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 132 THE HISTORY OF KASHMIR

weak, is noticeable from the fact that the famous Mahmud of Ghazni, who forced Mohamedanism upon upper India, made an attempt, a.p. 1015, to invade Kashmir. It was unsuccessful, but it marks the first sign of the returning flood of invasion from the Punjab inwards to Kashmir. The outward flow had ceased. ‘The inward was now to begin.

In the meanwhile, until the Moghals, five hundred years later, finally established themselves in Kashmir, the ceaseless round of intrigue, treachery, and strife continued. The powerful herdsman minister and his son were foully murdered, and a succession of low favourites rose to power and plundered the people. A reign of twenty-two days which follows was terminated by the licentious mother killing her own son.. Then comes a dangerous rising of the feudal landholders and more short reigns, murders, suicides, till we arrive at the reign of Harsa, 1089-1101, who is said to have been “the most striking figure among the later Hindu rulers of Kashmir.” He was courageous and fond of display, and well versed in various sciences, and a lover of music and the arts, but “cruelty and kindheartedness, liberality and greed, violent self-willedness and reckless supineness,