HISTORY OF CASHM1R. 



29 



and to the arms of the lawful heir PrAvara Sena, who with a small but re- 

 solute band of friends, was approaching Cashmir : he seems to have sur- 

 prized 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 Matrix pta's abdi- 

 cation 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,* so named after his grandfather, to whose dominion he had &S 

 succeeded, was an active and enterprising prince: he invaded the kingdoms 

 of the south, and turned his arms against the son and successor of Vicra- 

 madilya, named Pratapa Sila or Siladitya,! whom he drove from his capi- 

 tal, 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 Jpsarasas, which he transferred to his own capital. £ After his 



* Pirwirsein. — Abulfazl, 



t 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 Vicramdditya. 

 had a son named Nat'ha Sn,A whom he is disposed to regard as the grandson of Vicram a, and 

 the son of this Siladitya. A Jain work of some celebrity, the Satrunjaya Mahdtmya, is said to 

 have been written by order of Si'laditya, king of Surat: the author Dhane'swara 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 Samvatyear 477. The same work cites a prophetic 

 annunciation, that the famous Vicrama'ditya 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 Siladi- 

 tya, the son of Vicrama'ditya, succeeded his father, it allows but ten years for the reign of 

 the latter. We must revert to this hereafter. 



J 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 Vic Kama's death, although it is gene- 

 rally thought to have been found again by Bhoja. We have no further notice of it in our his- 

 tory. Bedia-ad-din carries Pr AVAR A Se'n a to Bengal also, where he subdues Bchar Sink, ruler 

 of Dhacca, and gives the Government to P aids Sink, son of Siladitya, a son of the author's, 

 making apparently the words Palas and Dhac, implying the same thing, a sort of tree. 



478 



