पृष्ठम्:विक्रमाङ्कदेवचरितम् - बिल्हण.pdf/११

INTRODUCTION.
7
became known to the king before the fatal order was carried out,
and affected him so much that he granted to the offender his
life and the hand of the princess. Professor Aufrecht has very
justly denied the credibility of this story. There was no doubt
a Châpotkata king of Anhilvâd, called Vairisimha. But he
died A. D. 920,2 one hundred years before Bilhann's real date.
Besides, according to the statement of my Pandit Vâmanâcharya
Jhalkikar, the MSS. of the Panchas'ikâ existing in the Karnata
country, give different names for the king and his daughter viz.
Madandbhirama and Yaminipúrnatilakd who lived in Lakshmi-
mandira, the capital of Panchálades'a. Moreover the identical
anecdote is told of another poet Chaura, to whom also in some
MSS. the whole Panchâs'ikà is ascribed. Finally, as we shall see
presently, in Bilhana's own account of his life no mention of
the story is made.
This account of Bilhana's life together with some notices re-
garding the country of his birth and its rulers, is contained in
the eighteenth and last Sarga of the Vikramânkakavya. The
canto opens with a description or rather a hymnus in praise of
Pravarapura, the ancient capital of Kashmir, which was situated
on the confluence of the Vitasta (Jhelam) and of the Sindhu.
Pravarapura was, according to Bilhana, not only the chief
town in Kashmir, but it surpassed in beauty all other cities,
even Kuvera's town, Lanka and the town of the Gods.⁹ He
1 See Aufrecht Oxford Cat. p. 1336. I have seen another MS. con-
tainin this story iu Bikanir, and a third in Ahmadabad.
The name of the king is according to the Ahmadabad MS.
just as Aufrecht proposes to read for the fee of the Oxford MS.
But the correct form of the name is, I think , as र ánd रि
are often exchanged in Gujarat MSS. and Vairisimha or Bersingh is a
common Rajput name.
2 See Forbes Rasmala I. p. 42.
3 XVIII. 1. 15. 16.