KINGS OF KASHMIR A. BOOK I.* What an indescribable thing, is tho merit of a good poet! By means of it, his own fame as well as that of others is immortalised! Who, hut a poet can briug back the past iii sweet composition, and what can make it intelligible if his art canuot 1 Although graoe has been sacrified in ,£feis work, for the sake of briefness, yet there are some thiugs which will please the good. Happy is he, who is without worldliness and euvy, and is favored by the Goddess of Learning ia narrating the padt. I shall iuolude past records in ray writing, and the good will not turn away without knowing the usefulness of my work. Modern writers have tampered with the reoords of the eye^nituSsges of past events, and it requires skill,, therefore, to write a history of the past. To write the truth is my object. ■ '
- An invocation to Hara and Farvati, with which the work begins,
liirc been left out.
