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.[१] Professor Aufrecht has very justly denied the credibility of this story. There was no doubt a Chapotkata king of Anhilvâd, called Vairisimha. But he died A. D. 920,[२] one hundred years before Bilhann's real date. Besides, according to the statement of my Pandit Vamanacharya Jhalkikar, the MSS. of the Panchas'ikâ existing in the Karnata country, give different names for the king and his daughter viz. Madandbhirama and Yaminipúrnatilaká who lived in Lakshmi- mandira, the capital of Panchalades'a. Moreover the identical anecdote is told of another poet Chaura, to whom also in some MSS. the whole Panchâs'ika 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 regarding the country of his birth and its rulers, is contained in the eighteenth and last Sarga of the Vikramankakavya. The canto opens with a description or rather a hymuus 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.[३] He
- ↑ See Aufrecht Oxford Cat. p. 133b. I have seen another MS, containing this story iu Bikauir, and a third in Ahmadabad. The name of the king is according to the Ahmadabad MS. i, just as Aufrecht proposes to read for the fee of the Oxford MS. But the correct form of the name is, I think, as Tánd are often exchanged in Gujarat MSS. and Vairisimha or Bersingh is a common Rajput name.
- ↑ See Forbes Rasmala I. p. 42.
- ↑ XVIII. 1. 15. 16.
