XII. The Chronology and Genealogy of the Muhammadan Kings of Kashmir

Extract

Mr. Stanley Lane-Poole, on p. 311 of his most valuable work The Mohammadan Dynasties, has the following note after his list of the kings of Mālwa: “The list of the kings of Kashmīr should follow here; but their chronology is so uncertain that an accurate table can hardly be constructed. See my Catalogue of the Coins of the Muhammadan States of India, xlvii, 68.” It is evident, therefore, that the coins of this dynasty do not furnish us with sufficient materials for the construction of a complete chronological list of the kings of Kashmīr, and Mr. C. J. Rodgers, writing in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (lxv, pt. i, p. 225, 1896), says of them: “They are not of much value, as I have shown elsewhere, for the assistance they render in fixing the chronology.” I have, therefore, the less reason to regret my inability, far removed as I am from museums and libraries, to consult specimens and catalogues of these coins, and I propose, with the slender materials at my disposal, to make an attempt to solve some of the difficulties of this interesting question and to construct a tentative list of the kings of Kashmīr which may at least form the basis of further investigation by those more fortunately situated than I am. My materials consist chiefly of the Ṭabaqāt-i-Akbarī, Colonel Jarrett's excellent translation of the Āīn-i-Akbarī, and Firishtah's history (Bombay text of 1830). The last-named can hardly be regarded as an independent authority, for Firishtah, in his account of this dynasty, is little more than a copyist of Niām-al-dīn Aḥmad, to whose Ṭabaqāt-i-Akbarī he has added little, but I have found his history useful for the reconstruction of various corrupt and defective passages in the text of my copy of the Ṭabaqāt-i-Akbarī, which is not one of the happiest efforts of the Newal Kishore Press of Lucknow.