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tor land of streams
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KASHMIR
THE LAND OF STREAMS & SOLITUDES
KASHMIR
THE LAND OF STREAMS
: : and solitudes : :
BY P. PIRIE WITH 25 PLATES IN
COLOUR AND UPWARDS OF 100 BLACK
AND WHITE ILLUSTRATIONS «#• <=*»
BY H. R. PIRIE <*> <*» <=*>
LONDON: JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD
NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMIX
COLOUR BLOCKS AND PRINTING BY CARL HENTSCHEL, LTD.
TEXT PRINTED BY WM. BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PLYMOUTH
D S *u
TO
ALEXANDER HAMILTON PIRIE
FROM HIS DAUGHTERS
BADSHAH BAGH
LOCKNOW
INDIA
314
CONTENTS
The River Road
A Road of the North
A Master of Horse
The Road of the Emperors
The Shepherdess
The Return .
In Chamba
In a Doonga .
A Moghul Garden
Page
17
63
85
IO9
l6l
l8l
209
227
257
COLOURED PLATES
Page
Gate of Chingiz Serai Frontispiece
The Maharaja's Temple on the Jhelum 27
Up the River 37
On the River Road 45
Near Bijbehara 51
On the Road 57
A Track through the Forest 65
Villagers of Tarshing on the Road from Tarshing to Rupal, near
Astor 69
An Outpost of Civilisation 73
The Fort at Astor 79
Crossing the Kamri Pass 87
A Grazing-ground 93
His Village '01
Gujar Women in the Pir Panjal Forests 115
A Gujar's Hut in Kashmir 119
Fellow-travellers • .123
Aliabad Serai, on the Pir Panjal Pass 155
io COLOURED PLATES
Page
A Shepherdess 163
One of the Tribe 175
The End of the Day 183
His Sister 195
The Mar Thar Nullah . . . 201
On the River 229
The House of a Wazir 249
A Stormy Sunset on the Dal Lake . 265
BLACK AND WHITE ILLUSTRATIONS
Page
One of the Boat People i
A Transport Pony . 3
An Interrupted Road 7
Petite Vitesse (Sending Supplies up to Gilgit) 8
A Kashmir Woman of the Valley 9
a gujarin of poonch 10
Barges laden with Wood going up River 15
The Ferry l 7
A Kashmiri Hansom Cab 18
A Poplar Avenue • • '9
Fragment of a Ruined Doorway in the Temple of the Sun at
Mart and 21
The Main Street, Srinagar 22
A Road in Spring 23
Pandrinthan (The Temple standing in a Tank) 25
The Takht-i-Suleiman 26
The Happy Valley • 3 [
A Shop Door, Srinagar 33
12 BLACK AND WHITE ILLUSTRATIONS
Page
In a Back Street, Srinagar 34
Towing 35
The Shikari 39
An Autumn Evening 41
A Country Boat 43
A Gaddi 48
At Islamabad 49
Among the Willows 53
Out of the Beaten Track 55
A Mountain Stream 56
The End of the River-Road 59
In the Apple-tree Canal, Srinagar 60
A Laden Baggage-Pony and Coolie 61
Near the Rajdiangan 63
Camel Transport ........... 67
The Watchers 71
The Last Trees 72
Nanga Parbat, the Fourth Highest Mountain in the World. . 75
Units of the Imperial Service Corps crossing a Pass on the Gilgit
Road in October 81
A Traveller from the North 82
A Master of Horse 83
On their Native Heath 85
The Road in a Storm 89
A Good Road near Gurez . . . . . . . . 91
A Camping-place 95
After Polo 97
Preparing for the Start 100
At Home 103
A Village Elder 105
Starting in State 107
Marching "a la Mogole" 109
BLACK AND WHITE ILLUSTRATIONS 13
Page
Civilisation on the Tonga Road no
A Gujar Woman in Marching Order in
In the Third Zone .... 122
By Ekka to Bhimber 125
In the Serai at Bhimber 127
In Kashmir 128
The Imperial Baggage 129
A Shady Bit 130
A Place to Dream of 134
A Gateway on the Road near Naoshera 135
A Ford below Rajaori 137
The Bungalow, Rajaori 139
Dhanni Dhar 142
A Kashmiri Traveller 143
Old Lalla ............ 144
