Utpala dynasty

Avantivarman and Suyya

Avantivarman, the dynasty's founder in 855, is remembered chiefly for the work of his engineer Suyya, who according to Kalhaṇa cleared the obstructed course of the Jhelum below Srinagar, regulated the outflow of the Wular lake, and reclaimed a large area of the valley floor from flooding. The chronicle states that the price of rice fell sharply as a result, which is an unusually concrete claim for a medieval Indian source.

The town of Sopore takes its name from Suyya. Avantivarman also built the temples at Avantipur, whose ruins remain.

Philosophy

The Utpala period coincides with the flowering of the Kashmir Śaiva schools — the Pratyabhijñā of Utpaladeva and Somānanda, and later the synthesis of Abhinavagupta at the turn of the eleventh century. Abhinavagupta's works on aesthetics, particularly his commentary developing the theory of rasa, are foundational for all subsequent Indian thinking about art. Kashmir in these centuries was one of the principal intellectual centres of the subcontinent.

Diddā

Queen Diddā, granddaughter of a Shahi king of Kabul, dominated Kashmiri politics for half a century, first as regent and then from 980 as sovereign. Kalhaṇa's portrait of her is exceptionally hostile — he accuses her of murdering her own grandsons — and it is also the portrait of a ruler who held a fractious kingdom for fifty years.

She named her brother's son Saṅgrāmarāja as heir, and on her death in 1003 the Lohara dynasty took the Kashmiri throne.