Jonaraja’s Rajatarangini is the second in the series of Kashmir chronicles, next to the work of Kalhana. The Kashmirian tradition of writing chronicles was not discontinued at the death of Kalhana but was carried further by his disciples. The Rajatarangini of Jonaraja covers the period from 1150 A.D. to 1459 A.D. of the Kashmir History. This period witnessed the advent of the Muslims in Kashmir and conversion of the majority of the Hindus into Islam. Jonaraja who was a historian to the true sense of the term and a
Sanskrit poet of very high order has vividly described the decline of Hindu civilization of Kashmir. He describes without any prejudice, the Muslim regimes, mentions them the contributions of the good among and fearlessly criticizes the oppressors and persecutors. He does not even try to conceal the degeneration among the contemporary Hindus. His work is a valuable source book of the history of medieval Kashmir.
The present publication is the only complete English translation of Jonarāja’s work, made available after a long time
PREFACE
It is some satisfaction to the translator to be able to bring his self-imposed labours to an end. In volumes I. and II. of this work which were published in 1879 and 1887, respectively, he completed the translation of Kahlana’s work.
Pandit Durgāprasāda of Jayapore has published an excellent edition of Kahlana’s work, and the translator regrets that he was unable to profit by it as the edition was published subsequent to his translation. The narration left by Kahlana, who may be called the father of Indian history, was taken up by Jonarāja. He again was followed by his pupil Shrivara: and Shrivara’s work was continued by Prajyabhatta. It is not generally known that Prajyabhaṭṭa left his work incomplete, and that it was taken up by Shuka who brought the account of Kashmira to the time when the country was con- quered by Akbar, and it ceased to be an independent kingdom. The works of all these authors have been translated in the volume now presented to the public. To judge from the imperfect texts of these works pub lished by the General Committee of Public Instruction, rija’s Raja eries of Ka work of and the Asiatic Society of Bengal, it seems that the later authors have greatly improved Kahlana’s method of writing history. They are clear and perspicuous, and events are narrated consecutively, so that the whole narration runs in one continuous flow. The writers
however could not forget that they were poets as well as historians, and consequently they interspersed their ac counts with flowers of poesy and rhetorical flourishes!
It is to be regretted that the last of the works men- tioned above has been very carelessly edited. Portions of the narrative have got inserted in wrong places so as to interrupt the flow of the narrative and to render the meaning in those places unintelligible. The translator has tried his best to put these intruding fragments into their proper places. He has however not been able to find the proper place of three unimportant and uninteresting stories which he has put in appendices.
It must be mentioned that valuable as the writings of these authors are from a historical point of view, in the absence of any other history of the country they relate to, we cannot unhasitatingly accept their esti- mation of persons and events when we remember that they were, what may be called, court pandits, and depended on the smiles of kings, whose accounts they wrote, for almost everything they had in the world. It is not unlikely that they oftee had to read out their writings in court. We almost always find that they be gin the account of a king by extolling his virtues to the skies, and we may be sure that they never wrote their with who beginning censures on any king till he was dead or deposed. As court pandits they had in full measure the vice of such people,-fulsome adulation of their patrons.-They did not hesitate to raise Mahomedan princes not only above the ancient heroes of their country, whom as Hindus they must have revered, but even above the gods of the Hindus. A strict impartiality of opinion cannot be expected from such writers. A true history cannot be written when the writer has a purpose to serve other than writing a true history. There is however no reason to disbelieve the correctness of their accounts, irres- pective of the writers’ views regarding the events narrated.
No one can be more alive to the defects of the trans- lation than the translator himself. He is however the first to translate these valuable records into English, and he hopes that the public will view his performance with the indulgence due to a first attempt of difficult work. He trusts it will form the ground work for tran- slations which will no doubt be more scholarly than his, especially when undertaken by a European scholar like Dr. Stein of Lahore. A European commands much greater resources in this country than what a native of the country may hope to do.
In conclusion the translator begs to offer his best thanks to his teacher Pandit Alokanath Nyayabhashana with whom he read the Rajatarangini almost from the beginning to the end. He is also deeply obliged
made and the Asiatic Society of Bengal, it seems that the later authors have greatly improved Kahlana’s method of writing history. They are clear and perspicuous, and events are narrated consecutively, so that the whole narration runs in one continuous flow.