When the Bridges are Down 148
Poshiana 149
The Pir Panjal (a Minor Pass) 152
Waiting for Orders 153
A Solitude 158
After Watteau 159
Near the Sinthan Pass 161
Our Camping-ground below the Pass 165
Kashmir Goats 167
Bringing in Fodder 168
A Gujar Woman carrying her Baby and Household Utensils . 169
Domestic Duties . . 173
On their Way Up 174
Another Lady .178
In the Village 179
Nearly Home 181
A Ruined Tree 182
i 4 BLACK AND WHITE ILLUSTRATIONS
Page
Coolie Transport 186
A Camping-ground 189
Winter Fodder 190
The Lumeardar 191
A Village Home 194
The Interpreter 197
Footsore 199
Dzunia's Window 203
His Own Hills 205
In Chamba 207
A Girl of Chamba 209
The Rani's Palace 211
In Marching Kit . .212
Part of the Procession 215
A Graceful Dress 216
The Old Temples of Chamba 219
A Modern Shrine 223
In a Doonga 225
One of our Crew 227
The Tonga Road in Baramulla 236
A Srinagar Shark 238
A Riverside Village 239
At Sopor 2 44
A Temple in Badarwah . . . . 246
Tied up for the Night 247
A Good Housewife • • • 254
A Mochul Garden 255
A Willow-edged Stream 257
Grain Barges 2 59
A Gardener of the Dal . . . ... 261
In a Kashmir Meadow 264
Chinar Leaves 269
nr
PANDRINTHAN
HERE are other roads in Kashmir; roads like
colonnades between serried ranks of poplar trees,
"^ the tall, slim, silvery pillars of the beautiful
populus alba, or the sombre stateliness of the dark pop-
lars of Lombardy ; roads bordered by willows, or leading
through marshy meadow-land, or carpeted with snowy
petals from the blossoming branches of apple and pear
and cherry trees, which make fragrant archways over-
head ; many and lovely are the roads of the Valley ;
but the road par excellence of Kashmir is the River, the
Veth as the Kashmiris call it, which is an abbreviation
i8
KASHMIR
of Vitasta, its Sanskrit name, the fabulosus Hydaspes of
the classic historians.
Up and down the wide and placid river go the fiat-
bottomed, slow-moving boats of the country — the wide
grain-barges, the doongas with their roofs and sides of
A KASHMIRI HANSOM-CAB
matting, the deep-laden market boats, and the little fish-
ing-boats so often drawn up near the bank with a wide
net outspread, its wet meshes glittering in the sunshine
like a dragon-fly's wing.
It is long since on the banks of the great river fair
cities rose, enriched with the spoil of conquered countries;
for it is long since the inhabitants of the Valley have had
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A POPLAR AVENUE
PANDRINTHAN
21
kings of their own race. So long ago is it, and centuries
of such dire oppression have intervened, that the glories
of their kings and the grandeur of their cities are for-
gotten ; and the peasants who tell you fabulous tales of
the piles of ruin near their villages, or regard with an
A FRAGMENT OF A RUINED DOORWAY IN THE TEMPLE OF THE SUN
AT MARTAND
almost contemptuous pity your interest in some old
temple, seem not to realise that these are memorials of
the ancient splendours of their own race.
The traces of the rule of these bygone kings have all
but vanished, but the beauty and majesty of nature still
remain, and make it easy to believe that the Valley was
22
KASHMIR
the cradle of demi-gods and heroes, one of the homes of
the ancient Aryan conquerors of India, and the seat of a
civilisation so ancient as to make the great Rameses
seem comparatively modern, and
The days when windy Troy
Flamed for a woman's srolden head
but a tale of yesterday.
