Abhimanyu’s death and Nandigupta’s accession

The death of Abhimanyu in 972

Abhimanyu had become king as a child after Ksemagupta’s death in 958, with his mother Didda exercising authority as guardian. His reign ended in 972, when his son Nandigupta succeeded. The transition continued rule through a young male member of the family while Didda remained the central figure in government.

Kalhana describes Abhimanyu as learned, familiar with the shastras and appreciated by other learned men. He also says the king developed an illness translated by Stein as consumption. The chronicler connects the suffering with the supposed sins of Abhimanyu’s mother and the corrupt people around him. That is a moral explanation, not a demonstrated medical cause.

The death is dated to the third day of the bright half of Karttika, Laukika year 4048, conventionally 972. The traditional day and month can be retained without claiming an exact Gregorian conversion. The passage does not establish the king’s birth date or exact age at death.

An account of illness should not be silently rewritten as a proven murder by Didda. Some later summaries make that claim, but it is not what this passage establishes. The accusations surrounding the deaths of her grandsons appear separately and need to be assessed on their own terms.

Nandigupta’s accession and Didda’s grief

Nandigupta is identified as Abhimanyu’s son. Kalhana records his succession directly after his father’s death and describes Didda’s grief for her lost child. Her relationship to the reigning king had changed from mother to grandmother, while her political dominance continued.

The chronicler says mourning temporarily softened her conduct. His contrast between an allegedly cruel disposition and a period of gentleness is part of the literary portrait. It does not provide direct access to her inner life or a complete record of administrative changes.

Bhuyya, identified as Sindhu’s brother and the city prefect, encouraged her religious patronage. Kalhana praises him as an official whose influence improved the treatment of subjects. This notice gives a named adviser a role in the building programme, rather than attributing every decision to the queen acting alone.

Memorial foundations and places of residence

To increase her deceased son’s religious merit, Didda founded the Vishnu shrine Abhimanyusvamin and a town called Abhimanyupura. Stein could not securely identify either in his geographical notes. The name should not be automatically equated with an earlier Abhimanyupura mentioned elsewhere in the chronicle.

She is also credited with Diddapura, a Diddasvamin shrine and a matha for people from regions outside Kashmir. Madhyadesa and Lata are named, while another regional name has an uncertain reading. The notice records provision for visitors without supplying a surviving charter, list of residents or complete account of the institution’s administration.

Stein identifies the matha with the Diddamatha remembered in later chronicles and in the name of Srinagar’s Didmar quarter. That is a historical identification based on textual and place-name evidence. It does not establish that an intact tenth-century building survives there.

The sequence continues with another Diddasvamin shrine of white stone, a vihara accommodating Kashmiris and people from elsewhere, and the Simhasvamin shrine and a matha associated with her father Simharaja. A foundation commemorating Ksemagupta is linked with his bracelet-related epithet. These notices concern different family members and institutions; they should not all be described as memorials to Abhimanyu.

Restoration, the river confluence and Valga

Kalhana describes further religious work at the confluence of the Vitasta and Sindhu, including mathas and Vishnu images. He then reports a total of sixty-four foundations in different places. This is the chronicler’s total, not a modern inventory of sixty-four identified surviving temples.

The account also credits Didda with restoring ruined buildings and replacing burned temple enclosures with stone walls. It does not specify the date and cause of every earlier fire. These works cannot all be confidently assigned to the Srinagar fire reported earlier under Abhimanyu.

A woman named Valga appears as a donor in her own right. Kalhana says she had carried Didda, who had difficulty walking, during games that required running, and that she founded the Valgamatha. The institution should be credited to Valga rather than absorbed into the queen’s own building list.

The group of foundation notices follows Abhimanyu’s death in the narrative. It does not date the completion of each structure individually or prove that the whole programme was accomplished within Nandigupta’s short reign. The passage is evidence of patronage and memory, with an unevenly established chronology.

Nandigupta’s death in 973

After describing the foundations, Kalhana returns to accusations against Didda. He says that, once her grief had eased after a year, she employed witchcraft against her young grandson. Nandigupta’s death is dated to the twelfth day of the bright half of Margasirsa, Laukika year 4049, conventionally 973.

The chronicle attributes responsibility to Didda, but witchcraft is not an established historical mechanism of death. The passage provides no independently verified poison, medical diagnosis or judicial finding. It should be reported as an accusation in the source, without converting it into a different, supposedly proven method of killing.

Tribhuvana, another grandson of Didda, followed Nandigupta. These successive child reigns are related to the same concentration of power, but their dates and the allegations surrounding each death need separate treatment. Nandigupta’s brief rule is not interchangeable with the later reigns of Tribhuvana or Bhimagupta.

A material record and an uneven biography

A copper coin attributed to Abhimanyugupta is catalogued in Classical Numismatic Gallery’s Auction 48, lot 115. It weighs 5.22 grams and is described with a seated goddess, a standing royal figure and portions of his name in Sharada lettering. This is the catalogue’s reading and attribution, not an independent decipherment here.

The coin provides a material avenue for studying royal representation. It does not verify the catalogue’s separate claim that Didda murdered Abhimanyu, and that claim is not adopted as an established fact. Material descriptions and attached historical summaries must be assessed separately.

The succession of 972–973 survives chiefly through a narrative combining illness, grief, religious patronage and an accusation against a powerful grandmother. Keeping these strands distinct allows the history to include both the child ruler and the institutions surrounding him, without turning the chronicler’s judgments into certainty about every death or motive.