A History of Sanskrit Literature c14.s5.3.3

c14.s5.3.3

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;