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HISTORY— PRE-MUHAMMADAN
[ch.

carried his arms so far afield must have been very powerful in the Northern Panjab. The remains of the wonderful Martand temple, which he built in honour of the Sun God, are a standing memorial of his greatness. The history of Kashmir under its Hindu kings for the next 400 years is for the most part that of a wretched people ground down by cruel tyrants. A notable exception was

Fig. 58. Martand Temple.

Avantidharman — 855-883 A.D.— whose minister, Suyya, carried out very useful drainage and irrigation works.

The Panjab, 650-1000 a. d.— We know little of Panjab history in the 340 years which elapsed between the death of Harsha and the beginning of the Indian raids of the Sultans of Ghazni in 986-7 a.d. The conquest of the kingdom of Sindh by the Arab general, Muhammad Kasim, occurred some centuries earlier, in 712 a.d. Multan, the city of the §un-worshippers, was occupied, and part