Page:The Indian Antiquary Vol 2.djvu/118

 104 THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY. [April, 1873. Ajayata sutah kantaschandro dugdhodadhe- riva | 9 |. Putram kptajananandam sa jayantam ajijanat Vyakta kavitvavaktritvaphala yasya sarasvati I 10 I. Vrittikaraiti vyaktam dvitiyam nama bibhratah | SAnuh samudabhftt tasmadabhinanda iti srutah 111 I. Kavyavistarasamdhanakhedalasadhiyam prati | Tena kadambarisindhoh kathamatram samu- ddhritam | 12 |. “ Praise to Sarasvati! 1. May the steps of Sauri, accomplished with equal labour, both those which first he made when stepping over the (path of the cow), and those which he made when striding through the three worlds, give you prosperity. 2. Glory to the lovely, pleasingly sweet song of my father J a y a n t a, the teacher of the worlds,—(to that song) which is full of senti¬ ment and possessed of true * ornaments.’ 3. There is nothing more resplendent than good men, who shine through their virtues (guna) just as lamps shine through their wicks (guna), since their faults even serve to adorn the aspect of their works (just as lamp-soot serves to adorn the eye). 4. Small qualities even increase, and great ones even decrease, according' as they reside in good or bad men, just as the moon increases or decreases according as she reaches the white or the black half of the month. 5. There was a Gauda of the family of Bharadvaja, called £ a k t i, who went to Darvabhisara and married there. 0. To him was bom a son, named M i t r a, whose appearance was worshipped by those who had obtained the true knowledge after destroy¬ ing their sinful desires (just as the rising sun [Mitra] is worshipped by men after they have been awakened at the end of the night). 7. He obtained a son, learned in the revealed texts, Saktisvamin by name, who was the minister of Muktapida, a king of the Karkota line. 8. His son was Kalyanasvamin, who, like Yajnavalkya, destroyed the stains of (this) existence by the acquisition of pure Yoga. From that deep-hearted man was born a son, called K & n t a, an ornament of the creator, • Ind. Alt. III. 1017. just as tho moon was produced from the milk- ocean. 10. He begat a son, who gladdened men’s hearts, named Jayanta, to whom Saras¬ vati, the giver of poetry and eloquence, be¬ longed manifestly as his own. 11. To him, who openly bore as a second name the title ‘ the scholiast,’ was bom a son, known as Abhinanda. 12. He has extracted from the ocean of the Kadambari the story only, for the sake of those who are too lazy to undergo the trouble of read¬ ing that extensive poem.” In considering the several items of informa¬ tion contained in the extracts given above, it will be most convenient to begin with those furnished by the Kddambarilcathdsura. From this work it appears that A b h i n a n d a—for this, and not Abhinanadana, is the form of the poet’s name which occurs in my MSS.— belonged to a family of Gauda or Bengal Brah¬ mans, who claimed descent from the sago Bha¬ radvaja. The Bixth ancestor of the poet, S a k t i, emigrated to and settled in Darva¬ bhisara. Abhisara, the country of King Abissares, is, according to Lassen,* a province to the south of Kashmir, whilst Darva lies to the north-west of the same kingdom. General Cunninghamf places Abhisara also to the north-west of Kashmir, and the fact that Abhinanda as well as Kalhana (e. g. Rdj. IV. 711) form a compound of the two names, in¬ dicates that both regions lay close together and probably formed a political unit. Without en¬ tering further into the question of their exact geographical position, it will suffice for our purpose to state that Darv&bhis&ra lay on the frontiers of Kashmir, and formed part of that kingdom down to the reign of U t p a 1 a - p i d a, the last of the Karkota kings. . S'akti’s family must soon have risen to influence in its new country, as his grandson is stated to have been minister to king Mukta¬ pida of the Karkota dynasty. The Ndga or Karkota family occupied the throne of Kashmir from the beginning of the seventh to the end of the ninth century. The first Karkota king was Durlabhavardhana, who reigned thirty- six years. His son and successor was Durla- bhaka or Pratapaditya, who ruled for f Anc. Qeotj., Maps Y. and VI.