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Revision as of 21:15, 29 July 2020 by Smettems (talk | contribs) (fixed many issues with spelling and awkward grammatical phrasings)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Kalhaṇa (sometimes spelled Kalhana or Kalhan) (c. 12th century), a Kashmiri, was the author of Rājataraṃgiṇī (River of Kings), an account of the history of Kashmir. He wrote the work in Sanskrit between 1148 and 1149. All information regarding his life has to be deduced from his own writing, a major scholar of which is Mark Aurel Stein. Robin Donkin has argued that with the exception of Kalhaṇa, "there are no literary works with a developed sense of chronology, or indeed much sense of place, before the thirteenth century".
Life
Kalhaṇa was born to a Kashmiri minister, Campaka, who probably served king Harṣa of the Lohara dynasty. It is possible that his birthplace was Parihāsapura and his birth would have been very early in the 12th century. It is extremely likely that he was of the Hindu Brahmin caste, suggested in particular by his knowledge of Sanskrit. The introductory verses to each of the eight books in his Rājataraṃgiṇī are prefaced with prayers to Shiva, a Hindu deity. As was common among many Hindus in Kashmir at that time, he was also sympathetic to Buddhism, and Buddhists tended to reciprocate this feeling towards Hindus. Even in relatively modern times, Buddha's birthday has been a notable event for Kashmiri Brahmins and well before Kalhaṇa's time Buddha had been accepted by Hindus as an avatar of Vishnu.
Kalhaṇa was familiar with earlier epics such as the Vikramāṅkadevacarita of Bilhaṇa, the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata, to all of which he alludes in his own writings. However, his writings did not employ what Stein has described as "the very redundant praise and flattery which by custom and literary tradition Indian authors feel obliged to bestow on their patrons". From this comes Stein's deduction that Kalhaṇa was not a part of the circle surrounding Jayasiṃha, the ruling monarch at the time when he was writing the Rājataraṃgiṇī.
See also
References
- Stein, Vol. 1, p. 15.
- Donkin, p. 152.
- Stein, Vol. 1, pp. 6-9, 15.
- Stein, Vol. 1, p. 9.
- Stein, Vol. 1, pp. 10-11.
- Stein, Vol. 1, p. 17.
Bibliography
- Stein, Mark Aurel (1989) . Kalhana's Rajatarangini: a chronicle of the kings of Kasmir, Volume 1 (Reprinted ed.). Motilal Banarsidass. ISBN 978-81-208-0369-5. Retrieved 11 July 2011.
- Stein, Mark Aurel (1989) . Kalhana's Rajatarangini: a chronicle of the kings of Kasmir, Volume 2 (Reprinted ed.). Motilal Banarsidass. ISBN 978-81-208-0370-1. Retrieved 10 July 2011.
- Donkin, Robin A. (1998). "Beyond price: pearls and pearl-fishing: origins to the age of discoveries". Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society. 224. American Philosophical Society. ISBN 978-0-87169-224-5.
External links
- Dhar, K. N. Kalhana - The Chronicler. Retrieved on 15 November 2008.