervedi country, the diadem of which he placed upon his own head. He then turned his arms against Yasoverma, at that time sovereign of Canouj, a prince distinguished for his literary accomplishments, and the patronage extended by him to such eminent Poets, as Cavivacpati, Raja Sri and Bhavabhuti.* [The two former of these are unknown. The third is celebrated as the author of the Malati Madhava, and the Uttara Rama charitra. He might have been at the court of Canouj, but he was of a Berar or Viderbha family: he is usually considered as contemporary with Calidasa, and in the Bhoja Prabandha is brought to Bhoja's court. His own works however afford no reason to suppose he was cotemporary with either Calidasa, or Bhoja, and with respect to the latter, furnish grounds for inferring the prior date of the Poet. The Raja Taringini is therefore probably correct in placing him about A.D. 705 or nearly two centuries before the probable period of Bhoja's reign. Yasoverma himself is not known, unless he be the same with Kirtiverma, an appellation of like import, and a prince who is mentioned in the opening, of the Prabodha Chaudrodaya.] A peace was soon agreed upon between the monarchs but as speedily violated: some informality in the address of a dispatch from Yasoverma to Lalitaditya having excited the latter's resentment, led to a renewal of hostilities, and the total subversion of the kingdom of Canouj.

Although thus occupied in foreign war, the prince appears to have devoted some attention to the details of domestic administration, and to have made a new arrangement of the great offices of his court: over the eighteen branches of the government, he instituted five principal departments, the Mahapratiharapira, or office of high chamberlain; Mahasandhivigraha, that of chief minister, or supreme administrator of peace and war; Mahaswasala, of the Royal stables, or of master of the horse; Mahabhandagara, of the high keeper of the treasury or arsenal, or perhaps both; and the Mahasadhanabhaga, an office of which the nature is not fully conveyed by the nomenclature, but which may perhaps be the supreme directorial or executive administration. Sahi and others were the officers invested with these high functions.

Yasoverma, after the subjugation of his kingdom, fled across the Yamuna, and nothing more is mentioned of his history: his victorious antagonist followed up his success by an expedition to the shores of the eastern sea: thence marching through Calinga, the Royal Elephants advanced upon the kingdom of Gaur, and effected its subjugation. Lalitaditya thence proceeded southwards, and invaded Carnata, then subject to a queen named Ratta, who submitted to the invader, after having seen her strong holds in the Vindhya mountains unavailing to resist him: her submission having disarmed the king's resentment, her beauty secured his favour, and she was restored to her dominions. The army then marched to the banks of the Caveri, whence crossing the Sandal mountains, the king subdued the coast and the Islands opposite: having reduced the seven Cramucas, and seven Concanas, Lalitaditya continued to follow the shores of the western sea to Dwaraca, which he entered to the delight of his soldiers: he then crossed the Vindhya mountains, and occupied Avanti, whence having made the circuit of India, and received the homage of its numerous princes, he now directed his steps to the north: his march was a series of conflicts and triumphs: he was successively assailed by the princes of the country, like another Indra engaged in clipping the wings of the hostile hills: the studs of Camboja were vacated at his approach, and Bukhara was deserted by its high-crested steeds: after three successful battles in as many days, he respected the Musselmans, and directed his attention to other quarters.* [Bedia-ad-din carries him into Khorasan to aid Yezdejird, but he retreats before the fame of the Arab invaders.] The pale-faced Bhottas scarcely attracted his regard, as the cold wind, impregnated with the blossoms of the safflower, and the secretion of the Musk deer, fanned the tresses of his soldiers: the city of Pragiyotish was empty on his arrival, and he turned thence to the Stri Rajya, where the queen and her subjects triumphed over the monarch and his soldiers, by other weapons than those of war: after a short delay in that country, he advanced to the realms of Uttara Curu, whence satiate with glory, and laden with plunder he returned to his own dominions.*

[* Whatever may be the truth of the military excursion of this Prince, the account of it given in the original, which has been here followed as closely as the state of the manuscript would admit, is a very curious specimen of the author's geographical accuracy and knowledge, and throws some light upon the state of India at the period at which he wrote: it may therefore be worth while to revise his track: from Canouj through the eastern districts of the present Company's possessions, Lalitaditya may be supposed to have marched to the delta of the Ganges, and Berhamputra, where we have what our author calls the Eastern Sea; and the coast along the upper part of the bay of Bengal, therefore, constitutes the country that he calls Calinga, whence a slight deviation to the right brings him easily to Gaur, equivalent in its widest sense, to the greater part of the modern Bengal. The transit hence to Carnata is rather a considerable stride, although it is obvious that the upper part of the Peninsula is intended, by reference to the Durgas of the Vindhya chain of mountains, unless indeed we extend the term to the eastern Ghauts, which may be considered as lateral processes from the main ridge; as indeed the next stage is the Caveri river, we come then to the southern limits usually assigned to the ancient Carnata kingdom. The Sandal or Malaya mountains are the western Ghauts, over which as the king marched from Mysore he would necessarily come into the Concan: the seven divisions of which, as well as the seven Cramucas, are something new to us, although from the voyages of the two Arabians, and of the early Portuguese and Dutch adventurers, we know, that that part of the Malabar coast was divided amongst a great number of petty sovereigns. The seven Concanas are indeed known in the Dekhin still, and comprehend the whole of the Parasu Rama Cshetra, or the greater part of the Malabar coast: they are named Kerala (Malabar), Tulunga or Tuluva, Gova Rashtra or Goa, Concana proper, Kerataha, Varalatta and Berbera; the seven Cramucas, it might have been conjectured, were connected with the term Cranganore, but the original name of that province is properly written Corangalur [x] and they possibly signify some of the groups of islands off the coast of Malabar; the island of Dwaraca, in Guzerat, the kingdom of Crishna, is the next stage, and was visited more in veneration than enmity: from hence across the Vindhya mountains the king comes to Oujein: his march to the north, or rather northwest, brings him to Camboja; according to Wilford (A.R. viii. 336,) the ancient Arachosia, and unquestionably a country in that direction, a country bordering on India, to the northwest, and inhabited by impure or foreign tribes, famous also for its breed of horses, a large strong breed of which is still reared in the countries between Persia and India. Bhukhara is the Persian Bokhara or Bucharia; the word rendered in the text Musselman is written in the original Mussuni or Mussulli: it is intended by our author as the name of a person, for it occurs again in the reign of Lalitaditya's grandson Jayapira, who is said in the original to have had Mussuni and others as chiefs of his nocturnal guard: at the same time the recurrence of the name after such an interval, indicates rather more than one individual, and is an argument in favor of its being a generic appellation: according to Narain Cul it should be Momunkhan, Governor or Prince of Bokhara: if he is right, it should be Al-maimun of the house of Abbas that is intended, and who long resided in Khorasan, but about a century after the reign of Lalitaditya, according to the chronology of our text: the correction that would thus be required does not however seem to be indispensible, as our author's history here, allowing for national partialities, is very strongly supported by the general histories of the Mohammedan writers. At this very period, or from 697 to 712, the generals of Hijaz, the Governor of Khorasan, were engaged in active hostilities with their neighbours, both to the north and east, or in Bokhara and Cabul, the Hindu prince of which latter makes a distinguished figure in several transactions, (Price's Mohammedan History, i. 454 &c. [Chronological Retrospect, or Memoirs of the Principal Events of Mahommedan History, From The Death of the Arabian Legislator, to the Accession of The Emperor Akbar, and The Establishment of the Moghul Empire in Hindustan, From Original Persian Authorities, by Major David Price, of the East India Company's Service, in Three Volumes, 1811])

Such a general coincidence is as much as can be expected, for names are most deplorably disfigured by both Hindu and Mohammedan writers, and events, especially when remote in place and time, are not investigated by either with much accuracy or care.[!!!] Lalitaditya's next route through Butan is rather a remote one, except we suppose the name Bhoteas to be applied to the hill tribes on the northern side of the Himalaya: the route is practicable enough, and would be much the same as that followed by the Lamas in 1712, and by which a considerable intercourse between Cashmir and Chinese Tartary is still maintained, (see Moorcroft's Travels [Travels in the Himalayan Provinces of Hindustan and the Panjab; In Ladakh and Kashmir; in Peshawar, Kabul, Kunduz, and Bokhara; by Mr. William Moorcroft and Mr. George Trebeck, from 1819 to 1825, Prepared for the Press, from Original Journals and Correspondence, by Horace Hayman Wilson, M.A., F.R.S., Member of the Royal Asiatic Society, and of the Asiatic Societies of Paris and Calcutta; of the Imperial Society of Naturalists of Moscow; of the Royal Academies of Berlin and Munich, Etc. Etc.; and Professor of Sanscrit in the University of Oxford, Two Volumes, Vol. I, Published under the Authority of the Asiatic Society of Calcutta, 1841): that the Bhoteas are scattered through this line we know from late authorities. Hamilton observes that the Bhoteas occupy every where between the hills and the Tista the Alpine region on both sides of the Indus, (Hamilton's Nepal, 58 [An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal, and of the Territories Annexed to This Dominion By The House of Gorkha, by Francis Hamilton, (Formerly Buchanan,) M.D., Fellow of the Royal Societies of London and Edinburgh; the Society of Antiquaries, and of the Linnean Society of London; and of the Asiatick Society of Calcutta, Illustrated with Engravings, 1819]); and Fraser mentions that Hymap, a valley, containing a great number of Bhotea villages, is only four day's journey from the Capital of Cashmir (Fraser's Himala, 308 [Journal of a Tour Through Part of the Snowy Range of The Himala Mountains, and To the Sources of the Rivers Jumna and Ganges, by James Baillie Fraser, Esq., 1820]): however our author evidently intends to carry his hero into Bootan proper, a journey of considerable extent although probably not so much so as it appears by the maps we yet possess; Pragjyotish is considered to be Gohati in Asam, (A.R. viii. 336,) the Stri Rajya is probably Tibet, where customs similar to those of the Malabar Nairs prevail, (Turner's Embassy, 319 [An Account of an Embassy to the Court of the Teshoo Lama, In Tibet; Containing a Narrative of a Journey Through Bootan, and Part of Tibet, by Captain Samuel Turner, To Which are Added, Views Taken on the Spot, by Lieutenant Samuel Davis; and Observations Botanical, Mineralogical, and Medical, by Mr. Robert Saunders, 1800]); it may however be Nepal or almost, any portion of the Himalaya, (Kirkpatrick, 187, Fraser, 70, &c.) where the same practice exists, but as the march leads off from Asam apparently to the north, we may regard this region to be Tibet. Of Uttara Curu we shall have further occasion to speak.]
-- Chronological Retrospect, or Memoirs of the Principal Events of Mahommedan History, From The Death of the Arabian Legislator, to the Accession of The Emperor Akbar, and The Establishment of the Moghul Empire in Hindustan, From Original Persian Authorities, by Major David Price, of the East India Company's Service, in Three Volumes, Volume I, 1811

-- Chronological Retrospect, or Memoirs of the Principal Events of Mahommedan History, From The Death of the Arabian Legislator, to the Accession of The Emperor Akbar, and The Establishment of the Moghul Empire in Hindustan, From Original Persian Authorities, by Major David Price, of the East India Company's Service, in Three Volumes, Volume II, 1812

-- Chronological Retrospect, or Memoirs of the Principal Events of Mahommedan History, From The Death of the Arabian Legislator, to the Accession of The Emperor Akbar, and The Establishment of the Moghul Empire in Hindustan, From Original Persian Authorities, by Major David Price, of the East India Company's Service, in Three Volumes, Volume III, Part 1, 1821

-- Chronological Retrospect, or Memoirs of the Principal Events of Mahommedan History, From The Death of the Arabian Legislator, to the Accession of The Emperor Akbar, and The Establishment of the Moghul Empire in Hindustan, From Original Persian Authorities, by Major David Price, of the East India Company's Service, in Three Volumes, Volume III, Part 2, 1821

--Travels in the Himalayan Provinces of Hindustan and the Panjab; In Ladakh and Kashmir; in Peshawar, Kabul, Kunduz, and Bokhara; by Mr. William Moorcroft and Mr. George Trebeck, from 1819 to 1825, Prepared for the Press, from Original Journals and Correspondence, by Horace Hayman Wilson, M.A., F.R.S., Member of the Royal Asiatic Society, and of the Asiatic Societies of Paris and Calcutta; of the Imperial Society of Naturalists of Moscow; of the Royal Academies of Berlin and Munich, Etc. Etc.; and Professor of Sanscrit in the University of Oxford, Two Volumes, Vol. I, Published under the Authority of the Asiatic Society of Calcutta, 1841

--Travels in the Himalayan Provinces of Hindustan and the Panjab; In Ladakh and Kashmir; in Peshawar, Kabul, Kunduz, and Bokhara; by Mr. William Moorcroft and Mr. George Trebeck, from 1819 to 1825, Prepared for the Press, from Original Journals and Correspondence, by Horace Hayman Wilson, M.A., F.R.S., Member of the Royal Asiatic Society, and of the Asiatic Societies of Paris and Calcutta; of the Imperial Society of Naturalists of Moscow; of the Royal Academies of Berlin and Munich, Etc. Etc.; and Professor of Sanscrit in the University of Oxford, Two Volumes, Vol. II, Published under the Authority of the Asiatic Society of Calcutta, 1841

-- An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal, and of the Territories Annexed to This Dominion By The House of Gorkha, by Francis Hamilton, (Formerly Buchanan,) M.D., Fellow of the Royal Societies of London and Edinburgh; the Society of Antiquaries, and of the Linnean Society of London; and of the Asiatick Society of Calcutta, Illustrated with Engravings, 1819

-- Journal of a Tour Through Part of the Snowy Range of The Himala Mountains, and To the Sources of the Rivers Jumna and Ganges, by James Baillie Fraser, Esq., 1820

-- An Account of an Embassy to the Court of the Teshoo Lama, In Tibet; Containing a Narrative of a Journey Through Bootan, and Part of Tibet, by Captain Samuel Turner, To Which are Added, Views Taken on the Spot, by Lieutenant Samuel Davis; and Observations Botanical, Mineralogical, and Medical, by Mr. Robert Saunders, 1800

-- An Account of the Kingdom of Caubul, and Its Dependencies in Persia, Tartary, and India; Comprising a view of the Afghaun Nation, A History of the Dooraunee Monarchy, by The Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone, of the Honourable East India Company's Service; Resident at the Court of Poona; and Late envoy to the King of Caubul, 1815

On his return to Cashmir Lalitaditya rewarded his principal officers by bestowing upon them subordinate kingdoms: in this way he conferred upon his dependents the principal cities of Jalandhara and Lahora (Lahore:) he also devised particular marks to be borne by the different tribes, as characteristic of their submission to his power. Thus the Turushcas were obliged to shave half the head, and the Dekhinis to let the ends of their waist cloth hang down like a tail behind, and these distinctions are still observed:* [The neighbouring Mussulmans like most Mohammedans indeed, do shave the centre of the head still, and the people of the coast wear their lower garments long: that these habits were imposed by the kings of Cashmir may be denied even on Hindu authority. In the Hari Vansa, a portion of the Mahabharata, and certainly much older than the work before us, the following account is given of the imposition, of the distinguishing modes of wearing the hair, upon the tribes of Mlechchhas or foreigners: "The king Sagara in obedience to the orders of his Guru, Vasishta, deprived the Mlechchhas of their institutes, and imposed upon them these marks: the Sacas had half the head shaved, the Yavanas and Cambojas the whole of their hair taken off, the Paradas were ordered to wear beards." These customs might perhaps admit of verification, and might enable us to identify the tribes. Some of the Greeks were from a remote period accustomed to shave the forepart of the head: the mountaineers of the Himalaya shave the crown, as do the people of Caferistan with the exception of a single tuft, and some of these people, which is a curious coincidence, are called Caumojees, (Elphinstone's Cabul, 619 and 625 [An Account of the Kingdom of Caubul, and Its Dependencies in Persia, Tartary, and India; Comprising a view of the Afghaun Nation, A History of the Dooraunee Monarchy, by The Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone, of the Honourable East India Company's Service; Resident at the Court of Poona; and Late envoy to the King of Caubul, 1815]); they also some of them wear beards five or six inches long. The Persians also wore long beards in the time of Ammianus Marcellinus, as they do still.] if he thus treated the vanquished with some contumely, he made amends by his munificence, for there was no part of India, where he did not erect statues and temples of the Gods: a very long enumeration ensues of these proofs of his liberality, of which it will here be necessary only to particularize a few. He founded the cities of Sunischitapura, Derpitapura, Phalapura, Lalitapura and Parihasapura: in Hushcapur he erected an image of Mucta Swami, and one of Nrihari in the Stri Rajya. In the Bhumi Grama, he built the temple of Jyeshta Rudra, and over and along the Vitasta he built bridges and stone ghats. Parihasapura was his favorite work; in this city, he built a palace of unhewn stone, and a variety of royal and religious edifices: he raised a column of one stone, 24 cubits long, and bearing on the summit an image of Garuda: he placed in the temples images of metal; one of Vishnu as Parihasa Cesava was made of pure silver, weighing 1000 palas, and another colossal figure of Buddha was constructed of 1000 Prasthas of brass; a figure of Hari with flowing hair, was set up of gold, and another golden image was made by him of the same deity in the Varaha Avatar. His example was imitated by his queens, by tributary princes, and by his ministers, one of whom, a second Jina, named Chancuna, a native of Bokhara, erected a Vihar, and set up in it an image, made in Magadha or Behar, called indifferently by our author Jina Vimba and Sugata Vimba, and therefore of undetermined character as to its being of Bauddha or Jaina manufacture, although most probably the former: the foundation of Parihasapur* [Purrispoor is mentioned in the Ay. Ac. ii. 159, with the addition that a lofty idolatrous temple stood there, which was destroyed by Secander. Refi-ad-din also converts the column into the minarets of a temple.] or Parrispur and its embellishment by this prince are recorded by the Mohammedan writers, of whom Mohammed Azim adds, that the fragments of the pillar of Garuda were visible in his time: the statue of Sugata also remained to the period in which our author wrote.

Lalitaditya is the subject of many marvellous stories, one of which reminds us of the exploit of Zopyrus: the minister of the king of Sicata Sindhu, probably of Tatta, presented himself in a wounded and deplorable state before the king, upon one of his expeditions. Lalitaditya took him into favor; in return for which he offered to lead the army across the desert, against his native country, and his offer being accepted, he directed the king to provide water for a fortnight's march; at the expiration of the fortnight the army was still in the midst of the sands, and the men were perishing with thirst, the guide acknowledging that he had been employed by his sovereign to effect the destruction of the king and his host: the attempt of the enemy was foiled, however, by the discovery of some springs, and the king returned in safety to Cashmir, after punishing his treacherous guide; the springs then opened were said to exist in our author's time, and to form a considerable stream running to the north called Kuntavdhini.* [The story is but imperfectly told here, but the text is so corrupt, I should scarcely have ventured to select even the above, had I not been countenanced by Narain Cul, who translates the story in much the same way, altering the name of the country to Maruca (that is, a desart tract) on the ocean.]

Lalitaditya, although the substantial proofs of his devotion left no doubt of his piety, was yet not free from faults: amongst other defects he was addicted to wine, and in one of his drunken fits he ordered the city Pravarapur founded by Pravara Sena to be burnt, that it might no longer emulate the splendour of his own capital. His orders were carried rigidly into effect, to his own deep regret when sobered — and as one proof of the sense he entertained of the transaction, he immediately issued positive commands, for his officers to disregard any mandates whatever, that he should promulgate, whilst under the influence of wine.† [So it was related of Trajan, who indulged in a similar propensity. Vinolentiam prudentia molliverat, cuari vetans jussa post longiores epulas. [Google Translate: Intoxication softened orders forbidding him to be taken care of after a longer banquet.] — Aurelius Victor.]

We have an account, in this part of Lalitaditya's reign, of some tumultuous affray having taken place in his capital, between the followers of different deities: the exact nature of it does not satisfactorily appear from the imperfect condition of the manuscripts, but there seems to have been a conflict between a number of Bengali pilgrims, who had come with their prince to Cashmir to visit a temple of Saraswati, and the people of the city: the former had made an image of Parihasa Hari, and broken one of Rama Swami, and to punish the latter act the citizens assailed them: the Bengalis appear to have had the advantage, as the desolated temple of Rama Swami continued to bear witness to their success, and the world was filled with the fame of the exploit: the author of the Wakiat-i- Cashmir calls the king of Gaur, Gosala, without however assigning any authority for the appellation.* [The same work speaks of it as a hostile incursion of the Bengalis, and Narain Cul has the same, ascribing that event to the design of revenging the death of their king, who had been invited publicly, and privately put to death by Lalitaditya, one of whose faults, he says, was that of disregarding oaths and agreements: a not uncommon failing in princes of Lalitaditya's ambition. Bedia-ad-din agrees with the latter author. There may possibly be some connection between this transaction and what is recorded in the Sancara Digvijaya of the reformer Sancara Acharya, who, it is said, visited Cashmir, and in despite of strenuous opposition, seated himself on the throne dedicated to the Most Learned, in the temple of Saraswati. The place corresponds, so probably does the date: names only may have been changed.]

