$$ HISTORY OF GASHM1R. 



into the most insatiable avarice, and subjected" his people to every kind o. 

 extortion : he levied heavy tolls and taxes, exacted undue proportions of 

 the produce of land, and let out to farm those lands which were the pro- 

 perty of the temples": he cheated his cultivators in the weight of the seed 

 corn, and expected a full return, and he seems to have established a mo- 

 nopoly of sandal, incense, oil, and many other articles of trade : his chief 

 instruments in these oppressions were the Cayastlias, and especially one 

 named La vat a, who received from the king a stipend of 3000 Dinars, 

 whilst Bhallata and other eminent poets about the court, were kept with- 

 out any pay : the chief minister represented the harshness of his commands 

 in vain to the monarch ; to his son who had expatiated to him on the afflic- 

 tions of his people, he replied by desiring him to wait till he was king, 

 when he might, if he pleased, relieve them, and he was equally insensible 

 to the lesson he might have learnt from the neighbouring country of JDar- 

 vdbhisara, the king of which, with all his sons, had been lately killed in a 

 popular commotion, occasioned by his oppressive government. 



Sancara Verma possibly thought he should divert the attention of his 

 subjects to less unpopular occurrences, by engaging them in military expe- 

 ditions ; for he is said now to have led an army to the north,* where he sub- 

 dued the. people along the Indus, ~\ and entered the Urasa country, where he 

 was shot in the neck with an arrow by a mountaineer ; he was immediately 

 put into a litter, and his death, which took place shortly afterwards, con- 

 cealed from the troops, who were immediately marched back to Cashmir 



* Bedia-ad-din says, against the Mohammedans of Khorasan ; the followers of Islam hai/ing accord- 

 ing to him spread their empire even to the Punjab in the preceding reign. 



■\ The SindhU, here the large river, as the other or smaller was already in his possession ; the invasion 

 took place into little Thibet, but the invaders could not have proceeded far, as they reached on their re- 

 turn the frontiers of Cashmir in six days. Who the Aurasas, theipeoipleof Urasa, were, isnot easily conjec- 

 tured : they could scarcely have been the Russians, called in the east Urus, whose power at this period, 

 was first making its appearance in a different direction, and it is only in the absence of more satisfac- 

 tory illustration, that I venture to suggest a connexion, between this word and the Ooloos, the hordes 

 of the Tatars, and clans of the Afghans : the derivative name, applied to the people, isin favor of the con- 

 jecture, as it means children, whom the Hindoos consider legitimate, being born of a man and woman 

 ©f the same cast 01 tribe. 



