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BUDDHISM IN KASHMIR
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spread to Kashmir. Taranatha then refers to the royal families of Saitā and Turuska,' stating that king Turuska ruled in Kashmir for 100 years as a Dharmaraja, but destroyed the vihāras of Magadha and put the monks of Nalanda to flight. Then Mahāsammata, son of Turuşka brought under one rule the kingdoms of Kashmir, Tukhāra and Ghazni and helped the spread of Mahāyāna teaching." The Mañjusrimulakalpa refers to one Turuska who ruled over the Uttarapatha up to the gate of Kashmir. He was a pious Buddhist and during his reign Mahāyānism, specially the teaching of the Prajñāpāramitā, spread in the north. After him appeared Mahāturuşka who also erected Buddhist temples and monasteries and propagated the mantra and worship of Taradevi. In the Mañjuśrimulakalpa, the Turuska king is referred to as "Gomi""" and his sucas Buddhapakṣa, who, according to both Taranatha and Manjusrimulakalpa, made good the loss suffered by Buddhism on account of the vandalism of his predecessor by re-erecting several temples and monasteries. Taranatha adds that he erected many Caityas in Ghazni" and invited to Kashmir Vasubandhu's disciple Sanghadāsa who founded Ratnaguptavihāra in Kashmir and spread the Mahāyāna teaching there for the first time."
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The Turuska lord was very likely the well-known persecutor of Buddhism, Mihirakula, whose date of accession is placed at 515 A.C. The Chinese traditions as also Kalhaṇa's Rajatarangini
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Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir
1 Tib. (p. 64) སེཏ་ དང་ཏུ་རུ་ཥ་ཀའེ་ རྒྱལ་པོའི་ རིགས་ རྣམས་ བྱུང་ངོ །
2 Schiefner, p. 94; Bu-ston II, p. 119.
4 Mmk., p. 623.
3 Schiefner, pp. 103 ff. 5 Ibid.,
Cf. Gollas of Kosmas Indikopleustes and his
6 Gomimukhya, Gomiṣanda. coin-legends: jayatu vrsa, jayatu vrṣadhaja. Stein, I, p. 43 fn. 7 Mmk., pp. 619-620; Schiefner, p. 94-5.
8 Schiefner, p. 103.
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9 Ibid., p. 135.
