HISTORY OF CASPIMIR. 35 



hasralmgam, 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 de- 

 scendant of Yudhisht'hir still lived, he recommended the youth as his suc- 

 cessor, aud delivering the government into the hands of the nobles, he di- 

 vested himself of his royal ornaments, and with no other garment than the 

 Dhoti, bare-footed, and without his turban, carrying with him the Archa- 

 linga* 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 TirVha of Nandisa orNANDicsHE- 

 tra, where he ended his days in ascetic mortification, and the assiduous wor- 

 ship of the god whom the three worlds obey. 



Meghavahana,! who was invited to succeed to the throne of his ances f ors, 

 was the third in descent from Yudhisht'hir, being his great grandson : his father 

 had found an asylum at the court of Gopaditya, king of Gandhar, whose as- 

 sistance had restored him to some degree of opulence and consequence : his 

 son Meghavahana was thence enabled to present, himself amongst the can- 

 didates for the hand of the princess of Pragjj/otish or As am, and to obtain her 

 election! With his wife, and a suitable dower, he had rejoined his father, 



* The Jungum profess the exclusive worship of Siv A, and an appropriate emblem of that deity, 

 in its most obscene form, inclosed in a diminutive silver or copper shrine or temple, is suspend- 

 ed from the neck of every votary as a sort of personal god. — Wilks's Mysore, i. 501. This i 3 pro- 

 bably the A rchalingam 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. 



t Megdahen. — Abulfazl. 



% According to Bedia-ad-din the lady was the princess of Khota. 



t 2 