The death of Lalitaditya was worthy of his active reign: he resolved to explore the uttermost limits of Uttara Curu, the regions inhabited by the followers of Cuvera, and equally inaccessible to the steps of man, and the rays of the sun:† [This Hindu Cimmeria is of course the land of fable, but as far as it may be supposed to have a real prototype Uttara Curu seems to imply the northern portion of Russian and Chinese Tartary. The name however appears to have been known nearer home, and to have been applied to the North Eastern portion of the Himala mountains. Ptolemy places in that position a nation called the Ottorocoroe amongst mountains of the same name, and Ammianus Marcellinus calls the same mountain Opurocarra. It is not impossible however that they intend the northern part of Asam called Uttaracora, Uttaracola or Uttaracul. Lalitaditya probably perished amongst the chasms and snows of the Himalaya.] he accordingly marched northwards, crossing the mountains inhabited by the Damaras, whom he describes in a letter to his ministers as a fierce intractable race, lurking in caves and fortified passes, possessed of considerable wealth, and equally devoid of government or religion: in the same dispatch he announces the probability of his not returning, for, he observes, there are no limits to the advance of the ambitious, as there is no return of the water, which the rivers, running into foreign countries, bear far away from its native springs. In consequence of this expectation, he directed the ministers to crown his son, Cuvalayaditya, with which order they sorrowfully complied. The king's anticipations were realized: neither he nor his army ever returned, and their fate was never exactly known. Some reports say that he was slain in battle; others that he and his host were overwhelmed and lost in a heavy fall of snow in Aryanaca. Some persons believe that he burnt himself, whilst others credit the tales that carry him to the farthest north, to those climes that are easily accessible to the immortals only, and speak of the wonders there seen and performed by him, and the final destruction of him and his troops. Lalitaditya reigned 36 years and eight months: he was a popular prince, and much beloved by those about his person: his chief ministers were all deeply afflicted by his loss, and one of them, Mitra Serma, disdaining to survive his master, drowned himself at the confluence of the Sindhu and Vitasta.

[A.D. 751] Cuvalayapira,* [ Kalyanund.— Abulfazl.] the son of Lalitaditya by Camaladevi, succeeded to his father; in the first days of his reign, apprehending the rebellion of his brother, a prince of a more active and violent temper, he put him and his mother Chacramerdica into confinement: thus relieved from the fear of domestic disturbances he began to contemplate foreign acquisitions, when he was diverted from his purpose by a change in the tenor of his reflections: having been thrown into a paroxysm of fury by an act of unimportant disobedience, in one of his ministers, he reflected, when he became calm, upon the folly of yielding to the impulses of passion: his meditations extended farther, and convincing him of the futility of human power, and the shortness of human existence, he determined to exchange his kingly throne for the cell of an ascetic. Having adopted this determination, he withdrew to the mountain Dricpatha, leaving, after a short reign of little more than a year, the crown to his brother Vajraditya. † [Bijradut.— Ibid.]

This prince was of a cruel and abandoned character: he expended his paternal treasures upon sensual gratifications, and drained Parihasapur of its valuables and money, to purchase women for his haram: to raise money also he sold great numbers of his subjects to the Mlechchhas, and propagated through the country, tenets and practices, fit for them alone: fortunately his reign was a short one, lasting only seven years.

Prithivyapira,* [Pertooanund. Sungranund. — Alulfazl.] the elder son of Vajraditya, by the queen Manjsrica, succeeded his father, both in the throne and in his habits of life: at the end of four years, however, he was dethroned by his brother Sangramapira, the son of Mamma, one of Vajraditya's concubines apparently; this prince reigned seven years, and was succeeded by his younger brother.

[A.D. 773] Jayapira,† [Jeyammd. — Ibid.]  a monarch who was emulous of his grand-father's, Lalitaditya's, renown. Shortly after his accession, this prince marched upon an expedition against his neighbours: his army was numerous and well appointed, but not equally so with these which Lalitaditya had commanded, as a proof of which some of the elderly citizens observed to the king, who had questioned them on the subject, that he had but 80,000 litters with his army, whilst his grand-father had 125,000. He proceeded however on his expedition, and when he had marched some distance, Jajja‡ [Jujnund. — Ibid.] his wife's brother, availed himself of the opportunity to usurp the throne, and prepared for the maintenance of his unjust pretentions. Jayapira's first determination, on receiving intelligence of the usurpation, was to march back to Cashmir, but on taking a review of his army, he found so many soldiers had deserted him, that he was not in a condition to vindicate his rights; he therefore disbanded the troops yet adhering to him, and with a few faithful followers retired to Prayaga; arrived here, he gave to the Brahmans, the horses lately belonging to his army, amounting to 100,000 all but one, the grant declaring that whoever should give an entire lac, might efface the seal of Jayapira, and substitute his own: this grant he committed to the Ganges, the waters of which were rendered purer by the ingredient: after a short residence at Allahabad he dismissed his attendants, and determined to seek his fortune by himself.

The adventures of Jayapira at Paundraverdhana* [A city in Behar, it is believed, but Magadha, in that case, must have been subject to the kings of Bengal, whose power about the time in question, the beginning of the ninth century, does appear to have been so extensive, (see the Mongir Grant, A. R. i. 123, and Mr. Colebrooke's remarks on it, ix. 427.) Jayanta however does not occur amongst the Pala princes, in those authorities, nor in Abulfazl's list, (Ay. Ac.) unless in the latter some of the names are erroneous; a circumstance very probable.] then the residence of Jayanta, king of Gaur, are the next subjects of our original, and are narrated with a prolixity that we need not emulate; he arrived alone and in humble attire at the city, where his dignified person and manner, attracted the notice of one of the female dancers of a temple, by whom he was taken home and supported: whilst in this situation he killed in private encounter a lion that had alarmed the whole city, and having in the conflict lost one of his bracelets, on which his name was inscribed, he was thence discovered by the emissaries of Jayanta, and carried before that monarch; his reception was highly favourable. Jayanta gave him his daughter in marriage, and furnished him with an army for the recovery of his paternal dominions, to which he was also invited by Deva Serma, the son of Mitra Serma; deputed for that purpose by the nobles of Cashmir: he accordingly set forth on his return, the goddess of victory in his van; and in his rear, the two terrestrial goddesses, Calyananda, the princess his wife, and Camala the dancer, whom out of gratitude he had also espoused: at a village called Susticala on the borders of Cashmir, he was opposed by the usurper, and a series of conflicts ensued without being attended, for several days, with any decisive result; at last Srideva, a Chandala, the head-man of a village, who had joined the king, made his way to the spot where Jajja was stationed, and struck him from off his horse with a stone. Jajja fell dead upon the field, his followers fled, and Jayapira after an interval of three years was again acknowledged as monarch of Cashmir.

The cares of Jayapira were now directed to the cultivation of letters, and the improvement of his kingdom: he devoted much of his time to study, and made himself a proficient in Sanscrit Grammar, under Cshira, a learned teacher.* [This name is not known unless Cshira Swami, the commentator on Amera, be intended; the conjecture is supported by the nature of his instruction, and qualifications, the author calling him [x]: or teacher of the science of words.] He invited scholars from foreign countries and so many flocked to him as to occasion a dearth of Panditas everywhere, except in Cashmir: the chief of the assembly was Bhatta, and he was assisted by Damodaragupta; the principal poets were Manoratha, Sanchadenta, Chataca and Sandhiman, whilst Vamana and others were amongst his ministers.† [It is not practicable to ascertain with any degree of certainty, any further particulars relating to the individuals named in the text. Bhatta is a title rather than a name, and is applied to several authors known to be natives of Cashmir, as Mammata Bhatta, the author of the Kavya Prakasa, and others. Damodara may be the author of the musical work called Sangita Damodara and there is a Vamana Acharya, who is the author of a set of poetical Sutras and of a Vritti or gloss upon them. The poetical propensities of the prince accord with the character of these writings: the other names offer nothing even for conjecture.] The principal foundation of his reign was the fort of Jayapura, in the construction of which he was assisted by artists sent him by Vibhishana, the Racshasa monarch of Lanca, whilst Achu, the son-in-law of Pramoda king of Mathura, and Jayadatta one of the king's principal ministers, contributed to its embellishment; the one by a temple of Siva, and the other by a Brahminical college: besides this, Jayapura built Malhanapur in Cashmir, and his wives founded the cities Calyanapur and Camalapur, places named after themselves.

After a short period of tranquility, Jayapira resumed his military enterprises: his first exploit was the reduction of a strong fort belonging to Bhima Sena, king of the eastern region, and he thence proceeded against Aramuri, the magician, king of Nipal,‡ [There is no such name however in Kirkpatrick's lists of the Nepal kings.] whom, at the end of two or three-days march, he found posted with his forces on the southern bank of a river: the appearance of the enemy inflamed the courage of the king to temerity; without a previous knowledge of the country, he rushed into the river, and left his bravest warriors behind him; the stream at first was no more than knee deep, but it suddenly rose, and swept away the king and his army: the greater part of the soldiers were drowned. The king, continuing to struggle with the waves, was carried down the stream: the cries of one army were echoed by the shouts of the other, and some soldiers of the enemy mounted on inflated skins, rushed into the torrent, and captured the drowning prince: he was dragged to the shore, and confined in a strong castle on the banks of the Gandica,* [Possibly the Gandaci or Ganduck river: if however the fort of Bhimasena should be Bime near Nagracot, this appellation must be applied to some other river.] his broken and dismayed army retreating hastily to Cashmir.

The return of the troops, carrying the news of their discomfiture, and of the captivity of the king, spread consternation throughout Cashmir: the ministers immediately assembled to deliberate on what was to be done, when Deva Serma, the son of the faithful Mitra Sarma, undertook to effect the liberation of the monarch: for this purpose he wrote to Aramuri, holding out promises of securing to him both the kingdom and treasures of Jayapira, if admitted to his presence. The terms were readily accepted, and the minister attended by a considerable body of forces, entered Nipal; his army he led to the banks of the Gandica, opposite to the fort which held his master captive, whilst he himself repaired to the court of Aramuri: at a private conference with the king of Nipal, Deva Serma represented to him, that the treasures of Jayapira were with the army, but their amount and distribution were known to Jayapira alone; that it would be advisable therefore for him to have an interview with that prince, and learn from him under some plausible pretence, these particulars, as otherwise the money might be lost or embezzled, and Aramuri be disappointed of a valuable prize. The Nipalese was deceived: orders were given for Deva Serma to be admitted privately to Jayapira, and the minister thus found himself in his master's presence.

In the interview that followed, Deva Serma urged the king to let himself down from the window of his prison, and swim over the river to his troops, but Jayapira urged its impracticability, not only on account of the height of the window from the ground, but the impossibility of crossing the torrent without assistance: after some discussion, the minister withdrew, purposing professedly to return, but as a considerable interval elapsed during which he did not appear, the king went to seek him, and found him dead on the floor of an adjoining chamber, strangled with his own turban: beside him lay a leaf, on which he had written these words with his nail; "You must effect your escape; I die to enable you: my body inflated with your breath will serve you as a float, tie yourself with my turban, and quickly cross the river." Penetrated with admiration at the proof of attachment, and with grief for the loss of so faithful a friend, the king obeyed his posthumous counsel, and safely effected a junction with his troops: eager to wipe off his disgrace he fell upon the unprepared and astonished Nepalese, killed their king, and left their country a depopulated waste.

Returning to Cashmir Jayapira spent some time in the enjoyment of the treasures he had acquired by the late expedition, when an extraordinary occurrence gave a new complexion to his character, and changed him into an oppressive and extortionary prince. Mahapadma the Naga appeared to him in a dream, and implored his aid against a magician of Dravira, whose enchantments sought to secure the person of the Naga, and carry him off. Mahapadma promised the king as a reward for his protection, that he would reveal to him the existence of a gold mine, and then disappeared. In the morning, the king not quite satisfied of the veracity of the Naga, sent for the magician, and desired him to shew him the person of the snake God: this the magician effected; the waters of a lake retiring at his command, exposed the Naga and his serpent train. Jayapira however would not allow the magician to seize his prey, but ordering him to recall the waters of the lake, gave him a liberal recompense, and sent him to his own country. The Naga soon visited him again in his slumbers, but instead of a mine of gold, he punished him for his want of faith, by discovering to him the site of a copper mine, a source of considerable though inferior wealth: the mine was accordingly wrought, and in the course of his reign the king coined 100 crore of Dinars* [These were copper Dinars it is to be supposed.] less one, challenging all the princes of the world to exceed this coinage, and complete the 100 crore.

The taste for wealth acquired by the king, became fatal to his subjects: to accumulate treasure he levied heavy exactions on all ranks of people, and particularly oppressed the brahmans, by resuming the endowments, which he or his predecessors had bestowed upon them: their complaints and remonstrances were unavailing with the king and his ministers, Siva Dasa and others, a set of Cayasthas, incapable of any generous feelings, whose extortion drove a hundred brahmans of Tulamula to drown themselves in the Chandrabhaga: to the supplications of the sacerdotal order, the king shewing entire indifference, he at last attracted their menaces: these he ridiculed, but was finally punished for his impiety: in consequence of a curse denounced upon him by one of the order, he met with an accidental fall; a wound ensued in one of his legs, and this breeding a number of worms, which preyed upon the king's body, he died in the greatest agony, after a reign of thirty-one years.†

[† The fate of this prince, as told with great exultation in the original, is a curious specimen of Brahminical arrogance and superstition: it is not without a parallel however in the writers of Europe, during the ascendancy of monkish authority; the conversation between the prince and priests, narrated in a somewhat dramatic form, is not without spirit: we may easily put it into dialogue.

A Brahman. Menu, Mandhata, Rama, and other sovereigns, mighty as they were, treated with reverence and awe the Brahmanical order, whose resistless wrath consumes earth and its mountains, hell and its serpent brood, and even Swerga and its gods, and king.

The King. Here's a big mouth, that fed upon a beggar's crumbs, and drunk with pride, talks of its power with all the confidence of a holy seer.

Ittila, a Brahman. The revolutions of time have worked some change, but it is by submitting to a master, that we have ceased to be Rishis.

The King. Who art thou? Viswamitra perhaps, or Vasishtha, or Agastya? I crave your pardon.

Ittila. And thou — thou art Harischandra, Trisancu or Nahusha; if so, I am Viswamitra, or who I please.

The King. By the anger of Viswamitra, Harischandra was destroyed: what am I to dread from your mighty indignation.

Ittila. (Rubbing his hand on the ground,) Lord of all time, at my just indignation, let the punishment  due to the insulter of a Brahman, fall upon this prince.

The King. Let it fall; why does it delay! (The king's golden staff slips and he tumbles.)

The Brahman. Ha! Babbler, has it not fallen on thee!!]

[A.D. 804] Lalitapira, who succeeded Jayapira was his son, by Durga Devi; he was a dissolute prince, who lavished his father's ill-gotten treasures on parasites and prostitutes, and instead of pandits and heroes, made buffoons and catamites his companions. He died after a reign of twelve years, of the grossest and lowest debauchery.

Sangramapira, his brother by another mother, the princess Calyana Devi next ascended the throne: he was also known by the name of Prithivyapira; he reigned seven years.* [My manuscript has seven; Abulfazl has thirty-seven; which is an evident error as is shewn by the aggregate of the reigns of the Dynasty which he calls 257 years, 5 months, and 20 days; but which according to the addition of the several dates is 287-5. There being just the thirty years too much; the names in the translated Ay. Ac. here are written successively, Lultanund, Sungramanund, Brisput.] The next monarch of Cashmir was Chippatajaya, a son of Lalitapira, by a prostitute, named Jaya Devi, otherwise CALYAPALI, as the daughter of a Calyapala or distiller, of Acha village: the brothers of this woman had been brought to court by the king, and their nephew, being yet a minor, they took the government into their own hands: they were five in number, named Padma, Utpala, Calyana, Mamma, and Dherma, and their ambition opens a scene of domestic discord and calamity, to which we have yet been strangers in the history of Cashmir.

The uncles of the young king divided amongst themselves the places and profits of the government, and assumed the supreme authority in the kingdom: the power they thus enjoyed they were not disposed to relinquish, and when the young prince exhibited a disposition to assert his independence, they deposed and put him to death, having suffered him to enjoy a nominal reign of twelve years: as they were too jealous of each other to suffer the ascendancy of either, they found it expedient to raise another prince to the throne, and they elevated to the titular rank of king, Tribhuvanapira, also called, Ajitapira,† [Ajeyanand. — Ay. Ac.] the grandson of Lalitaditya, and son of an elder brother of the last monarch. Under the name of Ajitapira, the five usurpers continued for a period of thirty-six years,* [Reckoning, says our author, from the death of their nephew which happened in the year 89, startling us at once with a new computation, familiar of course to the Cashmirians, but to others requiring an explanation, which he has not given of it: the kind of date frequently recurs, and it is observable that it always stops short of 100, as if a cycle of 100 years had been adopted in Cashmir: sometimes, as in the present instance, the date nearly corresponds with the odd years of the centuries of the Hijra, but the approximation is not always near enough to make it probable that reference to the Hijra is intended.] to possess the real sovereignty of Cashmir, and they veiled their violence and injustice by a liberal distribution of the public treasures, and the foundation of splendid temples, and rich endowments. It was not likely that the brothers should always continue on friendly terms, and a dispute arose between Mamma and Utpala, which occasioned a furious battle† [It has been narrated, according to CALHANA, by Sancaca, a poet, in a poem named Bhuvanabhyudaya.] on the borders of the Vitasta. Utpala, it should seem, was defeated and killed, chiefly through the valour of Yasoverma, the son of Mamma: the victor proceeded to dethrone and kill the king, his accession having been principally the work of Utpala, and place Anangapira,‡ [Anunkanund. — Ay. Ac.] a son of Sangramapira, on the throne.

The principal actors in the turbulent period of the last reign, now disappear from the history, and are succeeded by their sons, without our being informed further of the fortunes of the usurping fraternity. The princes became mere pageants in the hands of these enterprising chiefs, with the unenviable distinction of being the first victims to the resentment of the conquerors. Ajitapira, we have seen, was put to death by the son of Mamma: his successor was not more fortunate; as after a short reign of three years, he suffered a similar fate from the hands of Sucha Verma, the now triumphant son of Utpala. This chief, created king, the son of Ajitapira, the predecessor of the last monarch; his name was Utpalapira,§ [Atbalanund. Ay. Ac.] and he was to be the last of the Carcota dynasty, for Sucha Verma being slain by a kinsman, his friends and followers, determined to place his son, Avanti Verma on the throne. Utpalapira was accordingly deposed, and the son, of Sucha Verma, the founder of the Utpala* [His grand-father: it is difficult here to keep the narrative clear, amidst the rapid succession of so many uncommon names. The deposition of Utpalapira happened, according to the author of the Wakiat-i-Cashmir, in the year of the Hijra 209; he is not quite right in his computation, as agreeably to our author's series of dates it must be placed about A.D. 862. It may be here observed that Abulfazl has altered what may be called the family designation of most of the Carcota princes, and has changed the terminating name Apira to Ananda. In the next list we have another change but that is a mere misreading, the family name Verma is converted into Derma the Vau [x] and Dal [x] being easily mistaken for each other. Verma is an adjunct expressing a Cshetriya or military descent; the present possessors however seem to have assumed it, as the founder of the family, Utpala, and his brothers were apparently of a less respectable origin.] dynasty, succeeded.
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Part 4 of 7

SECTION III.

[A.D. 876] THE accession of Avanti Verma† [Aduntderma—Abulfazl.] was not suffered to take place without opposition, and he had to undergo many conflicts with his own cousins, and even with his brothers, before his dominion was established. By his valour and prudence, however, aided by the sage counsel of Sura the minister, to whom he was chiefly indebted for his crown, he overcame all opposition, and remained the undisputed sovereign of Cashmir.

Having restored order and tranquillity, the king nominated Sura Verma his brother by a different mother, Yuvaraja, and the two brothers were both distinguished for their liberal and public spirit: the king gave large presents to the Brahmans, and the Yuvaraja bestowed upon them the Agraharas, Khaduya and Hastikerna, constructing a temple and statue of Gocula. Their example was followed by the younger brothers, and the ministers of the two princes, and a variety of towns, temples and images embellished the kingdom. Amongst these we may specify the following; Avantipura, a city founded by the king at Viswakeswara Cshetra, in which he also erected a temple to Avantiswar, or Siva, whose worship he had now adopted, in place of the Vaishnava tenets in which he had been educated. He also erected here three statues of the same deity, under the names of Tripureswara, Bhutesa and Vijayesa, with bathing vessels and stools of silver.

Surapur, a city founded by the minister; also a temple of the associated Sivas, and a college for Ascetics at Sureswari cshetra. His son also established a Matha, and his wife built the temple of Sada Siva at Surapur, a city which has since changed its name to Dhacca.* [Not the modern Dhacca of course. There is a place so called in Cashmir upon the Jelum, southwest of Bijore. At present indeed it is scarcely within the limits of the province, and must be comprised in the states, said in Elphinstone's map, to be subject to independEnt Rajas, immediately south of Cashmir.]

The minister who was thus the founder of cities, was also a munificent patron of the learned, and the names of Muctacana, Siva Swami, Ananda- Verdhana, Retnacara and Ramaja are enumerated as illustrious objects of his patronage.† [They are names however not now known.]

The reign of Avantiverma was rendered remarkable by a severe famine, occasioned it is said by the rivers deserting their customary beds, and deluging the surrounding country, destroying the crops and submerging from time to time whole villages: the dearth was so excessive that many perished, amongst whom were Callatta Bhatta, and other eminent men. A khari‡ [The Khari is equal to two bushels, two pecks, one gallon and two-thirds (A. R. v. 98,) or about the third of a quarter. The Dinars, it may be suspected were of copper.] of grain sold for a thousand and fifty dinars.