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THE MAIN STREET, SRINAGAR
Along the banks of the river, from the " City of the
Sun," Srinagar, one may still trace the ruins of ancient
cities and temples, to where, near its source, once rose the
A ROAD IN SPRING
PANDRINTHAN
25
most splendid shrine of all — Martand, the Temple of the
Sun.
On the way up the river from Srinagar the first of
these is the temple of Pandrinthan. Going by boat, one
anchors just beyond a fine chinar-tree, and below a bank
PANDRINTHAN (THE TEMPLE STANDING IN A TANK)
fringed with willows. After landing, the Srinagar road
is crossed, which here, and scarcely anywhere else, for
a few paces, runs almost parallel with the river. Beyond
the road lies a stretch of turf, then a grove of willows,
under which the clover grows thick and green, while
frequent little pools of water make of it almost a marsh.
26 KASHMIR
Picking a devious way through the pools among the
willows, one comes to some fine and stately chinar-trees
on the edge of a little tank ; and there, in the middle of
the tank, is the temple of Pandrinthan.
It is, perhaps, a morning in early May, clear and
brilliant, after a stormy night. The air is keen and pure ;
iiiyMiftik
THE TAKHT-I-SULEIMAN
a glittering circle of lofty snow-peaks enclose one on all
sides but the north, rising into an azure sky ; the shadows
on the Takht-i-Suleiman, the small, cone-shaped hill
between this and the city, are of the warmest purple ; and
the rocky slopes of the hill at the foot of which lies
Pandrinthan tower above one in bold outlines, unblurred
by any tracery of trees, bare to the wind and sun.
And down in the tree-shaded hollow stands the little
THE MAHARAJA'S TEMPLE
ON THE JHELUM
PANDRINTHAN 29
hoary temple — sole relic of a former splendid capital of
Kashmir. Very tired it looks, the little temple, cowering
down into the protecting water, which twice at least in its
history has saved it from destruction and the wrath of
man. For when the old capital, the first Srinagar, which
stood here and not on the present site of the city, was
destroyed by fire in the reign of Abhimanyu, about the
middle of the tenth century a.d., this temple was the only
building that escaped ; and again, five hundred years
later, when the idol-breaker Sikandar was king, this was
the only one of the temples of Kashmir which escaped
his violence, " in consequence," says Ferishta, the scribe
of Akbar, " of its foundation being below the surface of
the neighbouring water."
But the burden of its thousand years weighs heavy
on its shoulders, and it crouches beneath them in hopeless
sadness, deserted and alone. All round it youth and the
joy of living riot in the fine air and sunshine, in the soft
spring greens of the young willows, in the tall chinars,
the embodiment of vigorous life, glorying in the splen-
dour of their new foliage. Surely the Moghul noble
who planted these trees by the shrine of an alien faith
must have been prompted to it by an instinct of pity for
the little lonely temple.
The date of the founding of the city which once rose
3 o KASHMIR
here is lost in the mists of antiquity. No doubt the
great Asoka, Buddha's famous disciple, was known in its
streets, and meditated on Nirvana within sight of the
serene beauty of the encircling chain of snows. Here,
probably, lived his son, who built the first temple, a
Buddhist shrine, on the top of the Takht-i-Suleiman,
about 200 b.c, which makes it still one of the sacred
places of the followers of that faith, and visited even by
wandering Lamas from Tibet. But the beauty and wiles
of the serpent-goddesses lured him from his faith, and
he fell back to the ancient rites of the worship of the
Nagas, the snake-gods, while his temple has long since
been destroyed and replaced by others.
The victories of the great Laltaditya, who reigned
from 697-738 a.d., no doubt filled its streets with rejoic-
ing and decked its houses with the spoils of India and
Central Asia, though the new Srinagar had already for
more than a hundred years been the capital.
The camps of the army of a later king, the conqueror
and gambler, Shankara-Varman, who reigned about the
end of the ninth century, his "900,000 foot, 300 ele-
phants, and 100,000 horse," must have made of the whole
neighbourhood a resplendent Champs de Mars.
