%% HISTORY OF CASHMIR. 



the king the more severely, as contrasted with his past assurances of favor, 

 and they determined to make him suffer the effects of their vindictive 

 spirit : a party of them accordingly contrived to gain by night, admission 

 into the palace, and falling upon the king, in the apartment of his favorite 

 mistress, unarmed and unprepared, they easily sacrificed him to their fury : 

 he was slain after a reign of nearly fourteen years, interrupted from time 

 to time, by the temporary rule of his occasionally successful competitors. 



Unmatti Varti, a son of Part'ha, was now placed upon the throne, in 

 preference to his father, Avho was still alive ; his claims to this election can- 

 not be easily conceived, especially, as in the grovelling tastes of this prince, 

 as well as in ferocity of temper, he exceeded all who reigned before or af- 

 ter his time ; his associates were dancers, singers, and buffoons ; his favor- 

 ite pastime, fighting birds or beasts, in which Parvagupta, by his superi- 

 or skill, was his principal minister and friend ; notwithstanding which, he 

 engaged in treasonable designs, aided by Bhubhatta, Servata, Saja, Cu- 

 muda and Am ritac ara : these individuals divided amongst themselves the 

 chief offices of profit and power, whilst Uaccasa, uDdmara, commanded the ar- 

 my. By the advice of these miscreants, and the suggestion of his own sanguina- 

 ry disposition, the king commanded a general slaughter to be made of all whom 

 lie thought he had occasion to hate or fear, and did not spare the members 

 of his own family ; his brothers he shut up in a dungeon, and starved to 

 death, and his own father was dragged from his retirement, and murdered 

 by order of this unnatural son : his barbarity did not stop there, he went to view 

 his father's corpse, and made the murderers shew the wounds, that each had 

 inflicted : they hesitated to do this in the king's presence, when Parvagup- 

 ta, to reprove the backwardness of one of them, his own son, Devagupta, 

 struck his dagger into the lifeless body, to the great mirth and satisfaction, 

 it is said, of the king: in further proof of this prince's atrocious character it 

 is related that upon its becoming necessary to oppose the JJmwras, who 

 pillaged the country with impunity, the king used to amuse himself with 

 cutting off the heads of his attendants and subjects and the breasts of the wo- 

 men, in order to try the temper of his sword, and perfect himself, he said. 