This impoverished state of the country continued for ten years, till Sujjya remedied the evil: the birth of this person was regarded as mysterious; he was found exposed in an earthen vessel by a Chandali, by whom he was suckled and brought up: hearing the causes of the irregular swelling of the river discussed, he expressed his conviction that he could apply a remedy, and his words having been reported to the king, he was brought before Avantiverma. The mode, he proposed to adopt, he declined explaining, and he was looked upon by the ministers as an idiot or a cheat: the king notwithstanding determined to give him a trial, and allowed him at his request to take from the treasury several bags of Dinars: with these in his possession, Sujjya retired to the site of a village named Anandaca, where, getting into a boat, he advanced into the water: when in the centre of the pool he threw into it a bag of Dinars, and he repeated this wherever the water was collected: the villagers tempted by the hope of obtaining the money, combined to effect its recovery: they first blocked up with large stones, the channel of the Vitasta where it issues from the mountains, the banks being there contiguous: they then drained the country of the accumulated water, by cleaning the canals and outlets, through which it was accustomed to run: the passages being cleared by this contrivance, the dyke was broken down, and the Vitasta rushing forth with an impetus, proportioned to the obstruction, it had encountered for several days, hurried away every obstacle, and flowed in a rapid and fertilising torrent through its old, and through many new channels, to its junction with the Sindhu.* [This cannot be the Indus, but must be the Sind river, which has its source in great Tibet.— Ay. Ac. ii. 158. It is not improbably a branch however of the Indus.] These two streams formerly met near the temple of Vainya Swami, but they now unite, observes our author, between that place and Vishnuswami or the towns of Parihasapur and Phalapur† [The last must be Shehabedinpur where the Behut and Sind unite their streams.— Ay. Ac. ii. 158.] and he adds, that some old trees existed in his time, bearing the marks of the ropes which the Nishadas‡ [The low casts of villagers, he means, it may be supposed, and the ropes may have been part of a Jhula or swinging bridge.] had fastened there. Having collected massive stones to confine the Vitasta, Sujjya constructed the Mahapadma Saras; springing from which receptacle, the Vitasta darts forward with the rapidity of an arrow from a bow.§ [This should be the reservoir or bason at Viva Nag noticed by Forster, ii. 4, and, according to the report which he repeats, constructed by Jahangir: this is an evident error however, as the same bason is thus mentioned by Abulfazl: "at Weersir is the source of the river Behut, with a bason measuring a jereeb, whence the water rushes out with an astonishing noise. The spring is called Wirnag; it has a stone border and on the east side are temples." — Ay. Ac. ii. 155.] Sujjya was not contented with remedying the evil: he also provided against its recurrence, by the construction of dykes and canals, by which without fear of a deluge, the waters were distributed equally and plentifully to all parts of the kingdom; such was the beneficial result of his measures, that a khari of grain, which before the late dearth, sold for 200 Dinars has ever since been restricted to no more than thirty-six.* [This confirms what I have hinted that these Dinars were copper. The Khari is probably Abulfazl's. Kherwar in which he says every thing is estimated in Cashmir: the average price of this, ascertained when fixing the revenue of the province, turned out to be twenty-nine dams or pyce. — Ay. Ac. ii. 161.] Sujjya was bountifully rewarded for his labors, and was enabled to perpetuate his name by founding Sujjyapur on the banks of the Vitasta, where it issues from the reservoir.

After enabling the ingenuity of Sujjya to execute the beneficial arrangements above described, and witnessing the improving condition of his kingdom, Avantiverma being taken ill, determined to end his days at Tripura Cshetra, and accordingly proceeded thither, where he resumed the Vaishnava faith, and listening to the perusal of the Bhagavat Gita, he terminated his career in the year 59, after a reign of 28 years and 3 months.

[A.D. 905.] As Avantiverma was not succeeded by his brother, and not only a new king, but a new Yuvaraja was appointed upon his death, we are left to conclude, either that Sura Verma was dead, or the office of Yuvaraja conferred no title to the succession, and was held at pleasure: it appears too, that at this time, the great officers of the state continued to exercise the authoritative interference they had obtained under the last dynasty, and disposed at will of the functions of royalty. It is said accordingly that the son of Avantiverma, SANCARAVERMA† [Sunkerderma. — Abulfazl.] was made king, by the power of the chamberlain Retnaverdhana, whilst Kernapa, sprung from one of the late king's brothers, procured the nomination of Sucha Verma, the son of Suraverma, to succeed his father in the Yauvarajya, in opposition to the chamberlain and the king, a circumstance which led to a civil war between the superior and subordinate princes. In the contest, many distinguished chieftains were slain, as Sivasacti and others, but the king, with the aid of Samara Verma, and other leaders of note, finally prevailed, and established his authority in the kingdom.

Having thus secured himself at home, he directed his views to foreign conquest, and being joined by the king of Darvabhisara and other princes, he led into the plains an army said to consist of nine lacs of foot, one of horse, and three hundred elephants: he first subdued Prithivi Chandra king of Traigerta* [Part of Lahore.] who having left his son in his capital, advanced to do him homage, but upon beholding the immense host collected by the king, he was alarmed for his personal safety, and suddenly made his escape. Sancara Verma then rooted up the power of Alakhana† [This is a strange name: it should be that of a Musselman but the Musselman princes could not have been then established in Guzerat. There is however a Guzerat in the Punjab, to which the Mohammedans were beginning to extend themselves, and which may be the state intended.] king of Gurjara, seizing his treasures, and kingdom, and leaving him only Tacca Dcsa. He entirely subverted the universal supremacy which had been seized by Bhoja,‡ [Not in his life time it may be supposed, but Sancara Verma flourished about half a century earlier than has hitherto been assigned as Bhoja's date.] and made himself formidable to his neighbours on either side of him, the kings of Darat and Turushca,§ [We still have the Durds north-west of Cashmir; the Turushcas should be therefore to the southeast, and they were the Ghiznian Governors, probably, then dependent on the Samanian princes of Bokhara; the simile is applicable to such a position.] placed between them like Aryaverta between the Himalaya and Vindhya mountains: on his return to Cashmir he founded in Panchasatra, a city named after himself: it was constructed chiefly of materials furnished by the ruins of Parihasapur, and was distinguished by a temple dedicated to Siva as Sancara Gaurisa, and Sugaudhesa, the latter named after the queen Sugandha, the daughter of the king of the North.

The disposition of Sancara Verma to accumulate wealth, degenerated into the most insatiable avarice, and subjected his people to every kind of extortion: he levied heavy tolls and taxes, exacted undue proportions of the produce of land, and let out to farm those lands which were the property of the temples: he cheated his cultivators in the weight of the seed corn, and expected a full return, and he seems to have established a monopoly of sandal, incense, oil, and many other articles of trade: his chief instruments in these oppressions were the Cayasthas ["writing castes", who had historically served the ruling powers as administrators, ministers and record-keepers.], and especially one named Lavata, who received from the king a stipend of 3000 Dinars, whilst Bhallata and other eminent poets about the court, were kept without any pay: the chief minister represented the harshness of his commands in vain to the monarch; to his son who had expatiated to him on the afflictions of his people, he replied by desiring him to wait till he was king, when he might, if he pleased, relieve them, and he was equally insensible to the lesson he might have learnt from the neighbouring country of Darvabhisara, the king of which, with all his sons, had been lately killed in a popular commotion, occasioned by his oppressive government.

Sancara Verma possibly thought he should divert the attention of his subjects to less unpopular occurrences, by engaging them in military expeditions; for he is said now to have led an army to the north,* [Bedia-ad-din says, against the Mohammedans of Khorasan; the followers of Islam having according to him spread their empire even to the Punjab in the preceding reign.] where he subdued the people along the Indus,† [The Sindhu, here the large river, as the other or smaller was already in his possession; the invasion took place into little Thibet, but the invaders could not have proceeded far, as they reached on their return the frontiers of Cashmir in six days. Who the Aurasas, theipeoipleof Urasa, were, is not easily conjectured: they could scarcely have been the Russians, called in the east Urus, whose power at this period, was first making its appearance in a different direction, and it is only in the absence of more satisfactory illustration, that I venture to suggest a connexion, between this word and the Ooloos, the hordes of the Tatars, and clans of the Afghans: the derivative name, applied to the people, is in favor of the conjecture, as it means children, whom the Hindoos consider legitimate, being born of a man and woman of the same cast or tribe.] and entered the Urasa country, where he was shot in the neck with an arrow by a mountaineer; he was immediately put into a litter, and his death, which took place shortly afterwards, concealed from the troops, who were immediately marched back to Cashmir with all possible expedition; they reached Holyasaca, a place on the frontier, in six days, where, being now out of danger, they halted to perform the funeral obsequies of the monarch: he was consumed on a stately pile: three of his queens, a pandit, named Jaya Sinha, and two of his servants, burning themselves with the body.* [These accompaniments of his cremation find an analogy in many parts of the south of India, as noticed by early travellers; they are not however directed by the Sastras, any more than the self-immolation on account of sorrow or sickness, of which we have had several instances; the latter indeed in the present age is prohibited at any place except Prayaga. Several instances of suicide occur in the Hindu books, as Bhishma in the Mahabharata, and the father and the mother of the young ascetic killed accidently by Dasaratha, who mounted the funeral pile with their son, as told in the Raghuvansa, see A. R. x. These cases however are referred to former periods.]

[A.D. 924.] The son and successor of the last king, Gopala Verma, being yet an infant, was placed under the tutelage of his mother Sugandha: she became regent during his minority, and her ascendancy involved the country in a series of intestine disorders, as she seems to have been a woman of a weak, if not vicious character; the minister and chief treasurer Prabhacara Deva was her favorite, and engrossed the whole power of the state. This man made Camalaca, also named Sahi, Governor of Bhandapur, but he proving disobedient, it was taken from him, not without a conflict apparently, and given to Toramana, the son of Lalita.

The reign of Gopala was short; he was carried off by magical incantations, it is said, by the contrivance apparently of Prabhacara, who was afraid of being called to account for the great deficiencies in the public treasury, which were ascribable to his own peculations; Rama Deva, the person employed by him, afterwards confessed the fact, and as the minister disappears from the history, we may suppose he paid the penalty of his crime. Sugandha, in the midst of her faults, appearing to entertain no ambitious views for herself, and to have cherished the memory of her son.

A brother of Gopala succeeded him, but he expired after the short term of ten days; and as with him the race of Sancara Verma ended, the kingdom was now without a legal occupant: Sugandha seated herself on the throne, but either at her own desire, or compelled by the military leaders of the kingdom, she soon made way for another prince.

In this stage of Cashmirian history we are introduced rather abruptly to some new actors in the scene, who continued for a long period to influence very materially the disposal of the crown: they are of a military character evidently; it is only doubtful, whether they were part of the native forces, or whether they were mercenary bands of foreign adventurers. They are denominated Tatris and Ecangas, and it is perhaps not straining probability overmuch, to conjecture that our author intends these words to represent what we should write Tatars and Afghans; men, who at all times have sold their services to the princes of India, and have not unfrequently become the masters of those whom they originally obeyed.* [The word Tatar, for Tatri, is an obvious conjecture: Ecanga for Afghan, is not so satisfactory. Eca means one, and Anga limb or body figuratively as well as literally, and Ecanga may refer to some peculiarity of discipline, as to troops, fighting in a body. The origin of the word Afghan, says Elphinstone, is entirely uncertain, but it is probably modern: it is known to the Afghans themselves only through the medium of the Persian language; it has no meaning however in Persian, and they therefore probably borrowed it from some other quarter transmuting it in their ordinary manner: there is some probability therefore about the Etymology suggested: the Afghans it is asserted inhabited the mountains of Ghor at a very remote period, and seem to have been established in the north eastern mountains of Afghanistan in the ninth century, (Elphinstone's Cabul, 157,) expelling thence, probably about that time, the Damaras, who from our history appear to have occupied, till the ninth century, that part of the vicinity of Cashmir: the mercenary, character of the Tatris is repeatedly alluded to: they are said to have been attracted into the country by the Hundicas of the king of Canouj, and they are compared in one place to prostitutes who saw no merit in a man but his money.]

Whatever may have been her inducements, Sugandha, after holding the reins of government for two years, recommended to the ministers and officers to chuse as king Nirjita Verma the grandson of Sura Verma: it was objected to him however that he was a cripple, and therefore not fit to rule, but as his family descent was highly respectable, the chiefs determined to nominate his son, and Partha* [Bareth. -- Ay. Ac.] was accordingly crowned king of Cashmir.

At the end of ten years, the leaders of the Ecangas dissatisfied with the prince, and jealous of the greater share which the Tatri foot had in his nomination, determined to replace Sugandha in the government: they accordingly proceeded to her residence at Hushcapur, and placing her at their head returned to the capital: they were met by the Tatris in the pay of the king, and after a severe conflict were totally routed: the queen was taken prisoner and put to death at Nishpalacaluhar.

The victorious troops new considered the kingdom at their disposal, and yielded reluctant obedience to their prince for a further period of five years; at last their insubordination broke out with ungovernable force, and their avarice, which was insatiable, led them to accept the offers of the father of Partha, and to place the cripple on the throne. The revolution was facilitated by a period of general distress, occasioned by a famine, consequent upon the unseasonable inclemency of the weather.

The reign of this prince lasted but one year: his throne and life were assailed by various enemies: his son Partha was endeavouring to recover his supremacy; his ministers SANCARA VERDHANA and Sugandhaditya were plotting for their own accession, and his queen was engaged in a criminal intercourse with the latter, and prepared to commit any atrocity to secure the undisturbed gratification of her libidinous passion: it is not at all extraordinary therefore, that he should have been crowned one year, and deposed and slain the next.

[A.D. 913 / C.Y. 97.] The successor of the cripple was an infant son, named CHACRA Verma who under the protection of his maternal grandfather, enjoyed the sovereignty ten years: at the expiration of this time however, the sons of Meru Verdhana, the elder of whom, Sancara Verdhana, was minister to the late king, set up another of his sons, Sura Verma, and expelled the reigning prince: a most turbulent period now ensues, and the several princes rise and fall, sometimes repeatedly, in rapid succession.

[A.D. 953-9 / C.Y. 7.] Sura Verma, after a nominal reign of one year, was deposed by the discontented Tatri troops, and PARTHA again crowned king; he soon made way for Chacra Verma, once more, whose bribes had won these venal soldiers to his interest: unable however to satisfy their repeated demands, he was obliged to abdicate, and seek safety in flight, whilst Sancara Verdhana endeavoured to effect a purchase of the crown from the mercenary troops; in this he was foiled; his ambassador to them, his own brother Sambhu Verdhana, making the bargain for himself, and being elevated by them to the throne: a measure however that appears to have contributed to check, if it did not annihilate the power, of the pretorian Tatris.

Chacra Verma in his flight had found an asylum near Dhacca* [See the note on Surapur, the city itself must have been in the quarter of Cashmir peopled by the Dimaras.] at the house of a Dimara, and one it may be presumed who was possessed of powerful influence with the mountain tribes: induced by the liberal promises of the king, and his reiterated assurances of eternal gratitude, he collected a considerable number of his countrymen, and advanced with Chacra Verma once more towards the capital.

The entrance of the king into Srinagar was effected without opposition: indignant at the fraud practised on him by his brother, Sancara Verdhana had assembled an army, and advanced from Muruwa,† [Any dry or desert soil, of which we have several extensive tracts to the south-west of Cashmir.] where he was stationed at the period of his negotiation for the crown: to maintain the kingdom, Sambhu Verdhana had marched to oppose him with the troops in his interest, and the capital of Cashmir, being thus left without defenders, fell an easy prey to the invader: the approach of Chacra Verma appears to have reunited the two brothers, as we find them both present in a furious conflict fought near Padmapur between their forces, and the Damaras under Chacra Verma, in which the latter obtained a most decisive victory: five or six thousand of the Tatris were slain, Sancara Verdhana graced the bed of heroes, and Sambhu Verdhana attempting to reassemble the scattered fugitives of his army, was shortly afterwards taken prisoner and put to death: the power of the Tatris appears to have been completely broken by their defeat, as although mention of them does recur in the course of the history, no important part in the revolutions of the crown, is henceforward assigned to them.

Chacra Verma returned to the capital in triumph: mounted on a superb charger, in the centre of his victorious cavalry, holding in his left hand his helmet, and touching his turban in courtesy to the crowd with his right, he entered the city, amidst the clamour of kettle drums and the shouts of the multitude; he soon however forfeited his popularity; being fascinated by the attractions of two daughters of a Dombha* [A man of the lowest class, by whom all impure offices are performed.] who, as public singers, appeared before the king, he took them into his haram, and devoted his whole time to their impure society; the consequences were obvious; he incurred the reprehension of the wise and respectable, and what was of more importance to him, by promoting the low connexions of his favorites, above his former ministers of the military and sacerdotal orders, he roused their indignation and resentment.

Amongst those who felt aggrieved by the preference thus shewn to an out-cast tribe, the Damaras were particularly distinguished. They who had been the chief instruments of the king's triumph, were now neglected with the rest of his adherents, and compelled to make way for those, whose birth and services gave them no claim to pre-eminence. They felt the neglect of the king the more severely, as contrasted with his past assurances of favor, and they determined to make him suffer the effects of their vindictive spirit: a party of them accordingly contrived to gain by night, admission into the palace, and falling upon the king, in the apartment of his favorite mistress, unarmed and unprepared, they easily sacrificed him to their fury: he was slain after a reign of nearly fourteen years, interrupted from time to time, by the temporary rule of his occasionally successful competitors.

Unmatti Varti, a son of Partha, was now placed upon the throne, in preference to his father, who was still alive; his claims to this election cannot be easily conceived, especially, as in the grovelling tastes of this prince, as well as in ferocity of temper, he exceeded all who reigned before or after his time; his associates were dancers, singers, and buffoons; his favorite pastime, fighting birds or beasts, in which Parvagupta, by his superior skill, was his principal minister and friend; notwithstanding which, he engaged in treasonable designs, aided by Bhubhatta, Servata, Saja, Cumuda and Amritacara: these individuals divided amongst themselves the chief offices of profit and power, whilst Raccasa, a Damara, commanded the army. By the advice of these miscreants, and the suggestion of his own sanguinary disposition, the king commanded a general slaughter to be made of all whom he thought he had occasion to hate or fear, and did not spare the members of his own family; his brothers he shut up in a dungeon, and starved to death, and his own father was dragged from his retirement, and murdered by order of this unnatural son: his barbarity did not stop there, he went to view his father's corpse, and made the murderers shew the wounds, that each had inflicted: they hesitated to do this in the king's presence, when Parvagupta, to reprove the backwardness of one of them, his own son, Devagupta, struck his dagger into the lifeless body, to the great mirth and satisfaction, it is said, of the king: in further proof of this prince's atrocious character it is related that upon its becoming necessary to oppose the Damaras, who pillaged the country with impunity, the king used to amuse himself with cutting off the heads of his attendants and subjects and the breasts of the women, in order to try the temper of his sword, and perfect himself, he said, in the use of his weapons. Death put a stop to his ferocious practices, and released Cashmir from his tyranny, after it had endured it little more than two years.

The son of the Parricide, Sura Verma* [Abulfazl confounds this with the former prince of the same name.] succeeded him: he was yet an infant, under the management of his mother, and his nominal reign was of short duration. Camala Verdhana, who had been employed to clear the country of the Damaras, had succeeded in the undertaking, and had made peace and alliance with the chiefs of Campana and Marawa. He now returned accompanied by all the leaders, and the Tatris and Ecangas, and displayed  all the pomp of royalty, although he had not assumed the name of king: doubtful of his purpose, and deserted by all her late adherents, the queen fled with her infant, unattended, into the forests.

Camala Verdhana although now in possession of the military power, and consequently of the kingdom, hesitated to mount the throne: a piece of folly our author observes, only ascribable to the treacherous counsels of unfaithful ministers or to the adumbration of his intellect, as a punishment of evil done in a former life. His moderation did not proceed from indifference to royalty, as he collected the brahmans, and desiring them to nominate a king, attempted to win them over to his interests. The opportunity was lost; the brahmans desirous of selecting a suitable person, or instigated by other motives, deliberated for some time about the choice, and dispatched emissaries to ascertain the merits and claims of various candidates.

Amongst others, the widow of Unmattiverti sent messengers to the brahmans to solicit their support of her son. On their road, they were encountered by a youth, who was just returning to his own country, and who accompanied them to the capital, where the brahmans, unable to resist what our author thinks the impulse of destiny, proclaimed him, as soon as they beheld him, sovereign of Cashmir.

The person thus suddenly elevated to the throne was Yasascara Deva: he was the son of Camadeva, born of Viradeva, an inhabitant of the village of Pisachapur. Camadeva in his youth had been brought up by Meruverdhana, and being a lad of abilities, rose with the patronage of that minister to the Ganjadhicarya, the command of the guards, which he held under the reign of Sancara Verma. Having occasion to dread the hostility of Prabhacara, the favourite of Sugandha, he determined to place his son out of danger, and sent him into another country with a young friend named Phalguna. They had resided abroad for some time: at length his father being dead, and propitious dreams exciting his hopes, Yasascara resolved to return to his native country, and it was upon this occasion that he encountered the agents of the queen, and learning from them the object of their journey, accompanied them to the capital, where he so unaccountably gained the unsolicited choice of the sacerdotal electors.

[A.D. 981.] The vigour and equity of the new king fully justified his election; he re-established order and security, and gave to Cashmir a period of repose which had been long unknown: theft and murder were abolished; the roads were perfectly safe, and the shops were left open throughout the night without a guard; the distinction of classes was rigidly maintained, and the Chandalas no longer administered the affairs of state, nor did the Brahmans carry arms; we have several anecdotes of this king's acumen and justice: one of them is narrated by Abulfazl, a reference to whom will perhaps be sufficient to satisfy any curiosity that may be excited on this head.

