| Kashmir:
Paradise Lost! |
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Part
2: A Brief History of Kashmir
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| "Islam is being
used to divide a people with a long and common culture and history."
~ BSUBRATA |
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The
splendor and salubriousness of the Kashmir valley is legendary! In the words
of the greatest of the Sanskrit poets Kalidas, Kashmir is "more beautiful
than the heaven and is the benefactor of supreme bliss and happiness."
Kashmir's greatest historian Kalhan called it the "best place in the Himalayas"
- "a country where the sun shines mildly…" The 19th century British
historian Sir Walter Lawrence wrote about it: "The valley is an emerald
set in pearls; a land of lakes, clear streams, green turf, magnificent trees
and mighty mountains where the air is cool, and the water sweet, where men are
strong, and women vie with the soil in fruitfulness."
Legends have it
that Rishi Kashyapa, the saint of antiquity, reclaimed the land of the Kashmir
valley from a vast lake, known as "Satisar", after goddess Sati, the
consort of Lord Shiva. In ancient times, this land was called "Kashyapamar"
(after Kashyapa) that later became Kashmir. The ancient Greeks called it "Kasperia,"
and the Chinese pilgrim Hiun-Tsang who visited the valley in the 7th century
AD, called it "Kashimilo."
The earliest recorded
history of Kashmir by Kalhan begins at the time of the Mahabharata war. In the
3rd century BC, emperor Ashoka introduced Buddhism in the valley. Kashmir became
a major hub of Hindu culture by the 9th century AD. It was the birthplace of
the Hindu sect called Kashmiri 'Shaivism', and a haven for the greatest Sanskrit
scholars.
Several Hindu sovereigns
ruled the land until 1346, the year of the advent of Muslim invaders. During
this time, a multitude of Hindu shrines were destroyed, and Hindus were forced
to embrace Islam. The Mughals ruled Kashmir from 1587 to 1752 — a period
of peace and order. This was followed by a dark period (1752-1819), when Afghan
despots ruled Kashmir. The Muslim period, which lasted for about 500 years,
came to an end with the annexation of Kashmir to the Sikh kingdom of Punjab
in 1819.
The Kashmir region,
in its present form, became a part of the Hindu Dogra kingdom at the end of
the First Sikh War in 1846, when, by the treaties of Lahore and Amritsar, Maharaja
Gulab Singh, the Dogra ruler of Jammu, was made the ruler of Kashmir "to
the eastward of the River Indus and westward of the River Ravi." The Dogra
rulers — Maharaja Gulab Singh (1846 to 1857), Maharaja Ranbir Singh (1857
to 1885), Maharaja Pratap Singh (1885 to 1925), and Maharaja Hari Singh (1925
to 1950) — laid the foundations of the modern Jammu & Kashmir state.
This princely state lacked a definite boundary until the 1880s, when the British
delimited boundaries in negotiations with Afghanistan and Russia. The crisis
in Kashmir began immediately after the British rule ended.
Next
The Origin of Kashmir Crisis
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