Land of Kashyapa - Page#20 - Parihaspora

Land of Kashyapa - Page#20

Parihaspora

In Sanskrit - "hasa" is smiling. "Parihasa" has several meanings including Fun or Mirth or Merriment. Lalitaditya Muktapida, about whom I have written in my earlier pages in this series, built his new "pura" (a city in Sanskrit) and called it Parihaspora (city of fun and joy)
Parihaspora is about 30 kilometers west of Srinagar and 10 kilometers east of the Sankaragaurisvara and Sugandhesa temple ruins which we saw on Page#19 of "Land of Kashyapa"
Pandit Kalhana writes in his Rajatarangini - “There is no town or village, no river or lake, no island where the king did not build a sacred foundation.” He built the famous and elegant Sun temple at Martand and Parihaskesva at his capital Parihasspura."
Writer Chaman Lal Gadoo observes: "Lalitaditya in Parihasapora - built four Vaishnava temples— the Muktakesva, Parihaskesava, Mahvaraha and Govardhanadhara besides a Buddhist monastery and a grand chaitya. Once an important center, little of it remains now except the plinths of a Buddhist monastery, a chaitya that once enshrined a colossal Buddha image, and a great stupa. In fact, he had as prime minister a Chinese Buddhist named Tsiang-Kiun whose name translated into Sanskrit, was Cankuna. The prime minister constructed a lofty stupa and gold images of Jina (Buddha). A gigantic statue of Muktakesava(Vishnu) was made of gold weighing 84,000 tolas! Another statue of Parihaskesava was built with 3,36,000 tolas of Silver. Lalitaditya built another colossus of Buddha with 1,01,64,000 tolas of bronze."
Lalitaditya ascended to power in 703AD and the city should have been built less than 10 years hence. However, after his death in 760AD - the capital of the Karkota dynasty moved back to Srinagar.
After 883AD, Shakaravarman of the Utpala dynasty first cannibalized the place to construct the temples of Sankaragaurisvara and Sugandhesa. In 1101 general Uchchala under King Harsha of the Lohara Dynasty - revolted and the fight led to the setting on fire of one of the palaces in Parihaspora. The inferno seems to have melted the statues in place. The final blow to Parihaspora was delivered by Sultan Sikandar who "destroyed them completely in the fourteenth century."
When we stepped into the location of the ruins now maintained by the ASI - we walked into a vast ground with nothing to show of the magnificent structures and idols that Lalitaditya had built. We were greeted by a vast ocean of stones lying in heaps. The Kashmiri locals refer to the place as “Kani Shahar” or the City of stones.
When I climbed up the platform I found a central stone with a square hole - perhaps it held an idol or a valuable relic before all hell broke loose.
"kālaḥ kalayatāmaham" - "I am Time among the subduers," says Lord Krishna. Time is all-powerful. "Only one celestial force can render all others useless. Only one unstoppable force that can never be countered by humans- TIME."
Sriram(Hari)

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