After promoting the happiness of his subjects for several years, Yasascara was doomed to suffer the loss of his own: one of his wives was detected in an intrigue with a watchman of the palace, a man of low cast, and it appears that the king was more afflicted by this latter circumstance, than any thing else, as it had profaned the purity of his birth; to expiate the stain thus contracted, he made liberal donations to the Brahmans, and founded a Matha, but continuing to dwell upon his disgrace, his health became affected, and he retired to the college of his own foundation to expire.

Before leaving the palace, the king directed the nobles and leaders to elect as his successor, his kinsman Vernata, the son of Ramadeva, passing over his own son Sangramadeva, of whose legitimacy he entertained some doubts: the arrangement thus made was far from agreeable to the men in power, for Vernata was a prince in the vigour of life, whilst Sangramadeva was an infant, during whose feeble administration they flattered themselves they should be able to appropriate the wealth and influence of the government to themselves and their adherents: by their intrigues, therefore, Vernata was thrown into prison, and although he appears to have escaped at the time, he shortly afterwards fell a victim to the jealousy and ambition of the strongest party, by whom Sangramadeva was established in the government.

The old king lingered some time after he had made the fruitless disposition of the succession, but he was surrounded by the creatures of the intriguers, and there is reason to suppose that they accelerated his death by poison; Parvagupta and his partizans had now obtained what was still but a secondary object of their ambition, and their past success encouraged them to elevate their views to royalty itself: the seasons befriended their designs, and the discontent of the people occasioned by the pressure of a general scarcity, afforded them a ready instrument for effecting their purpose: an insurrection was speedily excited: a tumultuary mob, chiefly composed of the military, and headed by Parvagupta and his confederates, attacked the palace; they slew Rama Verdhana, the chief minister, who had attempted in vain to defend it, and penetrated to the presence of the king. Seizing his person they bound him with fetters of flowers, dragged him to another apartment, and put him to death; after which, they tied a stone to his neck, and threw the body into the Vitasta. PARVAGUPTA then in complete armour, and with his sword drawn, seated himself on the throne, and received the homage of his accomplices and of the terrified citizens.

After a short reign of little more than a year, this prince suffered the fate due to his crimes; he was slain by a party of enemies at Sureswari Cshetra and left the crown to his son.

Cshemagupta was a prince of depraved habits, and spent his time in low and sensual indulgence; wine and women occupied his whole attention, and profligate characters engrossed his company; it was not at all extraordinary therefore that the kingdom should become a prey to civil dissension and foreign inroad, as the affairs of state were entirely neglected, and the ministers alone fit to conduct them, were obliged to abandon the court in order to avoid the ridicule and abuse, or even personal contumely which they were compelled to receive from the prince and the companions of his revels: consequently, besides private hostilities between Phalguna, and some of the king's friends, the ruler of Campana engaging in a contest with the Damaras, burnt and destroyed the Vihar of Jayendra, and demolished a brass image of Sugata, and the king of the Chasas compelled Cshemagupta to cede to him six and thirty villages, after burning many Vihars.* [These broils which are very obscurely and confusedly narrated in the original, were perhaps of a religious complexion, and may be connected with the persecution of the Bouddhas, of which so much is said and so little is known, by the Hindus.]

The ruler of Lahore, Sinha Raja, now gave Cshemagupta in marriage his daughter Didda, the grand-daughter by the mother's side of Sahi; a princess destined to bear an important part in the subsequent revolutions of Cashmir: her charms seem to have had little effect upon her husband, for after his marriage he adopted a new amusement, and devoted all his time to the pleasures of the chace. They were the occasion of his death, for having pursued a jackall for a considerable distance, and urged the beast to the pains of death, the prince observed flame issuing from the mouth of the animal as it expired; struck with alarm at this portent, he was instantly seized with a fit of trembling which terminated in the Lutamaya* [We have here two strange subjects; in the superstitious idea of flames issuing from the jackall's mouth, and the nature of the Lutamaya disease: the first is common; it is the current belief in India that any animal urged to death by a chace emits flames from his mouth before he expires.] fever, a fever that is invariably fatal: he was carried to Cshema Matha near Hushcapur, where he died, after a reign of eight years and six months.

Abhimanyu, the son of Cshemagupta, succeeded his father; at first his early age, and afterwards his tranquil temper, left the reins of administration in the hands of his mother, whose defective character was far from equal to the task, and whose supremacy introduces us consequently to a scene of unprecedented tumult and disorder.

The queen's first impulse was to burn herself with her husband, from no better motive the Hindu writer admits, than the pride of birth, and fear of Phalguna, the late king's minister, and father-in-law, by another of the monarch's wives, and who on that account had always been hostile to Didda: she was also embarrassed at the outset of her career, by a conflagration of a most alarming nature, which broke out at the fair of Tungimara, and extended to Vitala Sutrapata, consuming an immense number of villages, and many large palaces and temples. This added to the dread of Phalguna, now all powerful, would certainly have given her a claim to the honors of a Sati, had she not been dissuaded from it by Naravahana, a man of great merit and fidelity, attached to her service. The return of one of the king's sons, Kerdama, contributed also to the consolidation of her authority: he had been to the Ganges with the bones of Cshemagupta, attended by a select body of troops, and as he was no friend to the usurping Phalguna, that minister thought it politic to come to an accommodation with the queen, and upon the reconciliation taking place, he withdrew for a season from public affairs.

The next opponent of the regent's authority, and she appears to have encountered opposition in rapid succession, were Mahiman and Patala, the sons of Suja and Bhubhatta, two of Parvagupta's friends and co- adjutors: these youths had been brought up in the palace, but jointly resenting some personal affronts offered by the queen regent to Mahiman, they plotted a conspiracy for his elevation to the throne. In this they were joined by several of the leading men of Parihasapur, and Lalitapur and succeeded in levying a respectable force, and leading it against the Ram Didda, with the assistance of Naravahana, prepared to engage them, but unwilling to trust the decision to the chance of war, she engaged by large presents, the Brahmans of Lalitapur to come forward as mediators: their mediation was irresistible, and Mahiman and his confederates were compelled, although reluctantly, to abandon their design, and submit to the forgiveness of the queen: a curious proof of the influence of the sacerdotal order in Cashmir in comparatively modern times.

One of the chief leaders of the late conspiracy was Yasodhara, to whom the queen gave the government of Campana, to bind him more firmly to her interests: a war now arose between him and Sahi, governor or king of Dhacca, and the latter was defeated, and compelled to pay tribute: proud of his success, and instigated by evil counsellors, Yasodhara soon found cause of complaint against the regent, and led his army against her, supported by Naravahana. The regent resolved to encounter him in the field, and a battle accordingly ensued, in which Yasodhara was defeated: he was taken prisoner, and thrown into confinement with all his family, whilst many of his adherents, also captives, were thrown into the Vitasta, with large stones fastened to their necks.

It would be useless to prosecute the story of civil discord further: the nobles and governors had in fact all become more or less independent of a monarchy, long feebly administered, and were ready on every slight pretext to lead their military followers to the field. By the counsels and conduct of Naravahana, the regent uniformly triumphed, and appears to have deserved the success she enjoyed: his death however was the ruin of her credit, if not of her power, and she appears hereafter in the character only of a cruel, libidinous, and ambitious woman.

At this period Abhimanyu died, our author says of a consumption: Mohammed Azim asserts that he was poisoned by his mother. The former account, however, is most trustworthy, especially as corroborated by the sequel, which represents her as engaged for a year afterwards, in laying the foundations of cities, and pious and public edifices, in order to dispel her grief. In this way she is said to have founded Cancanapur and Diddapur Mathas, for the Saura and Lata Brahmans, and the temples of Abhimanyu Swami and Didda Swami; several Chatur Salas or Serais, and many Vihars, and to have made the conflux of the Sindh and Vitasta a place of great sanctity. At the end of twelve months, however, her ambition revived, and upon reassuming the administration she thought it advisable to rid herself of her grandson Nandigupta, who had succeeded his father, and whom she put to death.

Tribhuvana, another grandson, was next placed upon the throne, but speedily shared the fate of his brother, and a third named Bhimagupta was elevated to the dangerous distinction. Didda now chose a new favorite, and a Chasa named Tunga, originally a keeper of buffaloes, and subsequently  a courier in the service of the minister, enjoyed her affection and favours. He soon acquired the ascendancy at court, and thrust himself and his five brothers into all the most important posts, The intrusion of this upstart race, was warmly resented by the Cashmirian nobles, who called to their assistance Vigraha Vaga, a nephew of the queen's, and a man of high spirit and great power: Tunga was obliged to resign his newly acquired authority, and preserved his life only by the interference of the Brahmans, whom the bribes of the queen had induced to intercede. Vigraha, finding it impracticable therefore to afford that redress to the Cashmirians which they had solicited, retired to his own territory, and left the ascendancy  to be recovered by the favorite of the queen, who notwithstanding his low origin, appears to have been a man of firmness and activity. The young prince Bhimagupta betraying, as he advanced in years, some indications of an independent spirit, was now removed from the throne, and privately put to death. Kerdama Raja and several of the leading men, suffered the same fate, and the Brahmans who had saved the life of Tunga were thrown by him into prison, probably to compel them to refund the reward of their late mediation. Seriously alarmed for their safety, the nobles now called to their aid the Prince Prithivipala, who marched with his troops to their aid, and occupied the capital. Tunga, however, foiled his adversaries: advancing upon the city with a large force, he set the suburbs on fire, and cutting off the retreat of the enemy, effected the destruction of a great part of their army. Prithivipala* [The territory governed by this prince is not named: he might in fact have not yet been in possession of any, as the son only of the sovereign of Lahore, Anandapala, whose successor about the date of the above events, is named by Ferishta, Pitterugepal. Dow, i. 58. It must be observed however that if the dates of our history and the Mahommedan history accorded, we should have had in the former, some notice of the repeated visits to Cashmir paid by Mahmood in 1005, 1015 and 1018; the history of Calhana coming down to 1025: one or other however may err by a few years, if indeed the error is not as much of facts as of dates. The author of the Tabcat Acberi states indeed that Mahmoud was repeatedly foiled in his attempts to penetrate into Cashmir.] was compelled to submit to Tunga, and to purchase his safety by engaging to pay tribute to the sovereign of Cashmir.

The transaction thus described, is the last instance of civil dissension that seems to have occurred under the reign of Didda Rani: triumphant over both foreign and domestic foes, she was now at leisure to regulate the succession to the kingdom, and adopted Sangramadeva, the son of her brother Udaya Raja, as her associate in the government, and as the future supreme ruler of Cashmir. [A.D. 1025 / C.Y. 79.] This was the last act of her life, and is the last event recorded by our author, whose history closes with the death of Didda Rani, and accession of Sangramadeva in the 79th year of the Cashmirian cycle, or the year of our Lord 1025, and after the queen had held the sole sovereignty of the country for three and twenty years.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.

FIRST PERIOD

(In which the duration of the several reigns is not specified.) / Date according to the original / Adjusted date


Cashmir colonised by Casyapa / B.C. 3714 / B.C. 2666
Fifty-three Princes; names unknown; reigned / yrs, 1266 / 1266
Gonerda 1st. Cali. 653 or / B.C. 2448 /1400
Damodara 1st / -- / --
Gonerda 2nd / -- / --
Thirty-five Princes; names forgotten / -- / --
Lava / -- / --
Cusesaya / -- / --
Khagendra / -- / --
Surendra / -- / --
Godhara / -- / --
Suverna / -- / --
Janaca / -- / --
Sachinara / -- / --
Asoca / -- / --
Jaloca / -- / --
Damodara 2nd / -- / --
Hushca (Tartar Prince) / -- / --
Jushca (Tartar Prince) / -- / --
Canishca (Tartar Prince) / -- / --
Abhimanyu / -- / --
Fifty-one reigns ending / B.C.1182 / 388

The grounds on which the adjustments are made are explained in the following remarks.

SECOND PERIOD

In which the duration of the several reigns is specified.

FIRST OR GONERDIYA DYNASTY.

King / Years of reign / Date of the original / Adjusted date


Gonerda 3d / 35 / BC.1182 / B.C. 388  
Vibhishana / 53 / 1147 / 370  
Indrajit / 35 6 / 1096 / 352  
Ravana / 30 / 1060-6 / 334  
Vibhishana 2nd / 35 6 / 1030-6 / 316  
Nara / 39 9 / 993 / 298  
Siddha / 60 / 953-3 / 280
Utpalacsha / 30 6 / 893-3 / 262  
Hiranyacsha / 37 7 / 862-9 / 244  
Hiranyacula / 60 / 825-2 / 226  
Vamacula / 60 / 765-2 / 208  
Mibiracula / 70 / 705-2 / 200  
Vaca / 63 / 635-2 / 182  
Cshitinanda / 30 / 572-2 / 161  
Vasunanda / 52 2 / 542-2 / 146  
Nara 2d / 60 / 490 / 128  
Acsha / 60 / 430 / 100  
Gopaditya / 60 / 370 / 82  
Gokerna / 57 / 310 / 64  
Narendraditya / 36 3 / 253 / 46  
Yudhishthir / 48 / 216-9 / 28  
Twenty-one Princes reigns / 1013 3 or 378 years,
Average / 48 or 18 years

SECOND OR ADITYA DYNASTY

Pratapaditya / 32 / B.C. 168-9 / BC. 10
Jalaucas / 32 / 136-9 / AD. 22
Tunjina / 36 / 104-9 / 54
Vijaya / 8 / 66-9 / 90
Jayendra / 27 / 60-9 / 98
Arya / 47 / 23-9 / 135  
Six Princes reigned / 192 years.
Average / 32 years

THIRD OR GONERDIYA DYNASTY AGAIN

Meghavahana / 34 / A. D. 23-3 / --
Sreshtasena / 30 / 57-9 / --
Hiranya / 30-2 / 87-3 / --
Matrigupta / 4-9 / 117-5 / 471
Pravarasena / 63 / 122-2 / 476
Yudhishthir 2d / 39 3 / 185-3 / 499
Nandravat / 13 / 224-5 / 522
Ranaditya / 300 / 237-5 / 545
Vicramaditya / 42 / 537-5 / 568
Baladitya / 36 / 579-5 / 592

Ten Princes reigned 592 years and 2 months, according to the original computation; 433 according to the adjusted one, furnishing in either case an inadmissible average.  

FOURTH OR CARCOTA DYNASTY.

King / Reign / Date A.D.


Durlabhaverddhana / 36 / 615- 5
Pratapaditya / 50 / 651- 5
Chandrapira / 8 8 / 701- 5
Tarapira / 4 / 710- 1
Lalitaditya / 36 7 / 714 1
Cuvalayaditya / l / 750- 8
Vajraditya / 7 / 751- 8
Prithivyapira / 4 2 / 758- 8
Sangramapira / 7 / 762- 10
Jajja / 3 / 769- 10
Jayapira / 31 / 772- 10
Lalitapira / 12 / 803- 10
Sangramapira 2nd / 7 / 815- 10
Vrihaspati / 12 / 822- 10
Ajitapira / 36 / 834- 10
Anangapira / 3 / 870- 10
Utpalapira / 2 / 873- 10

Seventeen Princes reigned 260 years and five months, averaging little more than fifteen years to a reign: from the commencement of this dynasty therefore the chronology of the original requires no modification.

FIFTH. THE UTPALA OR VERMA DYNASTY

King / Reign / Date A.D. / Date in Cashmir yrs.


Aditya Verma / 28 3 / 875- 10 / --
Sancara Verma / 18 8 / 904- 1 / 50
Gopala Verma / 2 / 921- 9 / 77
Sancata / 10 dys. / -- / --
Sugandha Rani / 2 / 924- 9 / 79
Partha / 15 / 926- 9 / 81
Nirjita Verma, also called Pangu or the Cripple / 1 / 941- 9 / 96
Chacra Verma / 10 / 942-9 / 97
Sura Verma / 1 / 952-9 / 7
Partha, a second time / 0 6 / 953-9 / 8
Chacra Verma do. / 0 6 / 951-3 / 8 6
Sancara Verdhana / 1 6 / 954-9 / 9
Chacra Verma, a third time / 1 4 / 956-3 / 10 6
Unmatti Verma / 2 2 / 957-7 / 11 10
Sura Verma 2d / 0 6 / 959-9 / 14

Twelve Princes reigned 84 years and five months, averaging little more than eight years to a reign. Besides the Salivahana aera, the original introduces with this dynasty a new method of computing, by a cycle of 100 years.

LAST OR MIXED DYNASTIES.

King / Reign / Date A.D. / Cashmir years


Yasascara Deva / 9 / 960-3 / 14 6
Sangrama Deva / 0 6 / 969-3 / 23 6
Parvagupta / 1 6 / 969-9 / 24
Cshemagupta / 8 6 / 971-3 / 25 6
Abhimanyu / 14 0 / 979-9 / 34
Nandigupta / 1 1 / 993-9 / 48
Tribhuvana / 2 0 / 994-10 / 49 1
Baimagupta / 4 3 / 996-10 / 51 1
Didda Rani / 23 6 / 1001- 1 / 55 4
Sangrama Deva / -- / 1024- 7 / 78 10

Nine Princes reigned to the accession of Sangrama Deva 64 years and four months, averaging rather more than seven years to a reign.
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Part 5 of 7

Remarks on the History and Chronology of Cashmir

Having now completed the sketch of Cashmirian History, it may be expected that we should revert to it for a moment, for the purpose of taking a concise view of the light which it reflects upon the General History and Chronology of the Hindus; objects of more interest than the local transactions which it details, and which, circumscribed within the narrow limits of a petty state, of remote site and difficult access, are neither in themselves, nor in their effects upon their neighbours, of any magnitude or importance: it may be added however that they are of the same general character, as the events which make up History in all countries, and may not be therefore devoid of interest, to the mind that can be contented to contemplate man, in so sequestered a region, as the valley of Cashmir.

It appears very evident that Cashmir has been a regular kingdom for a period, that transcends the limits of legitimate history, and even if we feel disposed to contest the accounts of our author, and to dispute his series of Dynasties and Princes, we must still rest satisfied with the proof of its existence either under the names of Caspapyrus or Abisarus* [See Appendix, No. VIII.] as early as the days of Herodotus and Alexander: there can be no doubt however of the regular organization of this state at a period, much antecedent, and it is probable that in remote times it exercised a more decided interference in the concerns of India, than it has done for many centuries past: it seems highly probable also that it was the original dominion of the Pandara princes, and that it furnished in them, Sovereigns to the plains of Hindustan.

The religion of Cashmir has in like manner been Hindu from a very remote date. Originally no doubt it was the Ophite or snake worship, but this is a part of the Hindu ritual, and the Nagas are included in the orthodox pantheon: the adoration of Siva was soon ingrafted upon this, even if the two rites were not originally identified.

It appears that the Bauddha schism was known in Cashmir at a very early period, and possibly preceded the introduction of a fully organized Brahmanical priesthood: it probably in short preceded the introduction of the Brahmanical caste. Asoca, although a worshipper of Siva, is said to have countenanced this new faith. His son Jaloca commenced his reign with serious efforts to suppress it, and it was possibly partly with this view, that he introduced the colony of Brahmans from Canouj. Towards the close of his reign however he relaxed in his hostility to the Bauddhists, and his successor, although a pious worshipper of Siva, appears to have participated in the same feeling. The legend of Damodara's transformation, indicates his having incurred the enmity of the Brahmanical order.

The period that immediately ensues, is of great interest in the religious History of India. Cashmir became a Bauddha country under Tartar princes, shortly after the death of Sacya Sinha, according to our author, and he agrees nearly with the Chinese authorities, as to the period at which that legislator flourished, and according to them, in this very country. The latter seems to be an error; it may however indicate the direction where the birth of the elder Buddha happened, and in connexion with the circumstances narrated by the Sanscrit writer, seems to point out an extra-Indian origin for this religion:
* [Sir William Jones alludes to the white and ruddy complexion of Buddha as calculated to convince Mons. Bailly of the Tartar origin of this legislator. Mons. Remusat (in the Journal Des Savans, Octre. 1819,) commenting on some of the epithets descriptive of Buddha, contained in a Polyglot Bauddha vocabulary compiled in China (or rather translated from some Indian work, one of the languages  being Sanscrit,) notices this epithet Suvernachhavi ([x]) the golden hued, but without being inclined to draw such a conclusion from it as Mons. Bailly might have drawn. The description of this Buddha however, as contained in the Vocabulary described by Mons. Remusat, Mines de L' Orient, vol. iv. connected with the circumstances we have had occasion to notice in the text, tends very much to confirm the idea of the original Bauddha schism having been imported from Tartary. The name of this legislator, Sacya, is further evidence to the same effect: its Sanscrit etymologies are very unsatisfactory, and it was not improbably connected with the national name Sacae by which the Eastern Scythians or Tartars were formerly known both in Europe and India. The distinction between the different Buddhas of whom Gautama, prince of Behar, was one, must always be borne in mind.] its predominance in Cashmir was of short duration, as although not extirpated, it speedily and finally gave way before the preponderance of the Brahmanical faith. If any conclusion might be drawn from such imperfect premises, it might be supposed, that the inhabitants of Cashmir originally followed an idolatrous system of their own, to which they superadded a few ill defined Gods and ceremonies, borrowed from the Brahmans of the plains; that whilst they were yet open to conversion, an attempt was made from the other side, or from Tartary, to introduce Buddhaism amongst them, which was combated and finally frustrated by southern assistance: the national faith of Cashmir has ever since continued Hindu, and the almost exclusive form of adoration has been that addressed to Siva and his Sacti.

The chronology of the Raja Taringini is not without its interest. The dates are regular, and for a long time both probable and consistent, and as they may enable us to determine the dates of persons and events, in other parts of India; as well as in Cashmir, a short review of them may not be wholly unprofitable.