Now no ghost of fluttering pennon or shining lance
disturbs the peace of the valley. The silent hillside is
PANDRINTHAN
3 1
strewn instead with broken fragments of fluted pillars
and blocks of carved stone, with here and there a mound
of shapeless ruin where once perhaps a palace stood. A
little way up the hill is a huge stone fragment, said to be
part of a colossal statue of Buddha that once towered
here above the busy city. Round the grey stone feet,
THE HAPPY VALLEY
worn and defaced with the lapse of centuries, waves now
a field of scarlet poppies, gay and debonair, heedless
that their vivid beauty lasts but for a day.
The temple itself is small, only eighteen feet square,
and made of great blocks of limestone. The roof is
pyramidal and seems to have been jarred by an earth-
quake shock, for though still keeping the general outline,
32 KASHMIR
the blocks of stone have gaps between them and are tilted
out of their proper positions. The inside of the roof is
said to be covered with sculpture classical in design, but
as the temple stands in water at least four feet deep one
must have a boat to see this. Its founder, Meru, the
prime minister of King Partha, in the early part of the
tenth century, dedicated it to Mahadeo ; but the tank
probably had some connection with the old religion of
the country, the worship of the Nagas, a survival of the
gloomy earth-worship still near to the hearts of the primi-
tive hill-men, the cult of the divinities who inhabit
mountain and stream, the senders of storms and floods,
mysterious powers against whom men in these wild
regions wage so unequal a strife.
This little temple never saw the best and most pros-
perous days of the city, for the seat of government had
been moved to the new Srinagar 500 years before its
founding. The decay of former greatness, ruin and
disaster, fire and sword, these were all that its sculptured
stones and cunningly wrought pillars were fated to see.
It had stood but fifty years when a great fire destroyed
the city around it. Already the supremacy of Hinduism
was doomed, and the ancient and splendid Hindu king-
dom of Kashmir was tottering to its ruin. Civil wars
and faindant kings hastened the end, till the last of the
PANDRINTHAN 33
Hindu sovereigns fled before a Tartar invader early in
the fourteenth century. It was left for a woman, a
Hindu princess, Kuta Rani, a soldier's daughter, to raise
an army and drive out the invader. But she stabbed
herself to escape an unwelcome marriage, and with her
A SHOP-DOOR, SRINAGAR
ended the Hindu rule in Kashmir until, in 1819, the
victorious generals of Runjit Singh entered the Valley.
In the intervening five hundred years Mahomedan
dynasties ruled Kashmir either directly or through vice-
roys, and the faith of Islam' became the prevailing
religion.
34
KASHMIR
But through all the changes that have swept the
Valley and left their mark along the river-road in mosque
and shrine, in stately garden or poplar avenue, none has
ever rebuilt the old town, and the little temple still stands
forlorn, emblem of age and desolation.
II
UP THE RIVER
FROM the desolation of Pandrinthan, its hoary
temple, and traces of a vanished city, one returns
to the river and is met by its sparkling, breeze-
stirred surface, the brilliance of the sun of May, and the
sweet singing of many larks overhead ; while the clear
liquid note of the golden oriole, on the branch of a chinar-
tree, reminds one that this cool, song-filled morning is not,
after all, of Europe, but a part of the most romantic region
of the mysterious East.
36 KASHMIR
Going up the river by boat is a mod£ of progress that
combines many attractions. To begin with, all considera-
tions of time are forgotten. It is as if Time were not.
This is not because the speed is such as to annihilate
space and time, for the average pace of a boat going up-
stream might, perhaps, be described as glacial. But because
time simply does not exist on the river, and "non numero
nisi serenas " might well be one's motto almost anywhere
in this charmed Valley.
Near Srinagar, it is true, the midday gun from Akbar's
Fort on the hill of Hari Parbat knocks at the gate of
consciousness with a fleeting reminder of the trammelled
world you have left behind you ; the poor deluded world
which thinks itself so progressive and enlightened, fettered
by time-tables and bound to a dreary treadmill of either
pleasure or duty. Besides, no person of sense remains in
Srinagar, since there are so many hundred miles of allur-
ing jungle in which to forget Time.
