A History of Sanskrit Literature c14.s3.1

c14.s3.1

It is to Kashmir that we must look for the first more serious contribution to history, for Bilhaṇa—the form of name is Kashmirian—was born there, though he left his home perhaps under Kalaça’s reign and wandered far and wide visiting Mathurā, Kanauj, Prayāga, and Kāçī, and staying for a time at the court of a prince Karṇa of Ḍāhala,¹ perhaps also with the Caulukya Karṇadeva Trailokyamalla (1064–94) of Aṇhilvāḍ, before he was received as Vidyāpati, master of the sciences, by Vikramāditya VI, Cālukya king of Kalyāṇa (1076–1127), who bestowed upon him the gifts of a blue parasol and an elephant and chained him to his court. When at Karṇa’s capital, he defeated in a literary competition the poet Gaṅgādhara and appears to have written a poem on Rāma, and he hints that the famous Bhoja of Dhārā² would have been glad to welcome him to his court. At any rate he rewarded his patron by composing in his honour his epic in eighteen cantos, the *Vikramāṅkadevacarita*.³ The date of that work appears to fall before 1088, because it passes in silence the great expedition of the king to the south which took place then, and because it mentions as prince, not king, Harṣadeva of Kashmir who became king only in that year, and we know from Kalhaṇa⁴ that Bilhaṇa actually lived to hear of Harṣadeva’s accession. Of his parentage we know that his immediate ancestors Muktikalaça, Rājakalaça, and Jyeṣṭhakalaça, his father, were Brahmins, students of the Veda, who performed the Vedic Agnihotra (fire-oblation) sacrifice; his mother was Nāgadevī, his brothers were Iṣṭarāma and Ānanda, both scholars and poets, while he himself was taught the Veda, grammar up to the *Mahābhāṣya*, and poetics.