The more recent the period, the more likely it is that its chronology will be correct; and it will be therefore advisable to commence with the most modern, and recede gradually to the most remote dates. The Table prefixed was necessarily constructed on a different principle, and depends upon the date of Gonerda the 3rd, which, as I have previously explained, is established according to the Chronology of the text. Gonerda 3rd lived, according to Calhana [Kalhana] Pandit, 2330 years before the year of Saca 1070, or A.D. 1148, and consequently his accession is placed B.C. 1182: the periods of each reign are then regularly deduced till the close of the history, which is thus placed in the year of Christ 1025, or about 120 years before the author's own time. That the reign of the last sovereign did terminate about the period assigned, we may naturally infer, not only from its proximity to what we may conclude was the date at which the work was written, but from the absence of any mention of Mahmud's invasions, and the introduction of a Prithivi Pala, who is very possibly the same with the Pitteruge Pal of Lahore, mentioned in the Mohammedan histories.

Taking therefore the date of Didda Rani, as being at least very near the truth, we may go up the list with some confidence through three dynasties at least. The three last series present an aggregate of thirty-eight princes, and but 409 years, giving us less than eleven years to a reign, an average rate, with which the most cautious chronologist may be contented. The first of the three series, which presents the longest average, gives us less than 16 years to a reign, which is equally unexceptionable, and we have therefore every reason to conclude that the chronology of our author is perfectly accurate, as far back as the year 616 of the Christian aera.

The History of Cashmir is too purely domestic during the period comprised within these limits, for us to be able to apply the chronology of the author to the establishment of dates, for incidents or persons of interest in the records of Hindustan. Sancara Verma is said to have subverted the extensive empire acquired by Bhoja, and he may be supposed therefore to have been nearly contemporary with that prince. Sancara Verma reigned from 904 to 922. The date of Bhoja is now fixed with tolerable certainty within the limits of the beginning of the tenth and that of the eleventh century. The Raja Taringini however would throw him farther back, if he preceded Sancara Verma, and place him in the close of the ninth century. We need not expect however extreme accuracy in this matter, and may rest satisfied with considering it as an approximation to the truth, and generally as an additional testimony of Bhoja's having flourished early in the tenth century.

The reign of Jayapira from 772 to 803 may hereafter throw some light upon the literary history of the Hindus, when the writings of the authors patronized by him shall be met with. It is highly probable that Cshira is the commentator on Amera, in which case, we have advanced one step in the antiquity of that philologist. What author is meant by Bhatta is not ascertained; it cannot be Mammatta Bhatta, the Cashmirian author of the Cavya Pracasa, as that writer must have been subsequent to Sri Hersha, a king of Cashmir, who reigned about 40 years after our history closes, and to whom, or to whose works, frequent reference is made in the Cavya Pracasa.

Another set of names of literary interest occurs in the reign of Lalitaditya, from A.D. 714 to 750. Two of the three are yet to be ascertained, but it is highly satisfactory to have fixed the date of so eminent a writer as Bhavabhuti. If Yasoverma, king of Canouj, should elsewhere appear to be the same as Kirti Verma, it would tend to some important conclusions in this branch of literary enquiry. The state of India at the period of Lalitaditya's reign is tolerably well detailed by our author, but it is unnecessary to examine the subject here, as it has been dwelt upon at some length in the note relating to his supposed military marches.

After passing the limits of the year 616, the character of our author's chronology undergoes an unfavourable change. Thirty-seven princes in three dynasties reign 1797 years, or on an average more than 48 years each, an average term which very much exceeds possibility, and which can only be explained by supposing either, that the number of princes is defective, and that the reigns of those who have disappeared from the record, have been added to those of the princes lucky enough to have escaped oblivion, or that the whole are carried too far back into antiquity, and the date of Gonerda from which it starts, having been made much too remote, it was necessary to elongate the respective reigns to fill up the protracted interval: both these sources of error most probably exist, but there seems reason to suppose, that, the first is more particularly the cause of the objectionable duration assigned to several reigns.

The Third Dynasty embraces ten princes, and a period of 592 years, but as one of them Ranaditya engrosses three centuries, the remaining 292 years are to be divided amongst nine kings, giving an average of little more than 32 years to a reign. The most remarkable person alluded to as connected with general history, is Vicramaditya, the second king of that appellation introduced by our author: he is placed in a period new to the many enquiries regarding his date, or in the year A.D. 117, shortly after which he must have died, according to Calhana Pandit. We have no clue therefore to the identification of this prince, and, in the absence of better grounds of conjecture, may attempt it by adverting to the erroneous reign of Ranaditya of three centuries, as well as the long reigns of almost all the princes of the dynasty. It seems likely, that the Vicramaditya, who put the brahman Matrigupta on the throne of Cashmir, was the prince of that name who lived in the 5th century, or in 441:* [A. R. ix. 175.] that Calhana, or preceding writers, confounding him with the Sacari prince, although they did not make him exactly contemporary even with Salivahan, placed him fully three centuries too early: that when they came to the Carcota dynasty, they found out their mistake, and could devise no other method of correcting it, than by adding the deficient years to the reign of Ranaditya, and thus embellishing their history with a marvel. The defeat of Siladitya by Pravarasena, as has been noticed, confirms this view of the subject. The Vicramaditya of the 5th century reigned, it is said, 100 years, dying in A.D. 541 but according to the Satrunjaya Mahatmaya, Siladitya was king in 447; we may therefore restrict the father to a sufficiently probable reign of about 35 years, when we shall have PRAVARASENA, king of Cashmir, in 476. Between his accession, and that of Durlabha Verddhana, we shall then have an interval of 139 years, to be divided amongst six princes, and although this will give us a little more than the probable average reign, or 23 years for each prince, yet it still is not extravagant, and the excess may either go to form an unusually long reign for Ranaditya, whence arose the tradition of its lasting for three centuries, or it may be required for the apparent chasm that exists between his reign, and the unconnected succession of the Cashmirian prince, named also Vicramaditya.

By bringing the reign of Pravarasena so low as A.D. 476, we are involved in some perplexity, as to the propriety of subjecting the preceding dynasties to a proportionate reduction. If the series of the princes were accurately stated, this would seem to be a necessary consequence, and if besides this we should restrict the duration of each reign to the highest possible average or 20 years, we shall then effect a very material modification of our author's chronology, and reduce his first date from 1182 B.C. to no more than 144 years before that aera. There are however some difficulties in the way of this computation: —

The first is the reign of Pratapaditya, a kinsman of Vicramaditya, placed however by our author 168 B.C. and consequently, according to him, not connected with the Vicramaditya, from whose time the Samvat aera is dated. This inference so obviously arises from the system of our author's chronology, that it is entitled to but little weight, unless that can be proved unexceptionable. We may therefore conclude that Pratapaditya was connected with the family of the Sacari Vicramaditya, and that he lived about the commencement of the christian aera: it does not appear that he was contemporary with his illustrious kinsman.[!!!] From Pratapaditya, to Pravarasena, we have ten princes, and 486 years, which gives us consequently the inadmissible duration of 48 years to a reign. The original chronology is less extravagant, but equally improbable, as that gives us an average of 29 years to a reign: there is an error therefore somewhere in this part of the history, and either the chronology is wrong, or the series of princes is inaccurate. It is worthy of remark, that the course of succession is a very interrupted one throughout the whole period; Pratapaditya himself ascends the throne without any apparent cause. Vijaya who succeeds Tunjina seems to have had an equally undefined claim. Arya or the resuscitated Sandhimati, was evidently an impostor, who succeeded Jayendra, after an interval, which is not specified. Meghavahana, though called the great grandson of Yudhishthir might have been a more remote descendant, and the period assigned for the foreigner Matrigupta's election and government, appears to be much too contracted: it is not unlikely therefore that the transactions of the period are imperfectly narrated, and that the blank intervals created by the omission, have been distributed amongst such portions of the record as have been preserved.

The farther back we proceed, the more likely it becomes, that such omissions have extensively and frequently occurred, and accordingly we find the reigns increase very materially in their assigned duration. The average of the 21 reigns of the first dynasty, exceeds 48 years; there are however several chasms in the history, which have been noticed at the time of their occurrence, and it is difficult to admit any very material reduction of the date of the first of the series, in consequence of our author's near agreement with the Chinese and Tibetian writers as to the existence of Sacya about ten centuries anterior to the Christian aera. We have only one clue to a reduction of this date: it is possible, that the text has confounded the original Buddha, with the Sacya of the 6th century before Christ. This is the more probable, because from earlier events it appears that, Bauddhism preceded in Cashmir the Sacya alluded to; consequently he could not have been the primitive Buddha, the founder of the faith: if this be the case, we shall reduce the date of the 3rd Gonerda [1182 B.C.] to something more than a century and a half subsequent to the Gautama, who flourished about 542 A.C. or to about B.C. 388 and this will leave us an average of no more than 18 years for the reigns of this dynasty.[!!!]

That the third Gonerda reigned about the beginning of the fourth century before Christ, derives some support from the possible connexion between some of the Transactions recorded in the history of Cashmir, and those which took place in the neighbouring countries in collateral periods, especially the Turushka or Scythian invasions of Persia.


The temporary occupation of Media by the Scythians, took place according to the most approved computations about the end of the seventh century before the christian aera and they were defeated and expelled about the beginning of the 6th.* [According to Larcher (Traduction D'Herodote) the first 633 B.C. and the second 605 B.C. According to Volney (Chronologie D'Herodote.) the Scythian invasion occurred B.C. 625 and their expulsion in 598.] This period should correspond in Cashmirian history, on the principles we have adopted for its chronology, with the reign of Asoka the third prince anterior to the Tartar rulers, and we find it particularly noticed in his reign that Cashmir was over-run with Mlechchhas or barbarians, possibly some of the fugitives from the power of the Persian monarch, who endeavoured in their retreat to establish themselves in Cashmir.

The Scythian subjugation of Media appears as a single and transitory revolution as recorded by Herodotus, but in the pages of the Persian writers it occurs, only as one of various vicissitudes, in the long struggle for superiority between the sovereigns of Iran and Turan. This war began it appears with Feridun, whom modern writers agree to place about 748 B.C.† [Malcolm, i. 213. 220. Kennedy, (Bombay Transactions,) ii. 120.] Kai Kaus according to the Persians, and Cyrus according to the Greeks, invaded the Massagetoe and was defeated if not slain in the engagement. It was in the reign of this prince and that of his successor, Kai Khosru, that the prowess of Rustem was displayed so fatally in opposition to Afrasiab, and the armies of Turan, and whatever Grecian princes may be regarded as the representative of his masters, it is unquestionable that the periods in which they reigned approach to those of the Tartar conquest of Cashmir. Perhaps however it may be still more satisfactorily associated with events, undoubtedly posterior to the wars, in which Rustem's celebrity was first acquired, and may have formed an Episode in the famous and for a time triumphant invasion of Persia, by the Tartar king Arjasp; when Khorasan was plundered, Balkh was taken, and the old king of Persia Lohrasp was included in the general massacre of the priests and followers of Zoroaster.* [Malcolm's Persia, i. 62. ] If the king of Persia, Gushtasp, the object of these hostilities, be the same with Darius Hystaspes, as seems probable, these events should have occurred between the years B.C. 521 and 485 — By the computation of the Sanscrit text, the Turushka princes must have reigned some time subsequent to Sacya Sinha, who as Gautama dates B.C. 542, but it is not at all clear that the three princes were cotemporary, and we have no guide to the duration of their authority, beyond the inferences already alluded to, derived from its ceasing within a century and a half after the death of the legislator: supposing them then to have been half a century later, they will be cotemporary with the war between the Persian and Tartar monarchs, and may have been individual adventurers who took advantage of the temporary confusion to establish themselves in Cashmir: it is also worthy of observation, that as they brought with them a new impulse to the Bauddha religion, so the war between Arjasp and Gushtasp was entirely religious, arising out of the attempt of the former to compel the latter to revert to the common faith of their ancestors, very probably the Bauddha or Sakyan, that of the Sacae or Scythians, which Gushtasp had abandoned for the religion of the Medes, the worship of Fire.† [In the days of Cyrus, as well observed by Volney, the Persians did not worship the elements: this opinion is founded on the account given by Nicolas Damascenus of the pile prepared to burn Croesus, which Volney infers he derived from Xanthus who wrote a history of the kings of Lydia 40 years before Herodotus: it was on that occasion the historian states, that the Persians established the law, conformably to the oracles of Zoroaster, that Fire should be no more contaminated with the carcases of the dead. Chronologie D'Herodote, 251. In the code of the Parsis however the other elements receive equal veneration. Elementa enim omnia tenentur servari pura. [Google translate: For all the elements are bound to be kept pure.] Hyde Hist. Relig. vet. Per. 414. Persoe nolentes Terram polluere defunctorum corpora non humant, &c. [Google translate: Those who refuse to pollute the earth do not defile the bodies of the dead, &c.] Ibid. Yet the Tomb of Cyrus was very celebrated, and even Darius Hystaspes himself is said by Ktesias to have had his tomb prepared whilst living— how are these contradictions to be reconciled.]

If the Tartar princes then governed Cashmir through the greater part of the fifth century before the Christian aera, as appears likely, the accession of Gonerda the third must of course be assigned to the commencement of the fourth, and as the year 150 of Sacya or B.C. 392, fell according to the original within the reign of Abhimanyu, we may place it a few years subsequent or B.C. 388.

Without venturing to place much reliance on the coincidence of names adverted to in the note (p. 27), we may observe that both it, and the frequent mention of the Mlechchhas which occurs in the succeeding reigns, are favourable to our hypothetical adjustment of the dates, if the barbarians and foreigners alluded to, can be considered to bear any relation to the Macedonian invasion or Bactrian kingdom. It were too wild an attempt to carry the investigation of our author's chronology beyond the period at which we have now arrived. He pretends not to precision himself. Of the fifty-three princes with whom he has peopled the years that elapse between the first and third Gonerda, thirty-five are without names, and the rest without dates. The singular view he has taken of the aera of Crishna will be fully commented on, but it is still too far remote to bear any historical character. We may perhaps however derive from the Raja Taringini, a confirmation of the theories, that place the Yadava and Pandava associates within the limits of the 14th century before the Christian aera.

The eighteen Princes whose names occur in the list will give us, upon the average of 20 years to a reign, 360 years. There are however but sixteen reigns particularised, and supposing these to be the whole number, the computation is but 320 years, which, being added to the date of Gonerda the third, as above conjecturally fixed at B.C. 388, gives us 708 B.C. for the date of Crishna and Yudhishthir. But it is admitted that the first Buddha, whose date may be considered at least 1000 B.C.* [Buddha, according to Abul-fazl, B.C. 1366; Couplet, 1036; De Guignes, 1027; Giorgi, 959; Bailly, 1031; Jones, 1027; Bentley, 1081; Ditto, 1004. The later date assigned to this legislator undoubtedly refers to a different person.] was something posterior to the heroes of the great war,* [Sir Wm. Jones says 200 years, according to the Cashmirians, who boast of his (Buddha's) descent in their kingdom, (A.R. i. 425.) If he alluded to the Raja Taringini, and there is no other Cashmirian authority yet in the possession of Europeans, he must have been misinformed, as far as regards the latter part of this statement; the birth of Buddha, either the first or second, being no where mentioned in the work of Kalhana, to have occurred within the limits of Cashmir.] and we require therefore a considerable addition to the years that elapsed between the first and third Gonerda. This addition we may derive from the thirty-five nameless kings, whose insertion probably was designed to fill up the chasm, and will allow two or three centuries to be added to the interval: we shall then perhaps, as a matter of chronological, though not historical accuracy, be near the truth, if we admit the 51 reigns, and give them an average length of 20 years, as we shall then have CRISHNA alive about 1400 B.C., a computation which will agree well enough with those which have been made by our most eminent scholars.† [Mr. Colebrooke supposes the Vedas were not arranged in their present form earlier than the 14th century before the Christian aera, (A.R. vii. 24;) but Vyasa the compiler was contemporary with the heroes of the Mahabharat, consequently they flourished about the period assigned in the text. Major Wilford computes the close of the great war, as having taken place B.C. 1370 (A.R. ix.) Dr. Hamilton considers Sri Krishna to have lived somewhat later; or in the 12th century before our aera, Genealogies of the Hindus, Introduction, p. 24).]

The period that intervenes between the first Gonerda and the colonization of the country under Casyapa is stated in the original to be 1266 years: that the precise extent of this interval has not been recorded with that precision which the author affects, may easily be granted, but there is some reason to suspect that it is very near the truth, and in that case it is of no small importance, as it gives probability to the whole scheme of our conjectural chronology for the Hindu history, and furnishes an additional testimony to the veracity of the Mosaic record.

If Gonerda the first lived about 1400 years before Christ, and 1266 years intervened between his reign and the desiccation of Cashmir, we place that event 2666 years before the Christian aera, and in fact within a near approximation to the period at which the Deluge may be supposed to have occurred,* [The ordinary computations place this event A.C. 2349, but late writers of equal research and various sentiments agree in considering this too recent. — Dom Clement. "L'Art de verifier les dates," make its date A.C. 3310. (Journal Des Savans. Fevrier, 1820). A writer in the Classical Journal (Sir Wm. Drummond apparently) estimates the date 3128 years before the birth of Christ (C.J. 24. 153) and the Rev. G.C. Faber, following the chronology of the Samaritan Pentateuch, places the Deluge A.C. 2938. (Origin of Pagan Idolatry, vol. iii. 609.) Even then if we admit the original chronology without alteration, it will not be very far beyond the first of these periods, and it comes within the limits of the two hundred theories of Christian writers, which have taken a range of from 6984 to 3616, for the number of years that elapsed between the creation and the commencement of our aera.] and to which event therefore the tradition really relates.
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Part 6 of 7

APPENDIX.

No. I. Legend of the drying of the Valley of Cashmir, from the Wakiat-i-Cashmir.


[x]
The country was entirely covered with water, in the midst of which a demon, Jaladeo, resided, who preyed upon mankind, and seized on every thing and person he could meet within the neighbouring regions. It happened at length that Cashef, the son of Marichi, and according to some accounts the grandson of Brahma, visited this country, and having spent some time in pious abstraction on mount Sumer, turned his attention to the desolated appearance of the earth, and enquired its cause: the people told him of the abode of Jaladeo in Sati Sir, and his predatory incursions upon them. The heart of Cashef was moved to compassion, and he took up his residence in Noubadan, near Hirapur, for a thousand years, employing that period in religious austerities; in consequence of which, Mahadeo appeared to him, and assented to his prayers for the extirpation of Jaladeo. Mahadeo accordingly sent his servants Vishnu and Brahma to expel the demon. Vishnu was engaged in the conflict 100 years, when finding that the mud and water afforded a secure retreat to the Deo, he at last made the chasm at Baramouleh, by which the waters were drained off, the demon exposed, taken and slain, and the country recovered and rendered habitable; being thence called Cashef-Sir, or the mountain of Cashef.

No. II. Snake worship in Cashmir.

We have frequent occasion to notice the important figure which snakes and snake deities make in the worship and traditionary history of Cashmir. The extent and permanence of the superstition we may learn from Abulfazl, who observes, that in seven hundred places there are carved figures of snakes, which they worship. Ay. Ac. ii. 148. His statement is in fact taken from the text of Punya Bhatta: for its being as old as the age of Alexander, we have what may be regarded as sufficient, though indirect testimony; for Onesicritus, as quoted by Strabo, avers, that Abisarus, who we shall hereafter see is a misnomer for Cashmir, or a part of it, is said by his embassadors to cherish two enormous dragons,  
[x]

Apud quem, Abisarum, legati ab eo missi, nunciaverunt, duos dracones nutriri, alterum octoginta cubitorum longitudine, alterum centum et quadriginta, ut Onesicritus refert. [Google translate: With whom, Abisara's envoys were sent by him, and they reported that two dragons to be fed, the other eighty cubits in length, the other one hundred and forty as Onesicritus reports.] The Oxford editor judiciously observes on this passage; "Serpentes in India nonnulli pedes 30 longitudine aequant; nulli autem superant. Quo circa haec legatorum relatio, ad cultum Idolatricum referre videtur, nam Idola esse magnitudinis vere mirabilis, in templis Indorum constat. Exinde Dracones esse ingentes figuras in templis suspicor, et legati vel vivos existire finxerunt, vel Macedones eorum Linguam minus intellexerunt. [Google translate: Some snakes in India equal 30 feet in length; but none survive. How about this diplomatic relationship to idolatrous worship it seems to be important for idols to be truly amazing in temples of greatness the Indians agreed. Hence the dragons are huge figures in the temples I suspect, and the ambassadors imagined that they were either alive, or that the Macedonians were their language understood less.] Page 994 and note. — Mr. R. P. Knight, in his inquiry into the Symbolical language of ancient Art and Mythology, (Classical Journal, vol. xxiii. p. 14) states, upon the authority of Maximin of Tyre, that when Alexander entered India, "Taxilus, a powerful prince of the country" (he was raja of the Tacshasilas) "showed him a serpent of enormous size, which he nourished with great care, and revered as the image of the God whom the Greek writers from the similitude of his attributes called Dionysus or Bacchus." Whether the Cashmirian worship of snakes was mystical, at least in the earliest ages, may be questioned. There is likewise reason to suppose that this worship was diffused throughout the whole of India, as besides the numerous fables and traditions relating to the Nagas or snake gods, scattered through the Puranas, vestiges of it still remain in the actual observances of the Hindus. It seems not improbable that the destruction of the whole serpent race by Janamejaya, the son of Paricshit, recorded in the Puranas as a historical fact, may in reality imply the subversion of the local and original superstition, and the erection of the system of the Vedas upon its ruins.

