Indian Epigraphy c6.s3.10

c6.s3.10

While describing the ideal historian in his *Rājatarangiṇī*,³ Kalhaṇa pays homage to the genius of a gifted poet, which immortalises the glory of the author as well as the subject of his narration and without which it is impossible to vivify before the reader's eyes the events of the bygone age. It is further said that the poet should possess divine perception so as to be able to show, through intuition, his awareness of the existences he is going to reveal to his readers. Above all, Kalhaṇa praises the poet of merit whose language, like that of the judge, has discarded love and hatred, i.e. bias or prejudice, in recounting he events of the past. The qualities of a historian emphasised here are the ability to see the facts in their proper perspective by linking one of them with others by means of intuition and to describe them in a pleasant and impartial manner so that the narrative becomes intelligible and agreeable to the readers and the presentation of facts true to the author's knowledge and belief. Kalhaṇa's conception of history may fall short of the modern western stadards; but the concluding sections of the Rājatarangiṇī would hardly suffer from a comparison with earlier historical works written in different parts of the world, especially those of the contemporary Muslim chroniclers.