!6 HISTORY OF CASHMIR. 



and it is only of importance to observe, the disagreement between this au- 

 thor and the popular belief, as to the age of Yudhisht 'hir and Crishna, and 

 the reduction of the antiquity usually assigned to them, which is thus deriv- 

 able from Hindu authority : any other conclusions, Ave shall be better pre- 

 pared to make when we have gone through the different dynasties of princes, 

 and the events recorded to ha\e happened during their reigns.* If we may 

 trust the Hindu historian, Gonerda the first was a relation of Jarasandha, 

 kin° - of Magadhd, to whose assistance he led an army from Cashmir: the con- 

 federates were opposed to Crishna, in the province oiMaVhura, and were de- 

 feated in an engagement upon the banks of the Yamuna by that chief, and 

 his brother Balarama, by whose hands Gonerda was slain, whilst attempt- 

 in 0, to rally his flying troops :'r the prince was succeeded by his son Damo- 

 dara who in his impatience to revenge his father's death, attacked a party of 

 the friends of Crishna on, their return from a marriage in Gandhar on the 

 Indus ;\ the bride was killed in the affray ; but the rage of the bridegroom 

 and his friends wasirresjistible, and the followers of the prince were defeated, 

 and himself slain ; the whole transaction being such as was probably of 

 not unfrequent occurrence, in the history of these mountainous regions, in a 

 state of society much more advanced, than that of which it is narrated. Da- 

 modara left his wife Yasovati pregnant, and ill able to resist the victori- 

 ous Yddava. Crishna however sent Brahmans to appease her anxiety, and 

 establish her in the kingdom, silencing the remonstrances of his friends by 

 this quotation from the Purdnas 5p?rfcr:Tn;?f eft cT^T ^T 5 !! ^^fT ^cfsr^ srre^R: 

 m ^tlffa fcraTTT ^rfowm " Cashmir is as Parvati,§ and the king is a por- 

 tion ot Hara : if even vicious therefore, he is not to be disrespected by the 

 sage who hopes for heaven." 



In ,due time Yasovati was delivered of a son, who was immediately 

 anointed king-Jj the minister of his father conducting the affairs of the state 



■ Appendix No. 4. -j- Appendix No. 5. % Appendix No. 6. 



§ This appears to be a pun, Parvaii meaning both mountainous and the wife of Siva. 



j| There is no other word that can be used to expr.ess the Abhishec, considered an essential 

 partofthe ceremony of coronation ; the word means in fact sprinkling, and implies in these cases # 



the sprinkling of the king with water from some sacred stream, as the Ganges, &c. 



