Utpala dynasty of Kashmir

01Suyya drains the valley

When Avantivarman came to the throne in 855 the valley flooded year after year and rice was dear. Kalhana tells how Suyya, a foundling raised by a poor woman who found him by the road, offered to fix it. He threw pots of coins into the Vitasta at the gorge near Baramulla, and the villagers who dived for them cleared the rocks that choked the river. He then cut new channels, moved the meeting of the Vitasta and the Sindhu, and raised embankments. New land came out of the water, and Kalhana says a khari of rice that had cost two hundred dinaras now cost thirty-six. Sopore, Suyyapura, still carries his name.

02Avantipura and its court

Avantivarman founded Avantipura on the Vitasta and built two temples there: Avantiswami to Vishnu, before he came to the throne, and Avantishvara to Shiva. The Avantiswami, with its colonnaded court and carved gateway, was dug out of silt in the early twentieth century and its ruins can be visited on the Srinagar–Jammu road. Kalhana names Muktakana, Shivasvamin, Anandavardhana and Ratnakara among the poets of his reign. Anandavardhana’s Dhvanyaloka, which taught that the soul of poetry is what it suggests, is still the foundation of Sanskrit criticism.

Person · 12th century CE; Rajatarangini 1148–1150 CEKalhanaKalhana, son of Champaka, minister to King Harsha of Kashmir, wrote the Rajatarangini (‘River of Kings’) in 1148–1150 CE: about 7,800 verses in eight tarangas tracing the kings of Kashmir from the earliest times to his own day.Read →

03Shankaravarman and after

Shankaravarman, his son, led armies out of the valley against the Gurjaras and toward the Indus. At Shankarapura, now Pattan, he and his queen Sugandha built the Shankaragaurisha and Sugandhesha temples, which still stand. Kalhana is hard on him for new taxes and for taking temple revenues. He died in 902, struck by an arrow on the way back from a campaign. After him came regents and short reigns, with the palace guards called Tantrins selling the throne, until Unmattavanti, whose cruelty Kalhana records in detail, and the end of the line in 939.

The rulers

1. 1AvantivarmanFounded Avantipura; Suyya’s drainage works855–883
2. 2ShankaravarmanTemples at Shankarapura (Pattan)883–902
3. 3Gopalavarman902–904
4. 4SugandhaQueen, ruled in her own name904–906
5. 5Parthac. 906–921
6. 6Chakravarmanc. 923–937 (interrupted)
7. 7Unmattavantic. 937–939
8. 8Suravarman IILast of the line939

What they left

• Avantiswami temple, Avantipora
• Shankaragaurisha and Sugandhesha temples, Pattan
• Suyya’s embankments and the town of Sopore
• Dhvanyaloka of Anandavardhana