Radda-Sankharaja and Salhana

Two short reigns after Uchchala

Radda-Sankharaja and Salhana ruled in succession after Uchchala’s assassination in December 1111. Their reigns were very different in duration: Radda held the throne for one night and part of the next day, while Salhana remained king for just under four months, until Sussala displaced him in 1112.

Their history is more than a brief interval between better-known rulers. It shows how a palace conspiracy could fail to secure lasting power, how a local military leader could determine the choice of king, and how that same alliance could break down. Salhana’s fall involved conflict within the capital, failed negotiations and defections as well as Sussala’s renewed intervention.

The account rests chiefly on Book VIII of Kalhana’s Rajatarangini. The chronicler’s descriptions of weakness, loyalty and treachery are part of the evidence, but must be distinguished from a neutral administrative record. His narrative also has damaged passages and gives little information about routine government during these months.

Radda’s claim and defeat

Radda was among the officials involved in the conspiracy against Uchchala. After the king’s death he occupied the throne and assumed the name Sankharaja. Kalhana connects the ambitions of Radda’s family with a claim of descent from the earlier ruler Yashaskara. The claim offered a form of dynastic legitimacy, but did not command general acceptance.

Gargachandra, also called Garga, organized the defeat of the conspirators. Radda fought at the palace and was killed. A gap near verse 343 interrupts the description of the counterattack; the missing portion should not be filled with invented movements or speeches.

Kalhana gives Radda one night and one watch of a day as ruler. This is sufficient to place him in the succession, but not to establish a functioning administration, a programme of reform or control over every district of Kashmir. The violence against the conspirators after their defeat belongs to the crisis already under way, rather than evidence of a stable new order.

Why Salhana became king

Salhana was a son of Malla by Sveta and a half-brother of Uchchala and Sussala. He and his younger brother Lothana had taken refuge in the Navamatha while Radda sought to eliminate them. Salhana’s family connection was therefore with the murdered ruler, not with Radda.

After defeating the conspirators, Gargachandra initially considered placing Uchchala’s infant son on the throne under adult guardianship. Soldiers and councillors instead brought Salhana forward, and Gargachandra had him consecrated. The outcome was a political arrangement made under pressure, not an uncontested transfer under a clearly stated rule of inheritance.

Sussala, ruling at Lohara, objected. His first intervention failed after fighting against Gargachandra’s forces, followed by a hazardous winter retreat. Gargachandra’s success against both the conspirators and Salhana’s rival made him exceptionally powerful in the new government.

Government under Gargachandra’s influence

Kalhana portrays Salhana as unable to direct affairs effectively. He says that plunder reached even the palace and that people travelling on the roads were exposed to insecurity. The description conveys a severe judgment of the reign; it does not supply a measurable crime rate or establish identical conditions in every locality.

Lothana shared in the privileges surrounding the throne. Salhana appointed Ujasuha, connected to Lothana by marriage, to the important charge of the Gate. Kalhana treats the appointment as unsuitable, contrasting the demands of the office with Ujasuha’s religious disposition and reliance on ritual assurances.

The chronicle also records coercion carried out for Gargachandra’s benefit. Salhana ordered the death of Bimba, a Damara disliked by Gargachandra, while Gargachandra is accused of killing other local leaders with poisoned food. These are specific allegations in the narrative, not grounds for assigning guilt to every person associated with either ruler.

Gargachandra’s influence extended over access to power and personal security at court. Yet the events that followed show that he could not simply issue orders without opposition. Officials, soldiers and members of the royal household retained the capacity to organize against him.

The attack on Gargachandra’s residence

A report spread in the capital that Gargachandra intended a sweeping punishment of royal employees. Kalhana describes several days of fear. The report is presented as a rumour; the text does not establish that the threatened action was a settled plan already being carried out.

Tilakasimha and others attacked Gargachandra’s residence without first seeking the king’s permission. Salhana subsequently sent Lothana to encourage the attackers. This is an important qualification to the image of a wholly passive ruler: Salhana participated in an attempt to reduce the power of the man who had made him king.

Gargachandra resisted and left for Lahara with his followers in the evening. He took Ujasuha prisoner at Tripureshvara and released him the following day. Kalhana says that he did not immediately depose Salhana because Sussala was also an enemy.

The failed assault left the capital fearful of Gargachandra’s return. The episode reveals a government divided against its own principal supporter. Neither the king’s title nor Gargachandra’s military influence produced a secure settlement between the factions.

