Vol. VI, No. 4.] History of Kashmir. 199 



[N.8.] 



and deliver the country from anarchy that was prevailing, and 

 promised to pay him the sixth part of the revenue for main- 

 tenance of peace and good government. The Raja of Jammu 

 sent his own son, named Dayakarana, with a large force who de- 

 feated the insurgents and became supreme ruler of Kashmir. 



PART //.—HINDU PERIOD. 



Chapter I. 



Rajatarangini, the Sanskrit history of Kashmir, written 

 by Kalhana, is one of the oldest historical records in the world. 

 Much interest was and is being taken by many scientists 

 in its study. This history begins with a king named Gonanda 

 I, and continuing the accounts of his son and successor, Damu- 

 dara, and of the latter' s wife, Yashovati, who reigned as Queen 

 Regent after her husband's death until her son, Gonanda II, 

 attained to majority, and of Gonanda II, it says that the 

 accounts of 35 kings of Kashmir are lost and unknown, 

 and leaving this gap continues again. Hasan, a historian of 

 Kashmir in Persian, however, says that Zainulabdin, who 

 reigned in Kashmir from 1423 to 1474 A.D., got a translation 

 of the Rajatarangini done in Persian by Mullah Ahmad who was 

 poet-laureate of his court. For this purpose Zainulabdin made 

 a search for Puranas and Taranginis of ancient writers. The 

 names of more than 15 different Rajataranginis were then known, 

 but the ruthless hands of Zulchu (1323 A.D.) and Sikandar, 

 the iconoclast (1393-1416 A.D.), had destroyed all old books 

 of Hindus. With great efforts, however, only the Rajataranginis 

 of Kalhana, Khimendra, Wachhulakar, and Padmamihar were 

 obtained. Out of these, Khimendra' s Rajatarangini was found 

 replete with inaccuracies, but from other Rajataranginis the 

 translation was completed. A few years later, some birch bark 

 leaves of an old Rajatarangini, written by Pandit Ratnakar, 

 called Ratnakar Purana, were, through the exertions of one 

 Praja Pandit, obtained. From these leaves the account of 35 

 kings who had ruled in Kashmir in the beginning of the Kaliyuga 

 age, whom Kalhana, owing to want of any record, had omitted 

 from his book, was found out. This discovery gave much 

 pleasure to all, and Zainulabdin had the facta, that were recorded 

 in the Ratnakar Purana, inserted in his translation of the 



Rajatarangini. 



The Ratnakar Purana is not now to be found anywhere, 



nor even the translation of the Rajatarangini by Mullah Ahmad, 

 but Hasan says he lias embodied the accounts of the 35 lost 

 kings from Mullah Ahmad' s translation. It is said that Hasan 

 had obtained a copy of this translation from a Kashmiri emi- 

 grant at Rawalpindi, but one day, when he was going in a boat in 



