CO HTSTOHY OF GASHMIR. 



the last monarch. Under the name of A jitapi r a, the five usurpers continued 

 for a period of thirty-six years,* to possess the real sovereignty of Casliniir, 

 and they veiled their violence and injustice by a liberal distribution of the 

 public treasures, and the foundation of splendid temples, and rich endow- 

 ments. It was not likely that the brothers should always continue on friend- 

 ly terms, and a dispute arose between Mamma and Utpala, which occa- 

 sioned a furious battle| on the borders of the Vitastd. 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 Anan- 

 gapira,! a son of SangramapIra, on the throne. 



The principal actors in the turbulent period of the last reign, now disap- 

 pear from the history, and are succeeded by their sons, without our being 

 informed further of the fortunes of the usurping fraternity. The princes be- 

 came mere pageants in the hands of these enterprising chiefs, with the un- 

 enviable distinction of being the first victims to the resentment of the con- 

 querors. Ajitapira, we have seen, was put to death by the son of Mam- 

 ma: his successor was not more fortunate; as after a short reign of three 

 years, he suffered a similar fate from the hands of Suc'ha 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,§ and he 

 was to be the last of the Carcota dynasty, for Suc'ha Verma being slain by 

 a kinsman, his friends and followers, determined to place his son, Avantj 



* Reckoning, says our author, from the deatli of their nephew which happened in the year 89, start- 

 ling 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 frequemly 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, 



t It has been narrated, according toCALHANA, by Sancaca, a poet, in a poem named Bhuva7iabhyu- 

 daya. 



I Animhanund.~Ay. Ac § Atlalanund. — Ay. Ac, 



