A History of Sanskrit Literature c14.s5.3.1

c14.s5.3.1

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.