■HISTORY OF CASHMIR. 19 



ther family named Godhara;* whose successors Suverna, Janaca and Sachi- 

 nara+ followed him in regular descent, and continued to build cities, and 

 construct and endow temples for the advantage of the Brahmans, and chief- 

 ly it would seem for the worship of Siva. .Janaca the second of these prin- 

 ces is said by Bedia-ad-din to have sent one of his sons into Persia, with a 

 hostile force during- the reign of Homai : the invader however was repelled 

 and slain by the Persians under Darab, the son of Bahman. 



The last of these princes being 1 childless, the crown of Cashmir reverted to 

 the family of its former rulers, and devolved on Asoca who was descended from, 

 the paternal great uncle of Khagendra. This prince, it is said in the AyiriAcbe- 

 ri, abolished the Brahmanical rites, and substituted those of Jina : from the 

 original however it appears, that he by no means attempted ihe former of 

 these heinous acts, and that on the contrary, he was a pious worshipper of 

 Siva, an ancient temple of whom in the character of Vijayesa'l he repaired. 

 With respect to the second charge, there is better foundation for it, although 

 it appears that this prince did not introduce, but invented or originated the 

 Jina Sa$ana.§ He is said to have founded a city called Srinagar, a different 

 place however from the present capital, which is attributed to a much later 

 nionarch.il In the reign of Asoca, Cashmir was overrun by the Mkch'has, for 



* Gowdher, Ayin Acberi. f Suren, Jenek and Seijuner. Ibid. 



I There are a Vijaydsa and Vijaya cshetra at Benares. The Vijaya Li nga adjourned, or in 



other words, his worship was brought, according to the Cast C'handfrom Cashmir. Sec. 69. 



§ Bedia-ad din says, the new faith was brought from Ajem, in which case it must have been, 

 the worship of fire that was introduced, a circumstance of no unlikely occurrence, but which at 

 this period of our history is utterly irreconcilable with the chronology of the original, as if it 

 took place after Darab the son of Homai — it very little preceded Alexander's invasion of In- 

 dia — but we have not yet come to the second Gonerda, who lived, agreeably to the assertion of 

 Calhana pandit, 1182 B. C— It must not be forgotten that these Persian transactions are 

 taken from the Mohammedan writers, and are not hinted at in the Raja, Taringhu. 



|| Raft- ad-deen calls it Babara ; the Wahial-i- Cashmir and Narayan Cid call it Sir, and the 

 latter states that it was in Miraj, or the eastern division of Cashmir, and that traces of its site 

 were visible in his time, 



C2 



