Sangramaraja and the Lohara succession

A succession prepared by Didda

Sangramaraja succeeded Didda in 1003 and ruled until 1028 in Stein’s chronology. He was her nephew, a son of Udayaraja of Lohara. Didda’s decision to recognize him as heir before her death linked the Kashmiri throne with that ruling family and began the sequence commonly called the first Lohara dynasty.

Lohara in this history is not Lahore. It refers to a mountain territory and stronghold associated with the approaches to Kashmir through the Pir Panjal. Confusing the names changes both the geography of the dynasty and the meaning of the military events that followed.

Continuity and strain in government

Tunga, the powerful minister of Didda’s later reign, retained influence under Sangramaraja. Kalhana describes renewed attempts by rivals to challenge him through religious and court networks. The succession changed the monarch without immediately replacing the people through whom government operated.

Stein’s reading of the chronicle also notes complaints about the revenue officials employed under Tunga. These allegations of fiscal oppression bring cultivators and other taxpayers into a narrative otherwise dominated by court rivals. The surviving account is not a tax register, however, and does not allow a reliable calculation of household burdens.

Aid to Trilochanapala

A major external event was the dispatch of a Kashmiri force under Tunga to support the Shahi ruler Trilochanapala against Mahmud of Ghazni. Kalhana describes Tunga rejecting cautious advice, winning an initial encounter and then suffering defeat when faced with a larger attack. The narrative praises Trilochanapala’s resistance while criticizing the Kashmiri commander’s decisions.

The date is less secure than the sequence. Kalhana does not give the year of this expedition. Stein argues that Mahmud’s campaign of 1013 is the most likely setting, while explicitly acknowledging uncertainty and discrepancies among accounts. This article therefore does not present 1013 as a confirmed day-by-day chronology.

The defeat of an expeditionary force outside the Valley must also be distinguished from conquest of Kashmir itself. Those are different events with different consequences. A compressed account that treats them as interchangeable would misrepresent the survival of the Kashmiri kingdom.

The attempt to enter Kashmir

Stein discusses another expedition, described in Persian historical traditions, in which Mahmud’s advance was checked at the mountain fortress of Loh-kot. He identifies the fortress with Lohara. The accounts describe an unsuccessful siege followed by withdrawal as snow and cold intensified and reinforcements arrived from Kashmir.

The dates in the accounts he compares vary, including 1015 and 1021. This record does not resolve that discrepancy by arbitrarily choosing a month, or by treating every variant date as proof of a separate siege. Further comparison of the underlying traditions is needed for a more exact chronology.

Kalhana’s silence about this attack is itself instructive. A detailed Kashmiri chronicle can still omit an important event preserved elsewhere. That is one reason a comprehensive history requires comparison across texts rather than treating any single narrative as complete.

The kingdom and its mountain approaches

The events show both Kashmir’s involvement in regional conflict and the importance of its approaches. Its rulers could send troops beyond the Valley, while fortresses, terrain, weather and assistance from within Kashmir could obstruct an invading army.

These were the actions of medieval courts, armies and local communities. They cannot be assigned wholesale to the national identities of people living a thousand years later. The historical question is how power was exercised and resisted in that setting, and what the evidence allows us to reconstruct.