The Ancient Geography of India. I. The Buddhist Period, including the Campaigns of Alexander, and the Travels of Hwen-Thsang c5.s2.t1.6

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have been living as late as the previous year A.D. 719, which makes the error in the Kashmirian chronology amount to exactly thirty-one years. By applying this correction to the dates of his predecessors, the reign of his grandfather, Durlabha, will extend from A.D. 625 to 661. He, therefore, must have been the king who was reigning at the time of Hwen Thsang’s arrival in Kashmir in A.D. 631. Durlabha, who was the son-in-law of his predecessor, is said to have been the son of a Nâga, or Dragon; and the dynasty which he founded is called the Nâga or Karkota dynasty. By this appellation I understand that his family was given to ophiolatry, or serpent-worship, which had been the prevailing religion of Kashmir from time immemorial. Hwen Thsang designates this race as Ki-li-to, which Professor Lassen and M. Stanislas Julien render by Kritya and Kritiya. They were extremely hostile to the Buddhists, who had frequently deprived them of power, and abolished their rights; on which account, says the pilgrim, the king, who was then reigning, had but little faith in Buddha, and cared only for heretics and temples of the Brahmanical gods. This statement is confirmed by the native chronicle, which records that the queen, Ananga-lekha, built a Vihára, or Buddhist monastery, named after herself, Anangabhavana; while the king built a temple to Vishnu, called after himself, Durlabha-swâmina.[*] I infer from this that the queen still adhered to the Buddhist faith of her family, and that the king was, in reality, a Brahmanist, although he may have professed a lukewarm attachment to Buddhism.