Karkota dynasty

The Karkota dynasty ruled the Kashmir valley and parts of northern India in the seventh and eighth centuries, an age of political expansion, prosperity and Kashmir's rise as a centre of culture and learning. The first king Durlabhavardhana commissioned the Nilamata Purana, which made Kashmir a sacred land of Brahminical geography and himself its rightful king, though the text, interpolated as late as the tenth century, is no objective history; the Vishnudharmottara Purana served the polity in the same way. The dynasty is also lit by foreign witnesses: the pilgrims Xuanzang, Yijing, Wukong and Hyecho all visited Kashmir in its time, and Kalhana's eleventh-century Rajatarangini, built on earlier histories, genealogies, inscriptions, coins and Puranas, treats the house at length. The Karkotas raised Vishnu shrines across their lands while letting Buddhism flourish, and stupas, chaityas and viharas stand among the capital's ruins; Lalitaditya built the Martand Sun Temple in Anantnag, the oldest known Sun temple of India and among the largest temple complexes of its day. Avanti Varman took the throne in 855, founded the Utpala dynasty and closed the Karkota age.