Failed reconciliation and the turn towards Sussala

Salhana sought reconciliation through the official Sahela, who went as an envoy to Lahara. A proposed marriage to one of Gargachandra’s daughters offered a possible way to renew the alliance. Gargachandra’s followers opposed the connection with a ruler they regarded as ineffective.

Gargachandra instead reached an agreement with Sussala. The shift did not erase the mistrust created by their earlier fighting. It made a renewed intervention possible, while leaving each side uncertain about the other’s intentions.

During this period Salhana captured Sadda, Hamsaratha and Novaratha, surviving members of the conspiracy against Uchchala, and had them killed after torture. Kalhana also reports the secret killing of Dilhabhattara, whom the king feared. No reliable total of victims is supplied.

The narrative records further deaths of women connected with the defeated men and frames them through ideals of loyalty and honour. Those judgments do not establish free consent or make such deaths a legitimate requirement. The political terror affected households as well as the men competing for office.

Defections and the renewed advance

Sussala sent Sanjapala ahead while watching for the right opportunity to return. Salhana gave Lakkaka command of the Gate with resources for resistance. Gargachandra attacked this force near Varahamula and plundered the town, according to Kalhana.

Lakkaka then joined Sussala’s side. Sahela also abandoned Salhana after claiming that he would negotiate peace for him. Such changes of allegiance deprived the king of support before the final confrontation in the capital.

Gargachandra’s wife Chudda brought two daughters to Sussala: Rajalakshmi was chosen as his bride and Gunalekha as a bride for his son Jayasimha. The women’s role in the arrangement should be named, while avoiding any unsupported claim about their own preferences.

Even after this marriage agreement, Sussala’s soldiers feared an attack by Gargachandra. The chronicle explicitly preserves their distrust. A dynastic connection could help conclude an alliance without instantly making it secure.

The palace struggle and Salhana’s capture

Salhana and Lothana held out in the palace with soldiers. Sussala arrived at its main entrance, but hesitated to burn the building because his relatives were inside. Sanjapala led the effort that gained entry, and fighting continued in the courtyard.

Kalhana names defenders who died for Salhana, including the minister Ajjaka and the treasury superintendent Rudra. Their presence qualifies the narrative’s sweeping suggestion that everyone had deserted the king. Even a ruler portrayed as ineffective retained some committed supporters.

After the fighting, Sussala approached Salhana and Lothana with an outward display of family affection, persuaded them to give up their weapons and placed them under guard. Salhana lost the throne through capture, not through death in the palace battle.

Book VIII dates his capture to the third day of the bright half of Vaisakha in Laukika 4188 and gives his reign as four months less three days. Theresa Wilke’s modern chronological summary places the transition to Sussala in April 1112. This article uses that month while retaining the traditional date and leaving the exact Gregorian day unasserted.

What the coin catalogue establishes

Alexander Cunningham’s nineteenth-century catalogue supplies a separate line of inquiry. Its table on page 46 lists an issue under Salla, with a royal-name reading on one face and Deva on the other, within the familiar seated-goddess and standing-king series. His broader ruler table includes Salhana under the year 1111.

This is evidence for a historical numismatic attribution, not an independent modern verification of every reading or date. The table also contains a separate Uchchala entry. It does not establish that Radda struck money during his one-night occupation of the throne.

A coin name needs to be checked against an identifiable specimen, the surviving letters, comparison with other issues and the history of its attribution. Without that work, an old catalogue reference cannot establish a minting day, an output figure or the extent of circulation.

The coin evidence is therefore retained as a qualified research strand. No claim is made here to have tested a coin, examined a newly excavated hoard or established a secure issue of Radda-Sankharaja.

Captivity and the consequences of the short reigns

After Sussala had consolidated his position, the chronicle records Salhana and Lothana being imprisoned at Lohara. Their removal did not mean that their family ceased to matter in later struggles. Their subsequent history requires attention beyond the date at which Salhana’s reign ended.

The transition to Sussala was also accompanied by reprisals against the families of Uchchala’s betrayers, including children in Kalhana’s account. The chronicler’s language of restored order must be read beside that violence. The end of Salhana’s government did not establish an uncomplicated peace.

These short reigns show how military support, court office, dynastic relationship and control of the capital could briefly come together and then separate. Radda could seize the throne but not hold it. Salhana could be consecrated but could not maintain the alliance on which his position depended.

Further work should compare the chronicle’s damaged passages with critical editions, examine the attributed coins and trace the later lives of the surviving princes. The present account keeps accusations, rumours, literary judgments and dated events distinct rather than treating the source as a complete record of every month’s administration.