Page:Younghusband - Kashmir.pdf/189

 NORMAL STATE OF KASHMIR 187

brother would murder him. In Chitral there was also the same struggle with “nobles” as is recorded of Kashmir, and murders of “nobles” were horribly frequent.

We may accept, then, as authentic that the normal state of Kashmir for many centuries, except in the intervals when a strong, firm ruler came to the front, was a state of perpetual intrigue and assassination, of struggles with brothers, cousins, uncles, before a chief even came to the throne; of fights for power with ministers, with the military, with the “nobles” when he was on it; of constant fear; of poisoning and assassination ; of wearying, petty internecine “ wars,” and of general discomfort, uncertainty, and unrest.

For two centuries more Hindu rule maintained itself, but it was sféadily decaying. In the mean- while Mohamedanism had, especially in conse- quence of the invasion of Mahmud of Ghazni in 1000 a.p., made great advances in the adjoining kingdoms of the Punjab; and, in 1339, a Mohamedan ruler, Shah Mir, deposed the widow of the last Hindu ruler and founded a Mohamedan dynasty. The influx of foreign adventurers from

‘Central Asia as well as from India had prepared