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A History of Sanskrit Literature c14.s5: 5. The Rājataraṅgiṇī and its Sources

A History of Sanskrit Literature c14.s5

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English

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5. The Rājataraṅgiṇī and its Sources

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Kalhaṇa tells us himself that he was not the first to seek to write a chronicle of the kings of Kashmir from the earliest days; it appears that extensive works of ancient date contained the royal chronicles, but these had apparently disappeared in his time through the energy of one Suvrata in composing a poem embodying them, evidently written in the Kāvya style, and, therefore, difficult to follow. He consulted also, he says, eleven works of former scholars as well as the still extant *Nīlamatapurāṇa*. The polymath Kṣemendra had written a *Nṛpāvali* which Kalhaṇa censures for want of care, but which probably was a careful summary of his sources and, therefore, is a real loss. From Padmamihira Kalhaṇa took eight kings beginning with Lava who come first after the gap of thirty-five lost kings in Book I; Padmamihira's source was a certain Pāçupata Helārāja whose work must have been extensive but which Kalhaṇa did not know. From Chavillākara, whose text he cites, he derived some really historical information in the shape of Açoka's name and his devotion to Buddhism. If the other authorities he used carried their work from the beginnings to their own times, or were mere chronicles of recent events, we do not know. Kalhaṇa probably used some writers of this kind, as he emphatically disclaims this sort of work as worthy of him, and insists on covering the whole history of Kashmir so far as his sources allow.

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But Kalhaṇa used much more original sources to check his literary authorities. He tells us that he inspected inscriptions of various kinds, those envisaged recording the construction of temples, memorials, or palaces, records of land grants or privileges (usually on copper plates), Praçastis, eulogies engraved on temples and other buildings, and manuscripts of literary works, which often record names of rulers and dates. The claim is borne out by the precise details of facts as to the foundation of sacred edifices, land grants, &c., which abound in his text, and by his precise assertions as to literary history, which are of great value. He studied also coins and inspected buildings, while he was clearly a master of the topography of the valley. Further, he used freely local traditions of all kinds, and family records, while from his own knowledge and from that of his father and many others he culled the minute details which mark his treatment of the events of the fifty years preceding the date of his work.

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Kalhaṇa frankly admits that the first fifty-two kings, evidently a traditional number, whom he recognizes were not recorded by his predecessors as chroniclers; the first four he took from the *Nīlamata*, the next eight from Helārāja frankly come after a gap of thirty-five kings, then follow five from Chavillākara. The first king Gonanda is of special importance because he is made to have come to the throne in the same year 653 of the Kali era in which Yudhiṣṭhira was crowned, and on this absolutely groundless synchronism is built up the whole fabric of Kalhaṇa's chronology. Gonanda is made to attack Kṛṣṇa in Mathurā and to be slain by Balabhadra, Kṛṣṇa's brother. His son Dāmodara I sought to avenge him, but perished, Kṛṣṇa placing his wife, then pregnant, on the throne, so that Gonanda II, his son, was a babe who could take no part in the great war. It must be noted that in Book III we find Gonanda III virtually treated as the real head of the dynasty, nor can we deny that these fabulous kings were merely invented by a pious fraud to give Kashmir a place in the heroic legends of India. Of the other kings recorded in Book I Açoka is given a son Jalauka, elsewhere unknown, and a reminiscence of the Kuṣaṇas is seen in the names Huṣka, Juṣka, and Kaniṣka, recognized as Buddhists, though their order is exactly the reverse of the historical.

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They were followed by a Brahmanical Abhimanyu, who is stated to have favoured the study of the *Mahābhāṣya*, but whose historical character is unverifiable. Under him a pious Brahmin with the aid of Nīlanāga purifies Kashmir from Buddhist contagion and saves the land from snow, the tale being a mere *réchauffé* of the legend of the *Nīlamata* which makes Piçācas the sinners. The line of Gonanda kings after Gonanda III has little appearance of authenticity, and in Book II we find a new line of kings, unconnected with the old, and apparently with no claims to historicity. Book III gives the history of the restored Gonanda dynasty under Meghavāhana. In the new list Mātṛgupta's short reign figures, and possibly in him and his patron Vikramāditya Harṣa we have a reference to Çīlāditya¹ of Mālava, giving us a date in the sixth century. As a member of the Gonanda line figures Toramāṇa, who can hardly be other than the Hūṇa king of that name, and it is not enough to discount the fact that his father Mihirakula is given at a date 700 years earlier, for Kalhaṇa recognizes a reign of 300 years for Raṇāditya, who was the third last king of the dynasty and whose date would fall in quite historical times. A romantic tale ends the dynasty;

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the last king, Bālāditya, in order to avoid the fulfilment of a prophecy that his son-in-law would succeed him, married his daughter to a minor official Durlabhavardhana, but the son-in-law became a favourite of the king, and, having the wisdom if not the honour to pardon the minister Khaṅkha for an intrigue with his wife, was on the king's death elevated to the throne as first of the Kārkoṭa dynasty, the name being explained as due to the fact that he was really the son of a Nāga Kārkoṭa. With this dynasty in Book IV we approach historical reality in the seventh century A.D., as Durlabhavardhana may have been the king who ruled contemporaneously with the Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsang. The first date in the Laukika era of Kashmir (3076–5 B.C.) is given in the case of Cippaṭa Jayāpīḍa or Bṛhaspati, whom he assigns to A.D. 801–13, but this can definitely be proved wrong from the fact that the poet Ratnākara, author of the *Haravijaya*, distinctly tells us that he wrote under the patronage of that prince, while Kalhaṇa assures us that he was prominent under Avantivarman, who certainly began to reign in 855. There is clearly an error of at least twenty-five or even fifty years. The dynasty ended in usurpation by Avantivarman, son of Sukhavarman and grandson of Utpala, an able man of humble origin who had become virtual ruler of the realm. With Avantivarman we are in the full light of history;

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Book V carries the dynasty down to 939, and Book VI completes it to the death of queen Diddā in 1003 and the peaceful accession of her nephew, the first prince of the Lohara dynasty. Book VII ends with the tragedy of the death of Harṣa, and Book VIII deals at great length (3449 stanzas) with the events of the half-century from the accession of Uccala. One curious omission of importance can be proved; Kalhaṇa records in an interesting manner the aid sent vainly under Tuṅga to the Ṣāhi king Trilocanapāla in his effort to stay the Mahomedan invasion under Maḥmūd Ghaznī, the Hammīra of the Indian texts; but he does not mention the actual onslaught about 1015 of the Mahomedan forces directed against Kashmir, which was stayed by the resolute resistance of the castle of Lohara, and as a result of the narrow outlook of the people of Kashmir in their inaccessible valley he appreciates hardly at all the significance of the new storm bursting over India.

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¹ Cf. EHI. p. 344.

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