No. III. Of the Pandaea Regio of the Classical Writers.

In this as in several instances we may trace apparently very different places, some not very far remote, however, and all not improbably resolvable into the same, or at least in some manner connected. We have in the first place a city of the Sogdians, called Panda, as Pliny, vi. 16, Ultra Sogdiani, oppidum Panda [Google translate Ultra Sogdiani, a town of Panda]: and Solinus (c. 49) Ultra hos (Bactros) Panda, oppidum Sogdianorum. [Google translate: Beyond these (Bactri) Panda, a town of the Sogdians.] The same authorities mention a Gens Panda or Pandea gens, whom Pliny (vi. 20) places low down on the Indus, near its mouths. Solinus (c. 52) probably intends to assign them a similar site. Arrian says the Pandaean region was denominated after Pandaea, the daughter of Hercules, it being the country in which she was born, and which he governed, [x], but he does not indicate its locality beyond the remark that Hercules was particularly venerated by the Suraseni, the people on the Jobares, whose chief cities were Methora and Kleisobora, these being in fact the Surasenas on the Jamuna, one of whose capital cities was Mathura, and we might consequently suppose he meant by the Pandaea regio, the country along the western bank of the Jamuna. The next authority, and who first speaks with precision of the situation of the northern Pandyans, (for we need not here advert to the Pandion of the Peninsula) is Ptolemy; he fixes them at once in the Punjab, about the Hydaspes, the Vitasta, or river of Cashmir; [x], Circa autem Bydaspum, Pandovorum regio [Google translate: Near Bydaspus, the district of the Pandovi]; a place, where, agreeably to the views of the text, we might expect at the period of the history of the Mahabharat to find them. That they came originally from Sogdiana would be also in harmony with our view of the subject, and their occupation of the upper part of the Doab is matter of fact. It is also probable that the same race extended themselves southward to Cambay and Guzerat, and ultimately to Madura, in the south, known to the classical Geographers as Madura Pandionis, the various positions being all correct at various epochs, and marking the migratory course of the descendants of Pandu. The accounts gathered by Megasthenes, which are adopted by Arrian and Pliny, of the customs of this country, and its traditionary history, are obviously to be traced to Indian sources, and are connected with the history of the Pandavas. It was the only Indian country governed by Queens they observe. We have a Stri Rajyam, or feminine government, frequently noticed in the text, but this lay to the east. The notion seems really to have originated in the practice of one woman being married to several husbands, a practice prevailing still throughout the Himalaya, and of an antiquity prior to the marriage of the five Pandava brethren to Draupadi; Yudhishthir observing, in answer to the objection urged by her father Drupada, that they only follow in this polyandrian marriage, the path trod by other princes, [x] (Mahabh. Adi, p.) We have seen above that the Pandean country, according to Megasthenes was denominated after a Queen who was the daughter of Hercules, a demigod, especially venerated by the Suraseni, and these ideas are of Indian origin although corrupted and disfigured, for Pritha or Cunti wife of Pandu and mother of the Pandavas, was the daughter of Sura, king of the Sarasenas. [x]. "Sura the most illustrious of the Yadus, was the father of Vasudeva; his daughter named Pritha was of unequalled beauty." (Mahabh. Adi. P.) The identity of place and persons is therefore unquestionable: as to Hercules he may have been readily fabricated out of Sura which, in its usual import means "a Hero," or the Herculean exploits of Balarama may have given to the Greek a reasonable pretext for assigning to him a Grecian appellation.

No. IV. On the date of Yudhishthir, &c.

The original passage is here subjoined together with its most obvious translation, and the chronological results which it appears to authorize.
[x]

Gonerda and other kings governed Cashmir in the Cali yug 2268 years. Misled by the Bharata (war) being said to take place at the end of the Dwapara, age, some consider these computations as incorrect. Taking the number of princes, and the aggregate of their reigns, and deducting it from the portion of the Cali (that has past) the remainder does not agree with that (that should be left:) abandoning that (computation,) the year of Cali 653, being passed, the Curus and Pandus existed. In the current year the 24th (of the Cashmirian cycle) of the present aera or Saca 1070, from the 3rd Gonerda 2330 years have elapsed; the sum of the reigns of the fifty- two princes was 1266. Confirmation of the date is derivable from the calculation made by astronomical writers of the motion of the seven Rishis, which goes from star to star (i.e. performs a complete revolution,) in 100 years, and the Munis being in Magha, the earth was governed by Yudhishthir, the aera of whose Government is 2526.

The 3rd Gonerda is the Kenund who succeeds Abhimun, the first prince, whose term of ruling is particularized in the Ayin-Acberi, and in the original: the preceding series of princes in both is without specific dates, but as the number of reigns in that series may be considered as either 50 or 52, it so far agrees with that of the first fifty-two monarchs whose names are not recorded, and the aggregate of their reigns although not mentioned, may probably be considered the same, or 1266 years. I am not quite sure indeed that the 1266 years do not belong to the series of which the names are specified, and that Abulfazl or his guide have not erred in placing them opposite to the fifty-two unknown sovereigns: however, be that as it may, if we allow 1233 years from Gonerda the first, to Gonerda the third, and 2330 years from Gonerda the third to the years of Salivahana 1070=A.D. 1148, we shall come pretty near to the aera of the Curus and Pandavas as given in the above extract. Salivahana 1070+78. A.D. 1148 - A.D. 1820 = Years 672 ago.

Present year of the Cali 4920—672=4248 years.

From Gonerda 3rd, - - - 2330

Gonerda 1st - - - 1266

Total: 3596

Unaccounted for years of the Cali=652

being the period that preceded Gonerda 1st, but he was contemporary with Yudhishthir and consequently that prince was alive in the year of Cali 652, which sufficiently corresponds with the notion mentioned by our author, of the Curus and the Pandus existing after the year of the Cali Yug 653.

A different mode of calculation will come much to the same thing, making however the period close in the Saca year 1073 instead of 1070 as above: what the author means by the Laukika or current year 24, is explained in the close of the history, and refers to the year of a particular cycle peculiar to Cashmir.

-- / Years

From the 3rd Gonerda / 2330
From the 1st to the 3rd / 1266
Total / 3596
Years of the Cali to the 1st Gonerda / 653
Total / 4249
Deduct from the present Cali year / 4920
Total / 671 years ago.
Deduct the same from the present Saca year 1744 — 671 / 1073
Year of Saca referred to / 1073=A.D. 1151


A third calculation turns upon the time specified on the authority in fact of Varahamihira, as the duration of Yudhishthir's aera, which according to the opinion of most Pandits ceased with the institution of Vicrama's.

This period comprehends / 2526 years.
Added of Saca years / 1070
Total / 3596


The Saca year 1070 (1744-1070) was 674 years ago and 4920-674=4246 of the Cali. But by this only 3596 years are accounted for, and there is remaining of the Cali 650: however our author here brings Yudhishthira's aera to the Salivahana aera, as otherwise the difference between that and Vicrama's or 134 years, must be added to the 650; he also computes the difference between Vicrama and Salivahana to be 135 years; we are then quite in possession of his meaning, for;

Years of the Cali to the aera of Yudhishthir / 653
Year from Yudhishthir to Salivahana / 2526
Years from Salivahana to our author's own date / 1070
Total of the Cali / 4249


being nearly the same as the result of our first calculation, and but three years more than in our last calculation being the difference required in confirmation of our author's theory. Major Wilford makes the years of Yudhishthir extend to the Salivahana aera (A. R. ix. 211.) Mr. Colebrooke has given the passage relating to the revolution of the seven Rishis, and has described the theory which states it; as has Major Wilford in the first pages of the same volume (87, 88, &c.) With respect to the period of the commencement of the Cali age our author's notions are the same as those commonly received.

No. V. On the War between Jarasandha and Crishna.

Although the name of Gonerda does not appear in the Mahabharat, yet there is an account of an inveterate and sanguinary war between Jarasandha and Crishna, in the course of which a battle on the Yamuna took place, when Hamsa and Dimbica, two princes in alliance with the former, were killed. Hamsa was defeated by Balarama, driven into the Yamuna and drowned. The cause and course of this war are narrated in the Mahabharat with great appearance of probability, and throw considerable light on the history of Crishna and of India, in his time: its substance may therefore be not unacceptable. Jarasandha, king of Magadha, is described as a powerful prince: he held in alliance or subjection, Sisupala, king of Chedi; Vacra or Vacradanta, king of Carusha; the powerful prince of the Yavanas; Bhagadatta, king of the south and west; the kings of Banga and Pundra, of the Surasenas, Bhadracaras, Bodhas, Salwas, Parawaras, Susthalas, Mucutas, Pulindas, Salwayanas, Cuntyas, Southern Panchalas and Eastern Cosalas, and he had driven eighteen families of the Northern Bhojas to the westward, and the Matsyas to the south. Cansa, king of Mathura was married to the daughter of Jarasandha, and it was to revenge the murder of his son-in-law, that the latter levied war upon Crishna. According to the Mahabharat this war continued for three years, and in the Bhagavat it is said, that Jarasandha besieged Mathura eighteen times. Both authorities agree in the result. Crishna was obliged to fly, and take refuge with his family and followers, in a strong place on the west coast of India, where he built the city of Dwaraca. Jarasandha's power was an insuperable obstacle to Yudhishthir's performance of the Rajasuya sacrifice, or in other words to his pretensions to be considered supreme monarch of India. This impediment was sagaciously interwoven by Crishna with his own quarrel, and induced the Pandava princes to arm in his behalf. Accompanied by Bhima and Arjuna, Crishna entered Behar by a circuitous route, passing under the hills through Gorackpore and Tirhut, and he thence appears to have taken Jarasandha unprepared for defence; the text when reduced to common sense, importing, that the monarch was surprised in his capital, and after a conflict of some days killed in single combat by Bhima. The occurrence does not appear to have produced the expected consequence, as it was undoubtedly one of the causes of the great war between the Pandava and Caurava princes, one of the effects of which was to prevent Crishna from recovering the territory, he had murdered his uncle to obtain. Kerna, the illegitimate son of Cunti, the daughter of Sura king of Mathura, who appears to have held that territory after Jarasandha's death, being probably placed, and undoubtedly maintained in it, by the Caurava princes, to whom he was a faithful and valuable ally. These occurrences furnish a satisfactory clue to the close confederacy that subsisted between Crishna and the Pandava brethren; his expulsion from Mathura and foundation of a city on the Malabar coast. Before closing the note, we may advert to the mention of the powerful Yavanadhipa, amongst Jarasandha's allies or tributaries: he is said to possess boundless authority, and to reign over the west like another Varuna. From this passage, and others not unfrequent, in which respectful mention of the Yavana power is made in the Mahabharat, we may at least infer that the date of its composition was posterior to the Macedonian invasion of India. By the time of the composition of the Sri Bhagavat, the Yavanas had assumed a new shape, the name being applied to the Mohammedans, and the feelings of the author have evidently influenced his narration. The prince, who in the Mahabharat is a powerful king, and is no otherwise distinguished than as one of Jarasandha's many allies, becomes in the Bhagavat, Yavanasur, a titan or fiend who attacks Crishna of his own accord, and whose assault, combined with the approach of Jarasandha, with which however it is not connected in the way of confederacy or alliance, causes the Demi-god to remove his family to Dwaraca; he himself leads the Demon into a snare, and destroys him. The whole story of the war and the character of Crishna indeed are changed from history to legend in this work, which is manifestly the most modern of the Puranas.[!!!] The precise dominion of the Yavanadhipa, said to comprise Maru or Muru and Naraca, is not easily identified, although many traces of the former name present themselves, as in the Maruca of Ptolemy, a city of Sogdiana, and in the two Merus, Meru al Rud and Meru Shajehanabad of Khorasan, of which, the latter is an antient city, its foundation being ascribed to Tahmuras, or in later times, to Alexander, whilst, as the same with Antiochia or Seleucia, it was at one period the capital of the Bactrian kingdom. If the Maru of the Mahabharat be either of these, therefore, the king of the Yavanas is the Bactrian monarch: indeed the same prince is most probably intended even if we carry the application of the terms to a more southerly latitude to which they very legitimately appertain. Maru ([x]) properly means a desert and ill-watered region; hence it is applied to the sandy desert along the Indus, extending westward to Kirman and Mukran, Maru and Naraca may then imply the Sindhic provinces, and these were reduced under the authority of the Bactrian monarch, if we may trust to Strabo and his guides, who state that that sovereign not only held Pattalene, but the territories of Tessariostus and Sigertis along the sea coast.
[x]


No. VI. Oh the Gandharas or Gandarii and other Nations of the Panjab and North West of India.

Sindhu Gandhar, [x], is the phrase of the original — the Gandhar of the Hindu writers has been always regarded by them as the Candahar of the Mohammedans, and the text here not only corroborates the notion, but by connecting the Indus with the province, shews, that at least a subdivision of it extended beyond the limits now assigned to Candahar, and carries it across the southern portion of Afghanistan; the Hindu name was known to the ancients, and Herodotus, enumerates the Gandarii, as a people of one of the twenty satrapies of the Persian Empire under Darius Hystaspis, and subsequently as serving in the army of Xerxes.
[x]

Tha. 91. "The Sattagydae, Gandarii, Dadicae and Aparytoe, were classed together and contributed 170 talents, and this was the seventh prefecture." Again,
[x]

The Parthi, Chorasmi, Sogdii, Gandarii, and Dadicae served in the army. Pol. 66. The two last it appears were united under one command
[x]

"Artyphius, the son of Artabanns, commanded the Gandarii and Dadicae." — Ibid. By the Dadicae were no doubt intended the Daradas or Daradacas ([x]) with whom we often meet in the text, as the inhabitants of the rugged tract lying west of Cashmir, or the site of the modern Durds: the term however is applicable to any of the tribes inhabiting that portion of the great Indian chain, as its import is merely, mountaineers, and the Dadicae as the contiguous neighbours of the Gandarii 'were therefore probably the mountaineers of Ghizni and Ghaur. In Ptolemy's time the position of the Durds, or as lie calls them almost correctly, Daradrae, was pretty accurately known; he says [x], sub fontibus Indi, Daradrae, et horum montana supereminent. [Google translate: Under the fountains of the Indus, Daradrae, and the mountains of the latter are pre-eminent.] Who the Sattagydae and Aparitae were, is not so satisfactorily traceable: if we may take etymology as a guide they were Hindu tribes: Sattagydae, may be resolved into Satgerhi, the district of the seven strong-holds, a sort of nomenclature very common in India; and the Aparitae may be derived from Apara, ulterior or western, or if Aparbartica, the reading of Isidore of Charax be applied to the same people, as suggested by Major Rennell, we may refer this to Aparbataca, a low-lander, one not a mountaineer, in opposition to the Daradacas or Dadicae before mentioned: a more satisfactory evidence of Hindu identity may be derived from the lists of countries extracted from original Sanscrit works, and published by Major Wilford in the 8th volume of the Researches: amongst the northern countries (p. 340,) and in a series including Gandhar, we have the Satacas who may be the same as Sattagydae, and in another groupe of a miscellaneous character, but comprehending Balkh, Arachosia, &c. we have the Aparitas, a very close approximation to the Aparytae of Herodotus. In short from these considerations it appears that there is some reason to doubt the accuracy of the opinion entertained by the able geographer of Herodotus, that the 7th Satrapy consisting of the above tribes, lay to the west of Bactriana and Aria, and that the Gandarii may be traced to a town called Caendar on the frontiers of Khowarezm. (Geography of Herodotus 295 et seq.) there does not appear any occasion to seek for this Satrapy in so westerly a position and as far as the Gandarii are concerned, their easterly situation rests not only on Hindu but classical authorities.

The Gandaritis of Strabo which furnishes an approximation to the Gandarii of Herodotus is placed nearer even to the Indus than the modern city of Candahar: he observes, it was watered by the Choaspes which falls into the Cophenes: he has also a Gandaris which he places between the Hydraotis (the Ravi) and the Hydaspis, (the Beyah) and consequently towards the eastern part of the Punjab. Ptolemy only notices the first position, bringing it rather more to the west, unless as Salmasius conjectures, his Suastus is the Cophenes of Strabo, and making the Indus the eastern boundary of the Gandari. "Inter Suastum et Indum sunt Gandarae." [Google translate: Between Suastus and the Indus are Gandarae.] The Hindu system agrees with, and reconciles these different accounts, for according to the Mahabarat, the Gandhari are not only met with upon crossing the Setlej, and proceeding towards the Airavati (Ravi) or where Strabo places Gandaris, but they are scattered along with other tribes throughout the Punjab, as far as to the Indus, when we approach Gandaritis. According also to our text, one body of the Gandhari appear to occupy a division of their own, on the last river, which is named after that very circumstance, Sindhu Gandhar, and these may have extended westward as far as the modern Candahar. Pliny and Pomponius Mela evidently intend a different people by their Gandari, or more properly Candari, who were a Sogdian not an Indian tribe, as Salmasius observes, and as is stated by Ptolemy. These may perhaps be referred to the Caender of Major Rennell, but analogies resting on a supposed similarity of sound, are very fallacious, as D 'Anville has shewn, when he criticises De Barros for inferring that Candahar was one of the cities built by Alexander, of whose name its appellation was a corruption: the city being called corruptamente Candar, havendo de dizer Scandar, nome per que os Persas chamam Alexandre [Google translate: corruptions Candar, havendo de dizer Scandar, nome by the mouth of the Persians can Alexandre] (Decade iv. lvi. c. i.) when at the same time he falls into a like error, and derives Candahar from Kond ou Kand qui dans le Persan designe une Fortresse (Google translate: Antiquite geographique de L'Inde) [Kond or Kand which in Persian designates a Fortress (Geographical Antiquity of India)] a meaning which [x], the word being written [x] no where possesses. De Barros is not singular, for D'Herbelot has the same conjecture, respecting the origin of Candahar, and he is followed by Meninsik but the name of Alexander [x] is never written by the orientals with the Arabic [x], the initial of Candahar, and it was no doubt employed to express the harder sound of the [x] in the Hindi name [x]; the aspirate also is preserved in both these words whilst none is to be found in Alexander's name.

The confusion arising from an inaccurate mode of writing or reading names, prevailed as much amongst ancient as modern writers, and in classical authors much unnecessary perplexity has been occasioned, by their erroneously confounding the Gandaritee or Gandaridae of the Punjab, with the Gangaridae or the nations along the river Ganges. They seem indeed to have gathered scattered notices of places and nations from different sources, perhaps originally tolerably accurate, but which were distracted and confounded in the hands of the writers themselves. Something of this nature occurs in the Periplus of Arrian. Between Barygazae, unquestionably as has been shewn by Dr. Vincent, Baroach, and Bactria, he places various nations as [x]. The author as Dr. Vincent observes is a better merchant than a historian, and it may be added, than a geographer, beyond the maritime districts: his meaning however is clear enough, and he passes from Guzerat to the Punjab, as appears by the situation he has given Alexandria Bucephalos, which according to Strabo was built upon the Hydaspes. Proclis is possibly the same with the Proclais of Ptolemy and Peucolais of Strabo, supposed by Major Rennell to be the modern Pekheli (Memoir of a Map of Hindostan, 171). The Tantharagi, Salmasius conjectures with probability to be an error for Gandaridae. The Rachosi inhabit most probably the Roh Cuj of the Puranas identified by Col. Wilford with Arachosia (A.R. vol. viii. 336.) and it only remains to dispose of the Aratri, which we are able to do most satisfactorily, the Mahabharat declaring that the countries situated upon the Satadru (Setlej), Vipasa (Beyah), Airavati (Ravi), Chandrabhaga (Chinab), Vitasta (Jelum), and the Sindhu (Indus), and without the range of the Himalaya, are all called Arattas, [x]. Mahabharat Kerna Par. One of their cities, Sacala, is palpably the same with one of the Pandava cities of Ptolemy, or Sagala.

We have in the Mahabharat another people of the Punjab, intimately connected with these tribes, the Madras, and whom we may endeavour to trace in classical writers. They are sometimes confounded with the Gandharas, but are really distinct, having a different sovereign, and being both separately mentioned in various lists of the northern countries: the nearest classical approximation to them is the Mardi of Pliny, the mountaineers bordering on Bactria, who, Major Rennell supposes were the mountaineers of Gaur. (Geography of Herodotus 283). Major Rennell following Monsr. D' Anville infers from the repeated occurrence of this name to designate various fierce intractable tribes, that it was the generic name of such nations. Monsr. D' Anville too derives it from the Persian ([x]) mard, a man, "un terme qui appartient a plusieurs idiomes de l'orient et entre autres le Persan, pour designer au propre ce que vir designe en Latin, se prenant aussi pour l'equivalent de Bellator, et meme dans une qualification injureuse comme celle de Rebelli:" [Google translate: a term that belongs has several idioms of the East and among others the Persian, to designate proper what vir designates in Latin, also taking itself for the equivalent of Bellator, and even in an offensive qualification like that of Rebelli.] he connects also the character of these people with the old stories of Martichora, the man-eaters of Ktesias, to whom THEVENOT found a modern parallel in some Indian tribes of the Dekhan, and who were denominated Mardi Coura ou mangeurs d'hommes [Google translate: Tuesday Coura or man-eaters.] by their neighbours. It might be inferred that Ktesias intends [x] which he explains Anthropophagos, to be the Indian denomination of his man-eating monster, but as he received his fables through a Persian medium, he has retained the Persian not the Indian name ([x]), from Mard, a man, and Khor, who eats: for this particular notion, a source is easily found in the Racshasas or fiends of the Hindus, and the legend relating to the sons of Vasishtha, who were all devoured by Calmashapada, which is told in the Mahabharat, and the scene of which lies in the Punjab, might have furnished Ktesias with the fiction in question.
Image

The Konyaks are the largest of the Naga tribes. They are found in Tirap, Longding, and Changlang districts of Arunachal Pradesh; Sibsagar District of Assam; and also in Myanmar. They are known in Arunachal Pradesh as the Wanchos ('Wancho' is a synonymous term for 'Konyak'). Ethnically, culturally, and linguistically the Noctes and Tangsa of the same neighbouring state of Arunachal Pradesh, are also closely related to the Konyaks. The Konyaks were the last among the Naga tribes to accept Christianity. In the past, they were infamous for attacking nearby villages, often resulting in killings and decapitation of the heads of opposing warriors. The decapitated heads were taken as trophies and usually hung in the 'baan' (a communal house). The number of hunted heads indicated the power of a warrior. The headhunting expeditions were often driven by certain beliefs, such as code of honour and principles of loyalty and sacrifice.

