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

KINGS OF KASHMÍRA. 41
like sacrificial beasts in the flame of his prowess. In
the management of the affairs of his own country he
depended on his two ministers Koṭabhaṭṭa and Udaya-
shrí, and in battle he depended on Chandraḍámara
and Laula. Koṭasharmmá was like the moon in the
sea like dynasty of Devasharmmá. Indifferent to
worldly concerns, he left the wealth repeatedly bestowed
on him by the king, and retired to a forest.
Surely it was to display the prowess of the king that
on a certain occasion a calamity befell, troubling his
subjects grievously. In the year 36, a cruel inundation
distressed the subjects. What the sun is to the kumuda
flower, or a hero to his enemies, so was the inundation to
the city and the trees. The city was under water, but
the mighty inundation still increased and reached the
hills which shed tears in the shape of waterfalls. There
was not a tree, not a boundary mark, not a bridge, not a
house, that stood in the way of the inundation, which
it did not destroy. The king, who never took shelter in
a hill fort in fear of an enemy, now frequently resorted
to such forts through fear of the inundation. It subsid-
ed within a few days, as if dried up by the prowess of
the king; but the king wished to build a town on a hill
in fear of another inundation. He consulted his queen
named Lakshmí and built a celebrated town which
equalled his own greatness; and the people saw be-
fore them, at the base of the Himálaya, the town of
Sháriká, inhabited by virtuous men, even like Alaká, at the