द्वितीय राजतरङ्गिणी (जोनराज - कल्हणोत्तर मध्यकालीन कश्मीर का प्रामाणिक इतिहास)

192 KINGS OF KASHMÍRA.
Even one’s own wife deserts a man on such an occasion
not to speak of servants. It was more dangerous to
serve the king than to embrace fire, or to go before an
angry cobra, or to fall into the ocean. The Chaṇḍālas
at night took the bodies as of men who had no friends,
and buried them in a hole in the ground at the foot of
the Pradyumna hill, and covered the place with bricks.
The Mausulas always take care about the structures over
their graves and pay money to the architects. They do
not think that no one can know, except God, when or
how one may die. He alone is fit to build a tomb who
knows the period of his life, and to whom Death is obe-
dient as a friend. This practice of building tombs among
the mlechchhas is but a foolish one. This is my view.
Vaishravaṇabhaṭṭa and others had built their tombs, but
when in the end they died in a village, they were laid
there on the ground. An ordinary man carefully en-
closes a hundred cubits of land and prevents others from
entering it ; should he not be ashamed of this ? It is said
in the [Mahomedan] shāstra that if a small stone be
laid on the grave that stone becomes a source of joy to
the man who has gone to the other world. Alas ! the
strength of cupidity ! Even the dead, like the living,
keep possession of the ground under the pretence of
having a tomb ! Great men seem to enjoy their life in
taking pains over building tombs, but how many men
there are who go hungry ! Admirable is the practice
enjoined by the other [Hindu] shāstra, for tens of mil-