-- Naga people, by Wikipedia

Monsr. D'Anville observes "n'est on pas fort etonne que dans un pays ou par un principe de religion tres ancien, l'abstinence en nourriture de toute chair d'animal est recommandee, il y ait des anthropophages;" [Google translate: are we not very surprised that in a country where by a very ancient principle of religion, abstinence from food from all animal flesh is recommended, there are cannibals.] and the incongruity of several Indian customs as described by the historians and geographers of antiquity is in many other instances no less surprising. The incompatibility of their accounts with our received notions, has reflected some discredit upon the veracity of the authors, but making due allowance for imperfect information, and a leaning to the marvellous, inseparable from our nature, we have no reason to accuse Megasthenes particularly of untruth; ...
"Strabo (p. 70) says, 'Generally speaking, the men who have hitherto written on the affairs of India were a set of liars, — Deimachos holds the first place in the list, Megasthenes comes next; while Onesikritos and Nearchos, with others of the same class, manage to stammer out a few words (of truth). Of this we became the more convinced whilst writing the history of Alexander. No faith whatever can be placed in Deimachos and Megasthenes. They coined the fables concerning men with ears large enough to sleep in, men without any mouths, without noses, with only one eye, with spider legs, and with fingers bent backward. They renewed Homer's fables concerning the battles of the cranes and pygmies, and asserted the latter to be three spans high. They told of ants digging for gold, and Pans with wedge-shaped heads, of serpents swallowing down oxen and stags, horns and all, — meantime, as Eratosthenes has observed, accusing each other of falsehood. Both of these men were sent as ambassadors to Palimbothra, — Megasthenes to Sandrokottos, Deimachos to Amitrochados his son, — and such are the notes of their residence abroad, which I know not why, they thought fit to leave.

-- Ancient India as Described by Megasthenes and Arrian; Being a Translation of the Fragments of the Indika of Megasthenes Collected by Dr. Schwanbeck, and of the First Part of the Indika of Arrian, by J.W. McCrindle, M.A., Principal of the Government College, Patna, Member of the General Council of the University of Edinburgh, Fellow of the University of Calcutta, With Introduction, Notes and Map of Ancient India, Reprinted (with additions) from the "Indian Antiquary," 1876-77

...of this the Madri or Mardi will furnish us with an illustration: they are described along with the other people of the Punjab by Sanscrit authorities, in terms which fully justify the classical writers, and which prove that the various restraints of Hindu polity were either unknown to the north western tribes, or were very little regarded by them: a few passages from the Kerna Purva of the Mahabharat will afford to the scholars of Europe an opportunity of instituting a more particular comparison. Karna addresses Salya, king of Madra, to the following effect:

"An old and excellent Brahman, reviling the countries Bahica and Madra in the dwelling of Dhritarashtra, related facts long known, and thus described those nations. External to the Himavau, and beyond the Ganges, beyond the Saraswati and Yamuna rivers and Curucshetra, between five rivers, and the Sindhu as the sixth, are situated the Bahicas; devoid of ritual or observance and therefore to be shunned. Their fig-tree is named Goberdhana,  (i.e. the place of Cow-killing,) their market place is Subhadram, (the place of vending liquor: at least so say the commentators) and these give titles to the doorway of the royal palace. A business of great importance compelled me to dwell amongst the Bahicas and their customs are therefore well known to me. The chief city is called Sacala and the river Apagd: the people are also named Jartticas and their customs are shameful: they drink spirits made from sugar and grain, and eat meat seasoned with garlic, and live on flesh and wine: their women intoxicated appear in public places, with no other garb than garlands and perfumes, dancing and singing, and vociferating indecencies in tones more harsh than those of the camel or the ass; they indulge in promiscuous intercourse, and are under no restraint. They clothe themselves in skins and blankets, and, sound the cymbal and drum and conch, and cry aloud with hoarse voices; "We will hasten to delight, in thick forests and in pleasant places; we will feast and sport; and gathering on the highways spring upon the travellers, and spoil, and scourge them." In Sacala, a female demon (a Racshasi) on the fourteenth day of the dark fortnight sings aloud, "I will feast on the flesh of kine, and quaff the inebriating spirit, attended by fair and graceful females." The Sudra-like Bahicas have no institutes nor sacrifices, and neither Deities, Manes, nor Brahmans accept their offerings. They eat out of wooden or earthen plates, nor heed their being smeared with wine or viands, or licked by dogs, and they use equally in its various preparations the milk of ewes, of camels, and of asses. Who that has drank milk in the city Yugandhara can hope to enter Swerga. Bahi and Hica were the names of two fiends in the Vipasa river; the Bahicas are their descendants, and not of the creation of Brahma: some say the Arattas are the name of the people, and Bahica of the waters. The Vedas are not known there, nor oblation, nor sacrifice, and the Gods will not partake their food. The Prasthalas, (perhaps borderers,) Madras, Gandharas, Arattas, Khasas, Basas, Atisindhus, (or those beyond the Indus) Sauviras, are all equally infamous. There one who is by birth a Brahman, becomes a Cshetriya, or a Vaisya, or a Sudra, or a Barber, and having been a Barber, becomes a Brahman again. A virtuous woman was once violated by Aratta ruffians, and she cursed the race, and their women have ever since been unchaste, on this account their heirs are their sister's children not their own. All countries have their laws and Gods: the Yavanas are wise, and preeminently brave: the Mlechchhas observe their own ritual, but the Madracas are worthless. Madra is the ordure of the earth: it is the region of ebriety, unchastity, robbery and murder: fie on the Panchanada people! fie on the Aratta race!" — Mahabharat. Kerna Parva.
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Part 7 of 7

No. VII. Of the Bauddha Religion in Cashmir.

The passage in the text adverted to, page 23, requires a little consideration, both as to its meaning, and the chronological views to which it has already given rise. The text of the original runs thus:
[x]

There are in this passage some obvious inaccuracies, and some compounds of a purport absolutely unknown to the most learned Brahmans. Taking it as it stood, it appeared to involve the position that the Turushka princes preceded Sakya Sinha by above a century and a half, and concluding the Gautama of the sixth century before the Christian aera to be intended, by the name Sakya Sinha, which is always enumerated as a synonime, the date of Gonerda the third was adjusted accordingly in the preceding pages and placed 640 B.C. an opportunity having subsequently occurred of consulting a Burma priest, and a man of some learning, on the subject, there appeared good grounds for revising the passage, and altering the results, in consequence of which several pages previously printed off have been cancelled, and it is only in the marginal dates of the first dynasty that any traces of the error have been suffered to remain. These are of comparative unimportance, and will be readily rectified by adverting to the table.
In offering these pages to the public, my object has been to bring to their notice and specially to that of European scholars, some of the sublime sentiments and noble precepts which hitherto lay hidden in the undiscovered Sanskrit Buddhist works of India.

The high principles propounded by Buddha, Gautama or Sakya Sinha, which shaped the religion of most of the Asiatic nations, emanated from the doctrines and philosophy of the Indian Aryans.* [Mr. R. C. Dutt, the translator of the Rig-Vedas, observed, "The cardinal tenets of Buddhism, the doctrine of Nirvana, and the doctrine of Karma were directly derived from Hindu ideas and Hindu practices, and Buddhism was the offspring of Hinduism." Buddhist Text Society's Journal Vol. I. Pt. II.]

Buddhism flourished in India as a religion, and as a system of ethics, or philosophy, under the powerful kings of Magadha, and owing to its similarity with the religion and ethics of the Vedas and the Upanishads, became in the lapse of time assimilated and merged in the latter. It lost its character as a separate religion and regained its original niche in the many-sided and all-comprehensive structure of Aryan or Brahmanical philosophy, just as its great teacher, Buddha, himself was admitted into the Hindu Pantheon as an incarnation of the Deity, the highest position to which a man can aspire.*

[*"It may, I think, be confidently affirmed that Vaishnavas and Saivas crept up softly to their rival and drew the vitality out of its body by close and friendly embraces, and that instead of the Buddhists being expelled from India, Buddhism gradually and quietly lost itself in Vaishnavism and Saivism." -- Sir M. Williams' Buddhism p 170. "Though the profession of Buddhism has for the most part passed away from the land of its birth, the mark of Gautama's sublime teaching is stamped ineffaceably upon modern Brahmanism and the most characteristic habits and convictions of the Hindus are clearly due to the benign influence of Buddha's precepts." -- Preface to Sir Edwin Arnold's "Light of Asia."]

Naturally enough, the same doctrine, propagated in the countries beyond Arjyavarta or India, where the people had no definite religion of their own, took deep root, as a religion pure and simple, grew and flourished extending its wide branches and soothing shade to the farthest limits of Asia.

It is a pity that most of the Buddhistic works on religion and philosophy did not survive the ravages of time and the bigotry of foreign conquerors in India. The colossal Buddhist-Sanskrit work Bodhi-Sattva Avadan Kalpalata written by Kshemendra, the great Sanskrit poet of Kashmir, narrowly escaped a similar fate. It was lost in India, but has been recovered from "a monastery in Tibet by the enterprising scholar and traveller, Mr. Sarat Chandra Das. Kshemendra wrote 107 legends of the Bodhi-Sattvas in graceful Sanskrit verse, and his son Somendra wrote another tale to complete the auspicious number 108."* [Mr. R. C. Dutt, B.T.S. Journal Vol. I. Pt. II. My brother, Sri Sarat Chandra Das, C.I.E., gives the following account of the work, which is now being published by the Asiatic Society of Bengal, in the Bibliotheca Indica Series: -- "I visited the ancient libraries of Sakya, Samye and Lhassa, which were filled with original Sanskrit works taken from India. The library of Sakya is a lofty four-storeyed stone building of great size, erected about the 12th century, A.D. It was here that the monumental work of Kshemendra, called "Avadan Kalpalata," was translated into Tibetan verse by the order of Phags-pa, the grand hierarch who converted the Emperor Khublai to Buddhism... As regards the Dalai Lama's library at Lhassa, it is considered the largest of all the libraries in Tibet. It was here that I obtained Kshemendra's Avadan Kalpalat." Ibid.]  

Kshemendra, known for his learning, as "Vyasa-Dasa" (follower of Vyasa) was born on mount Tripura, in Kashmir. His father's name was Prakashendra. He studied under such teachers as Abhinava Gupta and Bhagavatacharyya Soma-Pada. He was the author of numerous works on history, philosophy, religion, romance, and a variety of other subjects. The names of 36 of these have been discovered.* [These are: — [x], Life of Buddha; [x], (Bodhisattvavadan Kalpa Lata); [x], (Vetal Panchavinsati); [x].]

Though born and brought up as a Hindu, he held in veneration all that was sublime in the tenets of the different sects of the Vedic and Brahmanical religions, and of Buddhism as well, as appears from his works, "Dasavatar Charita" (The Ten Incarnations), "Muni-Mata-Mimansa," and the present, "Avadan Kalpalata."

He was undoubtedly a devout admirer of Buddha, whom he believed to be an incarnation of Vishnu and accorded a rank, superior to Brahma and Indra:
"Him followed Brahma and the gods.

Whom all the worlds adore."

-- Sri-Gupta, St. 15 p. 48.

He effectually brought about a reconciliation between Brahmanical religion and Buddhism, which, though not antagonistic in the main doctrine, shewed divergencies in external form, and ran counter to each other, during the ascendency of the Magadha kings.

The "Raj-Tarangini" of Kalhan Pandit, makes mention of Kshemendra's historical work "Rajavali." Kshemendra wrote his "Samaya Matrika" in the reign of king Ananta (25 Local Era) and his "Dasavatar Charita" in 41 L. E. when king Kalasha ruled in Kashmir.* [[x]. The above account has been taken from the "Viswa Kosha."]

I undertook to translate into English verse 4 out of the 108 cantos of this colossal work, for the journal of the Buddhist Text Society of India, edited by Sri Sarat Chandra Das and my object will be fulfilled if, in spite of the imperfect garb in which they have been put by me, the intrinsic beauty and sublimity of the sentiments contained in them, receive the attention they deserve, at the hands of indulgent readers, and induce abler scholars to take up the work of translating the whole of the book and thereby throw a flood of light on the religion and doctrines of Buddha.

The story of Eka-Sringa* [This legend has been translated into Japanese, by Mrs. Fujiye, a distinguished lady of Kioto, Japan, and published in the Journal of the Temperance Society of Kioto. The lady writes thus in the preface of her translation: — "I am very much interested to read this sweet and beautiful poem which is translated by Nobin Chandra Das M.A., from an ancient Sanskrit Scripture and appeared in the Journal of the Buddhist Text Society of India. I translate this into Japanese poetry and let readers taste how sweet it is."] is based on the legend of Risyasringa of Valmiki-Ramayana, and romantically describes how a young man brought up by his father in the solitude of a forest from his birth, and ignorant of the fair sex, could not resist the impulse of love, owing to innate desires and habits of former lives. It strikingly illustrates the principle of transmigration of the soul, which is the key-note of the Buddhistic faith.

The legend of Rukmavati illustrates the principle of self-sacrifice with a view to relieve the distress and save the life of others.

The story of Jyotishka describes how he was saved from the womb of his dead mother by the miraculous power of Buddha, and how he renounced the world under the oppressive rule of Ajat-Satru, king of Magadha. It teaches the efficacy of true faith and devotion.

The legend of Sri-Gupta inculcates the sublime lesson of Forgiveness, and ahinsa ([x]) which Sir Edwin Arnold puts as follows:

"Kill not for pity's sake — and lest ye slay
The meanest thing upon its upward way."

-- Light of Asia, B. viii.

It narrates how Sri-Gupta, at the instigation of an anti-Buddhist, made a plot to poison Buddha by inviting him to a feast, and how the calm forgiveness and mercy of that Enlightened Being converted him into a devout follower!
"The Lord saved Sri-Gupta from spite and crime
And shewed how mercy conquers e'en a foe;
And thus he taught Forgiveness' rule sublime,
To free his followers from the world and woe." p. 59.

I offer my grateful thanks to the Revd. A. Tomory, M.A., of the Free Church Institution, Calcutta, who most generously revised my translation of the first two legends, and thereby encouraged me in the arduous task, which I had so rashly imposed upon myself.

Krishnaghar,

17th February, 1895,

Nobin Chandra Das.

***

EKA-SRINGA: A BIRTH STORY OF BUDDHA, SAKYA SINHA.* [Translated from the 65th canto of Kshemendra's Avadan Kalpalata.]

1

EV'N in the mind that's free from fear,
Ardent desire has oft-times grown
Out from habits of former births
Luring the senses, to pleasure prone:
The lotus flower thus burgeons forth
From roots deep sunk in fertile mire,
Attracting by her fragrance sweet
The busy bees in humming quire.

2

In days of yore the blessed one
Resided in "the Banyan Grove"
Of Sakya's city. Him around,
The Bhikshus came and spoke in love: —

3  

'Now thou from earthly pleasures safe
Art changed in mien and freed from care,
Ev'n Yasodhara, in palace rich,
Entranced stands at sight so fair.

4

Her beauteous limbs, with jewels decked,
Tremble like ripples in the brook;
Holding in hand a dish of sweets
E'er lovingly she courts thy look.

5

With downcast mind she knows no cheer
But sighs for a glance of thy face;
She droops, as fades the lily flower
When waning moon withdraws her grace.'

6

So spoke the monks; great Buddha heard
And thus bespake them with a smile;
His crimson lips and pearly teeth
Adorned a face all free from guile: —

7

Yasodhara not first to-day
With charms doth captivate my heart;
So did she in her former life
Lure me with cakes and Love's sweet art.

8

Good king Kasya in Kasi town
In olden times held royal sway,
As with a goad subdued his foe,
With fame as fair as lunar ray.

9

Vows he performed to get a son
Only a girl to him was born,
Her name Nalini: She alone
Became the fruit of Plenty's horn.

10

So year by year the maid grew up,
No brother or sister her youth did share;
At last the king sought council wise
And to his friends told his despair: —

11

"My sovereignty, without an heir
Is like a lofty widespread tree.
Affording shelter unto all
Yet worn and cankered inwardly.

12

"Nalini, my sole darling child,
Is on the threshold of her youth:
To wed her to a husband meet
Would free me from my care and ruth.

13

"For, who can keep his daughter long
Or unburned hold a burning wick?
She causes her dear father care:
'Tis better she be married quick.

14

"But she, born princess of this realm,
A noble of it may not wed.
And so unto some foreign land
When Hymen bids she'll turn her head; —

15

"Unless a kindly Fate decree
That foreign prince shall hither come,
And of my throne shall partner be
And of my girl the mate become."

16

There lives on Ganga's sacred bank
Sage Kasyapa of royal blood,
Lone in a peaceful hermitage
Built just beside the rolling flood.

17

A thirsty hind drank in the stream
And she became the mother proud,
Of Kasyapa's saintly son.
Renowned by the admiring crowd.

18

From day to day she gave him suck;
The hermit-father owned his son,
Who from the one horn on his brow
His name of Eka-sringa won.

19

The child grew up religiously
To piety he was devote;
Little he cared for earth's affairs
His soul was free from every mote.

20

Him did king Kasya wish to gain
As husband for his daughter dear,
For such a union would prevent
Of his realm's fall the dire fear.

21

The ministers conferred a while
Then to the king their counsel told;
It was to let his daughter roam
At will, beside the hermit's wold.

22

The king agreed, and with his leave
The maid went to the wood to roam:
It was a brave exploit for her
To seek the youth near to his home.

23

The black-eyed maiden in the wood
Looked beautiful in frolic gay,
Her lithesome form and grace excelled
The creepers moved by Zephyr's sway.

24

She culled the flowers and chased the flies
Her presence sweet did rouse the deer,
The hermit's son their flight did see
And to discover the cause drew near.

25

He paused when first his eyes did rest
Upon the black-eyed maiden there,
For in his woodland home till now
He ne'er had seen a maiden fair.

26

And through him then her eyes did flash
A current of celestial fire;
The poor boy did not understand
The rushing feeling of desire.

27

But on her face he gazed and gazed
And wondered what the fair might be,
Was it a god or vision rare,
That with these eyes he now did see?


28

And she in turn at him but glanced,
Then sank her head upon her chest,
A rising blush crimsoned her cheek
And shamed the necklace on her breast.

29

With love she quivered in every nerve
And love-sweat moistened her blue-black hair,
And her amorous bosom heaved and sank;
Then her bespake the hermit fair: —

30

"O, hermit blest, if hermit thou be,
Thrice-blest are those wood-roaming deer,

That in thy favour live and bask
And in thy presence know no fear.

31

''Thy beauty doth mankind refresh
Even as a draught of nectar rare;
Compared to thee, ascetic looks
Of other hermits dull appear.

32

"The smooth dark cluster of thy locks
Set off with ferns and flowers gay,
Looks like the peacock's varied plumes
Displayed at sight of cloud's array.

33

"The white beads* [String of pearls thought to be a rosary.] hanging o'er thy breasts
Which round appear like fruit of bael
Enchant the leaping fawns: to charm
The pure in heart they never fail

34

"A leafy zone of munja,† [A kind of grass.] bright
As sparks of sacrificial fire,
Girdles thy waist and clings to thee.
And with its clinging joy inspires.

35

"Oh, tell me, pray, where thou dost dwell?
There surely must be found great bliss.
The lotus in thy foot-print springs
Yellow and white for sunbeams to kiss."

36

And as she heard[???], the maid perceived,
Of love how witless the youth appeared;
So maiden's shame she put aside
And sweetly glanced at him, nor feared.

37

Then gently to the enraptured sage
The princess spoke in accents coy:
"My hermitage is over there
Come there with me and see my joy."


38

So said the maiden with a smile
Tempting the youth to go her way;
Offered him cakes with camphor mixed
Soothing as music at cool of day.

39

With honeyed cakes and amorous talk
And lover's lore which charms the ear,
The princess by her wiles allured
The hermit, artless as the deer.

40

"Show me thy grove," the hermit cried
And closed his eyes in ecstacy.

Feeling her arms around his neck,
Enraptured with love's rhapsody.

41

She led the way, he followed her
Drawn by magnetic cords of Love:
Into her chariot grand she climbed
Inviting him with her to rove.

42

Seeing the horses he held back,
For hornless stags they seemed to him;
And 'twere a crime for him, he thought,
Hind-born, to whip and drive his kin.

43

He would not mount, so all alone
The maiden homewards drove her pair.
The loving youth in mind she bore
And told her sire his story rare.

44

The king in council him bethought
Of means to win the hermit young
By guile, but not by force, for fear
The hermit father's wrath be stung.

45

So he devised a floating stage
Of boats decked like a hermitage,
On which the lovely princess fair
Might carry off her lover sage.

