24 HISTORY OF CASHMIR, 



the Sindia also said to have occurred about the middle of the 7th century 

 before Christ :• neither of these dates will correspond precisely with that 

 of the reigns above described, but they are all perhaps equally of little va- 

 lue, and only corroborate the general fact, that at some remote period the 

 Tartars or Scythians did govern Cashmir, and render it probable, that they 

 first gave the sanction of authority to their national religion, or that of Bud- 

 dha, in India. 



The Tartar princes were succeeded by Abhimanyu, a monarch evidently 

 of a Hindu appellation, and a follower of the orthodox faith, which he re- 

 established in Cashmir. Thechiefinstriiment in this reform was Chandra, a 

 Brahmin celebrated as the author of a grammar, and a teacher of the Ma- 

 habhdsliga.j- In consequence of the disuse of the prescribed institutes, the 

 abolition of every form of sacrifice, and a departure from the lessons of the 

 .Nila Purana^the Nagas were particularly incensed, and visited the offences 

 of the people with severe and unseasonable storms of rain and snow, in which 

 those especially perished who had adopted the Rauddha heresy :§ in this si- 

 tuation of the kingdom, Chandra, descended it is said from Casyapa, address- 

 ed his prayers to Maheswara as Nila Naga, the tutelary deity of the coun- 

 try, and obtained from him a termination of what our author calls, the dou- 

 ble plague of Cashmir, the severity of the seasons, and the predominance 

 of the Bauddhas, 



The reign of Abhimanyu closes the first series of princes, and introduces 

 us to a period in which the author of the Raja Turin gtm affects greater pre- 



* Maurice's Ancient History of India, ii. 224; according to Blair, B. C. 624 in the reign of 

 Cyaxares or Kaikaoos. A subsequent irruption took place in the reign of Darius Hystaspes, if 

 he be, as he probably is, the same with Gushtasp: this last was of a decidedly religious charac- 

 ter. Malcolm's Persia, i. 62. 



f The name of Chandra occurs amongst the eight ancient Grammarians of the Hindus. 

 Colebrooke on the Sanscrit and Preterit Languages, A. Ii. vii. 204 and 5, 



t The Purdna of the Naga or Serpent god, named Nila, 

 § Appendix, No. VIII. 



