HISTORY OF CASHMIR. 77 



having pursued a jackall for a considerable distance, and urged the beast to 

 the pains of death, the prince observed flame issuing from the mouth of 

 the animal as it expired; struck with alarm at this portent, he was instant- 

 ly seized with a fit of trembling which terminated in the Lutamaya* fever, a 

 fever that is invariably fatal : he was carried to Cshema Matlia near Hush- 

 capur, where he died, after a reign of eight years and six months. 



Abhimanyu, the son of Cshemagupta, succeeded his father; at first his 

 early age, and afterwards his tranquil temper, left the reins of adminis- 

 tration in the hands of his mother, whose defective character was far from 

 equal to the task, and whose supremacy introduces us consequently to a 

 scene of unprecedented tumult and disorder. 



The queen's first impulse was to burn herself with her husband, from no 

 better motive the Hindu writer admits, than the pride of birth, and fear 

 of P'halguna, the late king's minister, and father-in-law, by another of the 

 monarch's wives, and who on that account had always been hostile to 

 Didda : she was also embarrassed at the outset of her career, by a conflagra- 

 tion of a most alarming nature, which broke out at the fair of Tungimara, 

 and extended to Vitala Sutraputd, consuming an immense number of vil- 

 lages, and many large palaces and temples. This added to the dread of 

 P'halguna, now all powerful, would certainly have given her a claim to 

 the honors of a Sati, had she not been dissuaded from it by Naravahana, 

 a man of great merit and fidelity, attached to her service. The return of 

 one of the king's sons, Kerdama, contributed also to the consolidation of 

 her authority : he had been to the Ganges with the bones of Cshemagup- 

 ta, attended by a select body of troops, and as he was no friend to the 

 usurping P'halguna, that minister thought it politic to come to an accom- 

 modation with the queen, and upon the reconciliation taking place, he 

 withdrew for a season from public affairs. 



* Wc have here two strange subjects ; in the superstitious idea of flames issuing- from the jack- 

 all's mouth, and the nature of the Lutamaya disease :the first is common; it is the current belief in In- 

 dia that any animal urged to death by a chace emits flames from his mouth before he expires. 



