Karkota dynasty of Kashmir

01Kalhana’s fourth book

Nearly all we know of the Karkotas comes from the fourth book of Kalhana’s Rajatarangini, written in 1148–49, checked against the Tang court records of China and the travel notes of Xuanzang. Durlabhavardhana, who began the line, was ruling when Xuanzang came to Kashmir in 631 and spent two years studying there. Chandrapida and later Lalitaditya sent embassies to the Tang court asking for help against the Tibetans and the Arabs. Kalhana’s own dates for these kings run too early; the figures given here follow Aurel Stein’s correction.

02Lalitaditya and Martand

Kalhana gives Lalitaditya Muktapida a long list of conquests. The best attested is his war with Yashovarman of Kannauj, which ended in Yashovarman’s defeat. On the Mattan plateau above Anantnag he built the temple of Martanda, Surya, of grey limestone in a great colonnaded court, the ruins of which still stand. At Parihasapura he built a new city with a temple of Vishnu as Parihasakeshava and, through his minister Chankuna, a stupa and vihara. Jonaraja’s chronicle records that Sultan Sikandar of Kashmir had the Martand temple broken in the early fifteenth century.

Person · Reigned c. 724–760 CELalitaditya MuktapidaLalitaditya Muktapida made Kashmir, for one reign, the strongest power in north India: he defeated Yashovarman of Kannauj and built the Sun temple at Martand. Kalhana gives him the longest war chapter of the Rajatarangini.Read →

03Jayapida and the end

Jayapida, Lalitaditya’s grandson, fought abroad like his grandfather, but Kalhana remembers him more for his court. The rhetorician Udbhata was his chief pandit and Vamana, author of the Kavyalankara-sutra, his minister. After him weak kings were ruled by their ministers and by the family of a woman of the court, whose sons and grandsons became the kingmakers. In 855 one of that family, Avantivarman, took the throne himself and began the Utpala dynasty.

The rulers

1. 1DurlabhavardhanaFounder; host of Xuanzangc. 625–661
2. 2Durlabhaka Pratapaditya IIc. 661–711
3. 3ChandrapidaEmbassy to the Tang courtc. 711–719
4. 4Tarapidac. 719–723
5. 5Lalitaditya MuktapidaMartand sun temple; Parihasapurac. 724–760
6. 6Jayapida VinayadityaUdbhata and Vamana at his courtlate 8th c.
7. 7Chippata-JayapidaRuled under his maternal unclesearly 9th c.
8. 8UtpalapidaLast Karkota kingto c. 855

What they left

• Martand sun temple, Mattan
• The ruins of Parihasapura
• Kavyalankara-sutra of Vamana
• Kashmiri temple style of trefoil arches and pyramidal roofs