26 HISTORY OF CASHMIR. 



medan writers say, that in their days Tirdnehs ascribed to this prince were 

 current in Cashmir* 



b c.«® Nara| the son of Vibhishana succeeded his father ; this prince be^an his 



01 400. . ... 



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 reig;n 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 cafastrophe is not without poetical merit, 

 although too purely poetical to be here transcribed at length. A Brahman 

 had become the son-in-law of Susrav as, the Ndga, whose palace was in a 

 lake, near the borders of the Vitastd, and in a city founded by Nara near 

 that river. The wife of the Brahman, Chandrabdhd, 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 Ndga, 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 Jamdtrisar : 



* Bedia ad din here inserts another prince Znderayan, who was a magician and tyrant, and 

 therefore put to death by his brother Cailas Sink, 



| Written Booz by the Mohammedan writers. 