46

The while Eka-sringa's father wise
Observing his dear son neglect
His sacred duties to perform,
Thought Love to blame for this defect.

47

And asked him, "Son! what ails thee, then?"

The youth replied with deep drawn sigh,
Which gently shook like Zephyr's breath
The quivering twigs of plants close by: —

48

"Father, I saw in yonder grove
By Ganga's side, a hermit sure;
Whose face was like the spotless moon
Whose eyes became my cynosure.

49

"His neck, and hands, and waist were girt
With beads reflecting rainbow-hues.
Why, father, is it that I lack
Such ornaments that grace infuse?

50

"The music of his loving voice
Still vibrates in my inmost heart;
The hum of bees or cuckoo-note
Compares not with his artless art.

51

"The bark that round his graceful form* [The hermit-boy, used to wear bark, took the silk dress of the princess to be fine bark.]
He wore, was white as Ganga's foam;

My barky covering now doth seem
Compared with it as black as loam.

52

"He pressed my cheek to his lotus-face
And in his arms he me embraced;
His tender lips spoke passioned prayers,
As I in his sweet clasp was laced.


53

"And ever since I've had no peace
Nor shall, till I see him again;
Sweet balmy sleep from me repelled
By thoughts of him I seek in vain.

54

"For day and night nought else I see,
But the outline of his face divine;
Nor can I think of sacred rites
While for his absent form I pine."


55

The wise old hermit understood
That Love had claimed his only son,
His round of meditation left
And thought on what could now be done

56

"Alas, this youth born of a hind
Has fall'n wounded by woman's eye!
Innocent he of snares and wiles,
Has been trapped by a woman sly."


57

His love-struck son he then addressed,
And told the cause without alloy,
That he had been oppressed in heart
With love and lover's seeming joy.

58

"It was no hermit-boy," he said,
"But maiden fair that thee allured;
In her there lies the fang of love.
Whose poisoned sting cannot be cured.[!!!]

59

"They who are struck by woman's glance,
And captured by her painted eye,* [Refers to the custom of painting the eye with black dye (anjan).]
And thrilled with pleasure at her touch,
Shall in this world's dire prison die.

60

"For woman's beauty, lightning-like,
Corruscates with a dangerous play,
Over man's miseries and pains
Sheds fitful flash, then dies away!

61

"Woe unto him who cannot flee
From woman, child of vanity,
Mysterious elf of Ignorance,
Bringer of ruin and insanity!


62

"Happy are they who live in peace,
In solitude, and suffer nought
From darting glance of woman's eye,
With pain and peril ever fraught."

63

In such a strain the father spake
To free his son from Love's strong chain;
But his fiery soul was kindled now
With Beauty's flame: so words were vain.

64

And when, as was his wont, next day
His sire to gather sticks was gone.
The love-sick youth beheld the maid.
Returning to her quest half-won.

65

The princess, with her train of maids
Shining as creepers with blossoms gay,
Beheld with joy the youthful sage
Fair as cupid, on Love's hey-day!

66

With sweet red lips she then did speak,
"Come to my hermitage's shade,
Where Kalpa trees with mellow fruit
Do bend." He followed, as she bade.

67

He saw the floating hermitage
Of boats, o'er-hung with jewels bright,
And golden foliage and flower,
And entered in with great delight.

68

The floating grove him meanwhile bore
To holy Kasi down the stream.
As man, unknowing, is borne away
By earthly thoughts that come in dream.

69

Thus to the Royal Court he came
Adorned with jewels of wondrous size;
He fancied Heaven, by sages sung,
Had come before his mortal eyes.

70

The monarch then, rejoiced in heart,
Bestowed the princess on the youth;
Her necklace trembled as she walked
Round fire, plighting her bridal troth.

71

The nuptial fire with off'rings burnt;
And with her gentle hand in his,
The bridegroom thought he yet did stand
Beside the sacred fire in bliss.

72

The king with height of festive joy
Honoured the son, who lingered still
With him intent on vows, then took
His bride back to his forest rill.* [Practised his vows as an ascetic, still ignorant of wedded life.]

73

The Mother Hind beheld her son
Roam with his wife in wooded glade;
Endowed with speech by her hermit-mate.
She asked him "whence did'st get this maid?"

74

He bowed to her and fondly said: —
"This beauteous person is my friend,
Whose friendship and sweet company
Before the sacred fire I gained."

75

The mother found the simple youth
Still ignorant of wedded life;
To where the hermit-matrons lived,
She led her son and his fair wife.

76

The matrons thus addressed the youth:
"This is the partner of thy life,
The sharer of thy pious vows."
And so he knew her for his wife.

77

The hermit old then told his son
The duties of the married life;
Advised by him the youth repaired
To the king's palace with his wife.

78

The old king placed him on the throne,
And sought for peace in solitude;
The youthful sovereign ruled the land,
Receiving tithes from chiefs subdued,

79

The pomp of regal power and wealth
Stirred not the tenor of his mind;
But in old age he left the world,
Leaving his family-cares behind.* [Became a hermit in old age.]

80

This Eka-sringa (the one-horned am I,
Yasodhara is Nalini, my wife;
Her charms surviving from former birth
Grace even now my peaceful life.

81

Thus Jina did his former life recite;
The Bhikshus heard in wonder and delight.

Image

--Legends and Miracles of Buddha, Sakya Sinha, Part I, Translated from the Avadan Kalpata of Bodhi-Sattwas, Of the great Sanskrit Poet Kshemendra, by Nobin Chandra Das, M.A. of the Bengal Provincial Service, Translator of Raghu-Vamsa, 1895

We have now then to offer a translation of the passage, premising that the term Puranirvrite should be Parinirvrite, the sixth case of Parinirvriti or in Pali, Parinibbuti, the ordinary term used by the Bauddhas, to express the final Nirvritti or emancipation of their Buddhas or Saints in its fullest sense. Pari being added as an intensitive prefix. The use of this and some other peculiar expressions, which are at present quite unintelligible to the ablest scholars among the Brahmans of Hindostan, but are familiar to the Rahans of the Burman empire, proves that Calhana the author of the Cashmirian history, or at least his guides, were well acquainted with the language, and probably, with the system, of the Bauddhas.

"They (Hushca, &c.) of Turushca descent, were Princes, asylums of virtue, and they founded Colleges, and planted sacred trees, in Sushca and other places. During the period of their reign the whole of Cashmir was the enjoyment of Bauddhas, eminent for austerity. After them, when 150 years had elapsed from the emancipation of the Lord Sacya Sinha in this essence of the world, a Bodhisatwa in this country named Nagarjuna, was Bhumiswara (Lord of the earth), and he was the asylum of the six Arhatwas."

As the prevalence of the Bauddhas and consequence of Nagarjuna, if not subverted, were at least checked in the ensuing reign of Abhimanyu, and as the passage expressly states that the circumstance occurred after the Turushka princes, the 150 years subsequent to Sakya Sinha must fall within the limits of Abhimanyu's reign: it is therefore necessary only to fix the date of Sakya Sinha to determine that of the several reigns occurring in this portion of our history.

In a late work, Hamilton's Nepal, it is asserted on the authority of local tradition, that "Sacya Sinha, the well-known apostle of the nations still attached to the Buddha faith, existed about the beginning of the Christian aera, he being considered the fifth Buddha Legislator, and distinct from Gautama, who lived in the sixth century before it." Whatever may be the accuracy of this opinion, it may be safely asserted, that it is diametrically opposed to the notions prevalent in all other regions, Brahmanical or Bauddha. In the lexicons of Amera and Hemachandra, Sacya Sinha occurs as a synonime of Gautama, Saudodhani, and Mayadevisuta or Gautama, the son of Sudkodhana and of Mayadevi.
A similar string of Pali synonimes is used by the priests of the Burma Empire Sudhodani-cha Gotama, Sakyasiha, tat'ha, Sakyamuni ch' Adichheh bandhu cha. The Bauddhas of Ceylon also consider the fifth Buddha whom they name Maitri as yet to come.— As. Res. vii. 32 and 414.

Sacya Sinha, as observed, is always identified with Gautama. The concurring traditions of the Bauddha nations establish the existence of that prince of Magadha in the middle of the sixth century before Christianity. There is little reason therefore to call that fact in question. It is very unaccountable however why Gautama should bear such a synonime as Sakya Sinha,* [According to the Burmah Bauddhas Sakya is the family name of Gautama's ancestry. In the Parajika Attha Katha is a very curious account of the four Sangayanas or Missions, by which the Bauddha religion was propagated to distant regions. The fourth was of a miscellaneous nature, and included both Ceylon and Cashmir, about 236 years it is said after the disappearance of Gautama: a Gatha or text is cited on this subject which alludes to some legends, that appear not improbably connected with the statements of oar history. Gantwa Kasmira Gandharam, isi Majjantiko tada; Duttha nagan pasaditwa mocheti bandhhana bakuti. Majjantika then having proceeded to Kashmir and Gandhar, and subdued the evil Serpent genius, liberated numbers from bondage.] and no satisfactory explanation of the appellation has yet been traced: it is equally inexplicable also how a prince of central India, should have borne so prominent a share, in the introduction of a religious innovation, the earliest vestiges of which are so clearly referable to the North West of India, to Bactria or even to Tartary. That the Bauddha religion did not originate in Cashmir with Sakya Sinha is evident from the whole course of the history, and all tradition points to a period long antecedent to his, for the date of the invention and its author. At the same time Kalhana, well informed as he is in these respects, has evidently confounded the two periods, and hence assigned to Sakya Sinha a date corresponding to at least 1332 B.C. although apparently designating the person who flourished B.C. 542. We may therefore venture to correct his chronology with reference to this latter date, although until we can be satisfied that the Sakya Sinha of the North West was one individual with the Gautama of Magadha, we cannot venture to attach any thing like certainty to this emendation. Some circumstances in favour of the date laid down are adverted to in the concluding observations, and we may here add, that there seems to be a strange connexion between the circumstances and dates of the Zerdushts of Persia and the Buddhas of India, which deserves a more particular investigation than we have hitherto had materials to undertake.


The passage relating to the prevalence of the Bauddha faith in Cashmir includes the mention of an individual, whose history is fully as obscure, if not as important as that of Buddha.

Nagarjuna as a Bodhisatwa (see note in page 21) may be either a religious or a secular character: he was probably the former, as a hierarch, the prototype of the modern Lama of Tibet; his other title however, Bhumiswara may mean a Prince, and has probably induced Mr. Colebrooke to translate the text generally thus:

"Damodara was succeeded by three kings, of the race of Turushca, and they were followed by a Bodhisatwa, who wrested the empire from them by the aid of Sacya Sinha, and introduced the religion of Buddha into Cashmir. He reigned a hundred years, and was followed by Abhimanyu. — As. Res. ix. 295.

In differing from Mr. Colebrooke, there is great probability of committing error, but in this case, the state of the Manuscripts, full of obscurities and mistakes, is a sufficient vindication of a difference of interpretation, and until we can ascertain what the reading of the original should be, we may allege in support of the translation above preferred, the following considerations:

1. The ascendancy of the Bauddhas according to the original, continues some time after Abhimanyu's accession, as well as the superintendance of Nagarjuna; he could not therefore have been at that time king of Cashmir. [x]

Their superiority is assigned also to argument, not to authority; [x]

"In that time (Abhimanyu's reign,) the Bauddhas, cherished by the learned Bodhisatwa, Nagarjuna, maintained the ascendancy: they, the enemies of the Agama (Vedas,) and disputatious, overcame all the wise men in argument, and demolished the practices, prescribed in the Nila Purana."

2. That the Raja Tarangini does not mean to include Nagarjuna, amongst the kings of Cashmir, may be also inferred from his omission in Abulfazl's lists, prepared, as those were no doubt, from correct copies, and by able Pundits, and corresponding exactly with the Sanscrit text in every other instance.

3. The length of Nagarjuna's supposed reign, 150 years, or in fact its specification at all in this part of the history, is also hostile to its occurrence, as precision in this respect, is affected by the author, only from the reign of Gonerda the third.

4. We have the authority of the Vrihat Katha, the author of which was a Cashmirian, and lived about the same time with Calhana, for denying the title of king to Nagarjuna; his work is a compilation of fables, it is true, and his account of Nagarjuna is evidently consistent with that character; but it still may serve to shew in what light that personage was usually considered by the Hindus. In the 7th section of the book entitled Retna prabha Lambaca, Nagarjuna, is called the minister of Chirayu, king of Chiraya pur; a Bodhisatwa; a man of singular virtue and charity, and great medical and chemical knowledge. He allows his head to be cut off to save the king's life, whose days his knowledge of the elixir of immortality had preserved beyond the natural limits, and the enmity of whose son and successor, he had consequently provoked: his death however being really brought about, observes the author, by the Deities, who could not bear his beginning to render men immortal: [x]

5. Whoever Nagarjuna might have been, he was undoubtedly once a person of great celebrity, for a large portion of the Kali Yug, or present age, 400,000 years yet to come, is denominated after him, the Nagarjuniya Saca or aera: it is singular therefore that there seem to be few or no legends respecting him, and all are but little satisfactory. A Tantra named Cacsha Puta is ascribed to him, but his name does not occur in its pages. A work on medicine is named after him, and a Canara work the Pujyapada Charitra makes mention of him, in a similar character as the Vrihat Catha, and alludes to him as possessing some magical means of perpetuating his existence, and transmuting ordinary substances to gold.

In none of these cases, except perhaps as the Sacadhipa, does he seem to be considered as a king.

No. VIII. On the Ancient Names of Cashmir in Classical Writers.

IT is said in the original (see page 24) that in consequence of the excessive cold, the King resided six months in Darvabhisaradi or in Darva, Abhisara and other places; of a more temperate clime it may be presumed. Darva, has not been identified, although the Darvas are in the list of outcast tribes, and were no doubt a people bordering on Cashmir. Abhisara as well as Darva, must be contiguous to Cashmir, and at the time mentioned, must have been a part of the same kingdom. It is sometimes used, (As. Res. viii. 340) though not very accurately, as appears from the text, as a synonime of Cashmir, and in that sense it might have been employed by the ancients. Strabo, Quintus Curtius, Diodorus Siculus, and Arrian, with some varieties of nomenclature, mention, Biasarus or Abiosarus, Abisares or Abiasares, Embisares and Abissares, as a Prince, whose dominions lay to the north of the Punjab, confounding the name of the king with that of his country; an error much to be regretted, as it deprives us of the possibility of verifying some of the Monarchs in the Sanscrit text. Abissares as he is called, was the neighbour and ally of Porus, but after the defeat of that Prince, he sent ambassadors to Alexander. His dominions lay immediately above the country between the Indus and Hydaspes, or Vitasta, the Behut or Jelum: it would have been more correctly placed between the Jelum and the Chinab or Acesines, but the difference is not very considerable. Abhisara as a part of Cashmir, of a milder temperature, is likely to have been the most southerly portion of it, or possibly a tract below the mountains, and approaching the level of the Punjab: a situation, which will correspond very nearly with the site of the Regio Abissari of the classical writers. Monsr. D'Anville finds an analogy to Abissares in Peshawer (Antiq. Geogr. 14). Major Rennell considers Ambisares as king of the Indian mountaineers, the predecessors of the Ghickers, who occupied  the hilly tract immediately west of Cashmir (Memoir 109 and 122) and Tieffenthaler calls the Bisari les habitans des Montagnes de Jambou: either of the two first positions is sufficiently near, to what seems to be the truth. Although Abhisara appears in the text, in this place, as a part of Cashmir, yet in a subsequent portion of the history, it is mentioned as an independent state, and it might have held that rank at the time of Alexander's invasion: its interposition between the Greek invaders and Cashmir, and finally the southern deflection of Alexander's route, may explain why no notice was taken of that kingdom, in the details of that conqueror's marches, an omission which D'Anville justly regards as unaccountable, particularly as the country appears to have been known by its proper appellation to the Greek writers before the Macedonian invasion of Persia.

Herodotus (Thal. 102) describes the northern Indians as dwelling near a city which he names Caspatyrus, and again, (Melp. 44) he states that Scylax when sent by Darius Hystaspes to explore the mouth of the Indus, commenced his course from that city. That by Caspatyrus is meant Cashmir seems highly probable from the analogies both of name and locality.

1. With respect to the name, it is first to be observed, that there are very adequate grounds for a slight alteration, which will bring the resemblance to absolute identification, with what is asserted to have been, and most probably was, the origin of the term, Cashmir: this was derived, it is uniformly asserted by the oriental writers, from the colonization of the country by Casyapa, the first settlement or city being named after him Casyapa pur ([x]) converted in ordinary pronunciation, into Cashappur or Caspapur, the latter of which forms, independent of the termination of the case, is the proper reading of the Greek text. Thus Stephanus Byzantinus has [x], and Dodwell (De Peripli Scylacis aetate) considers this as the same with the [x] of Herodotus. Wesseling regards it also as a various reading of the same, and although he prefers retaining the latter, he assigns no reasons for the preference. D'Anville also concurs in considering the Kaspapyrus of Stephanus Byzantinus, and the Kaspatyrus of Herodotus, as the same, and it seems most likely therefore that the variety of reading is accidental, and originates with an error in the manuscript: as far therefore as a precise coincidence of name is a proof of identity, we have every reason to conclude, that the Kaspapyrus of the Greeks, is the Kasyapapur, or Cashmir, of the Hindus, which therefore was known by the original of its present denomination, as early as the reign of Darius Hystaspes, or above five centuries before the Christian aera. 2. The next question is as to the situation of Caspapyrus, according to the Greek authorities, and its correspondence with that of Cashmir, and here it must be admitted, there are some difficulties in the way of extreme precision. The general concurrence is satisfactory enough. Herodotus (Thal. 102) states it to be in the vicinity of the Northern Indians, and associates it with Pactyaca; [x], and in the second, he in like manner connects it with Pactyaca [x]. They (Scylax and his companions) setting out from the city Caspatyrus, and the country of Pactyaca, sailed, he proceeds to say, towards the east and rising sun into the ocean [x]; a course, which with reference to its commencement in Cashmir, its progress down the Indus, and its termination in the Indian Ocean, is so far from being accurately described, as to have thrown a suspicion upon the voyage itself, and which consequently requires some examination.

We may infer from several passages in the text, that the limits of Cashmir were formerly by no means confined to the mountainous belt, which now incloses it, but comprehended other districts, to the south and west, amongst which was Pakhlee or Pakholi, the Pactyica of Herodotus, a tract immediately contiguous to Cashmir on the West, and lying towards the upper part of the navigable course of the Indus, and hence, as Major Rennell (Memoir of a Map of India, 146,) infers, the country from which Scylax set out to explore the course of the river. It is by no means necessary therefore to question the general accuracy of the account left us of the commencement of the voyage. Having embarked on the Indus, the course however should have been rather west than east, and this part of the narration is clearly erroneous: at the same time, as the navigators could only estimate their southern course with any thing like accuracy, and as they conceived themselves advancing upon the whole to regions lying farther east, than any yet known to them, the mistake was not unnatural, and need not affect the general credibility of the story. It is to be observed also that we have not the original narrative, and Herodotus, may have substituted the popular notion of the eastern course of the river to the sea, for the more correct account of the navigator himself: such is Monsr. Larcher's opinion and it seems well founded; "Herodote qui n' avait pas lu la relation de Scylax, et qui avoit entendu dire, qu il avoit descendu l'Indus jusqu' a la mer, s' imagina que cette mer etoit a 1' est, parce que c' etoit l' opinion, de son siecle. Dans un temps posterieur, Hipparque pretendit que l'embouchure De l' Indus etoit a l' est equinoctial." [Google translate: "Herodotus who had not read the account of Scylax, and who had heard that he had descended the Indus to the sea, imagined that this sea was to the east, because that was the opinion, of his century. In a later time, Hipparchus claimed that the mouth from the Indus was to the equinoctial east.] (Larcher. Histoire de Herodote. Melpomene, note 95). We may therefore safely conclude that the Caspatyrus known to the Persians and Greeks was at least part of the modern Cashmir.


In the progress of time the name had undergone some change, but the situation was perhaps more accurately known. Cashmir appears in Ptolemy as [x] and is placed with great accuracy [x] (the Vitasta or Jelum) [x] (Chandra-bhaga) [x] (Ravi) [x] the two first rivers actually rising within the present province, and the third on the confines of Jambu, once in all probability a part of Cashmir. Ptolemy has also a people called [x], one of whose cities [x] lies lower down, and apparently corresponds with Multan (Vincent's Periplus, i. 12.) The Caspiraei however occupy the country as far as the Vindyan mountains, and the Yamuna. D'Anville appears to have considered these names alone, when he declares there is nothing in common with the Caspira of Ptolemy, and Caspatyrus of Herodotus, for as he justly observes the position of a city on the lower part of the course of the Hydaspes, ne peut convenir, a Cashmir [Google translate: cannot agree, Kashmir]: as mentioned above, however this is distinct from the Casperia which lies at the sources of the same river, and the position of which is precisely that of Cashmir. Whence Ptolemy got his Casperia, is not very clear. It is a singular geographical arrangement, that places the same people on the Hydaspes, at Modura or Muttra, and in the Vindyan mountains: the Caspiraei of Ptolemy seem to be the same as the Catheri of Diodorus, and the Cathir of Arrian, who were allied with the Malli and Oxydracae or people of Multan, and Outch, against Alexander, or in a word the Cshetryas or Rajaputs of Western India — Hence perhaps the error he has committed in assigning such remote places to the same state, for in the Punjab, and Doab, the various cities he specifies, were no doubt governed by Cshetriya, or Rajaput princes, although they were not subjected to one common sway, nor constituted the territory of any one peculiar tribe.  
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