The Dynastic History of Northern India (Early Mediaeval Period) v1.c13.84

v1.c13.84

In the meantime Paṅgu was acting as the guardian of the child-king. But, as Kalhaṇa puts it, he together with the ministers was bent only on the amassing of bribes. The kings, says the chronicler, "were in the service of the *Tantrins*, and ousted each other like *grāmakāyasthas*, by offering greater and greater bribes. In this land, the rulers of which had conquered Kanyakubja and other countries, the kings now maintained themselves by giving bills of exchange (*huṇḍikā*) to the *Tantrins*.” The ministers ‘intrigued in deep-laid plots,’ for the throne, and a famine caused by a flood “appeared like a caustic thrown in a wound” (917-18 A.D.). Crops failed and the price of a *khārī* of rice rose to a 1,000 *Dinnāras*. The waters of the Vitastā became entirely filled with corpses, and the land covered with bones like one great burial ground. But in this great calamity the ministers and the *Tantrins* became wealthy ‘by selling stores of rice at high prices.’ The king would only take that person as minister who raised the sums due on the *Tantrins’* bills. His callous attitude to the sufferings of his people is thus vividly described by Kalhaṇa: “As one might look from inside his hot bathroom upon all the people outside distressed by the wind and rain of a downpour in the forest, thus for a long time the wretched Paṅgu, keeping in his palace, praised his own comfort, while he saw the people in misery.”¹