01Kannauj and the poets
Kalhana, writing in 1148–49, says Lalitaditya first allied with Yashovarman, king of Kannauj, and then, after a quarrel over the wording of a treaty, uprooted him. The poets Vakpatiraja, who wrote the Prakrit Gaudavaho for Yashovarman, and Bhavabhuti, author of the Uttararamacharita, are named by Kalhana as having served the defeated king. Chinese records of the Tang court confirm that a Kashmir king Muduobi, Muktapida, sent an envoy around 733 asking for help against the Tibetans, so the outline of Kalhana’s account stands on independent ground.
02Martand and Parihasapura
On a plateau above Anantnag, Lalitaditya raised the temple of Martand, Surya, in grey limestone, with a court of 84 fluted pillars around a tall central shrine. Sikandar Butshikan, Sultan of Kashmir (1389–1413), ordered it destroyed, and its roofless walls still stand. He also founded the city of Parihasapura, with temples to Parihasakeshava and Muktakeshava and a Buddhist stupa and vihara built by his minister Chankuna. Kalhana adds digvijaya stories of marches to the eastern sea and the far north, which read more as tradition than as record; on his death, said to be in the snows of the north, he admits the reports differ.