On the river-road one may learn with the French
philosopher, "quelle petite place il faut pour la Joie, et
combien peu son logement coute a meubler."
If we have no Time we are rich in sunrises and sun-
sets, glorious noondays, golden afternoons, and nights
filled with the bewitching sadness of moonlight or the
glittering mystery of star-lit skies. The days uncounted
w
>
Pi
I
UP THE RIVER
39
by measured and classified hours are a majestic procession
.of changing skies and lovely landscapes, whose beauty
seems to be heightened by each varying effect of cloud
or sunlight that passes over them in this magic atmo-
sphere.
The Kashmiris themselves have a picturesque way of
THE SHIKARI
talking, which shows what are for them the true divisions
of Time. Official calendars and rigid limitations of
months and dates are little heeded by them, and the
months are counted by the flowers or fruit that come in
them.
" In the time of flowers," meaning apple and pear
4Q KASHMIR
blossom, says the boatman, " it is always like this, clouds
and rain, and sometimes, also, sunshine."
"In the time of mulberries," says the fisherman, "you
will catch many fish at Sumbal."
"When the maize is ripe," says the shikari, "the
bears come down from the jungle."
No one hurries on the river. The boat is towed up-
stream at an average rate of something under two miles
an hour, so I am told by those who have not lost the
habit of measuring things by ordinary standards even in
Kashmir. But this lack of haste is one of the great
charms of the journey. To most people the idea of
travel is fraught with tiresome associations of hurry and
dust and noise, added to the desolating certainty that one
will be snatched relentlessly away from all the charming
places one has brief glimpses of, and where one longs to
linger. The contrast of this leisured progress, without
dust, without hurry, without noise, one's own pleasure
its only law, its only sound the ripple of the water
under the prow of the advancing boat as it glides
smoothly on, is as delightful as it is at first bewildering.
For it seems hardly natural to get so near to lofty snow-
covered peaks and into the heart of the hills without
exertion or labour.
For fine weather the doonga is undoubtedly the best
AN AUTUMN EVENING
UP THE RIVER 43
boat to travel in, for the strips of grass matting which
are one's walls can be rolled up, and one lives practically
en piein air from morning till night, and can sleep with-
out letting them down, which has all the advantages
without the drawbacks of sleeping outside. In stormy
and cold weather, it is true, the doonga is perhaps not an
mm
A COUNTRY BOAT
ideal abode, since, if the rain is heavy, all the mats have
to be fastened down, and one is condemned to almost
total darkness. It is also no easy matter to keep warm
in a doonga when snowstorms are raging within fifteen
miles of one, and cold and piercing winds sweep the
river ; the only possible way to be comfortable is to take
violent exercise on the river-bank.
In spite, however, of these disadvantages, there is a
great deal to recommend life in a doonga to any one
44 KASHMIR
whose horizon is not bounded by ideas of "solid" British
comfort, and who can enjoy a little roughing it. Besides,
on a house-boat, one is haunted by the consciousness that
one is a blot on the landscape, and entirely out of keep-
ing with the surroundings ; while its weight and clumsi-
ness make some of the loveliest reaches of the river
impossible to it. The doonga is certainly picturesque,
and adds to all the other attractions of the river the
charm of a novel sort of Bohemianism.
On one's own doonga one is an autocrat and absolute.
The Kashmiris, according to Sir Walter Lawrence, " like
and admire stern determination in a ruler " ; also " they
yearn for personal rule centred in one." All this it is in
one's power to give them, and it is nice to think one may
be a tyrant to the satisfaction of everybody, and to be
able to go on or stop anywhere as the caprice of the
moment may suggest, without consulting any one or
taking any undue thought for the morrow. Another of
the delights of life in a boat is that travelling no longer
means packing up. The innocent enjoyment of scattering
one's belongings about in the most convenient manner is
menaced by no horror of having hastily to collect and
stow them away.
While the boat is on the move it is usual to establish
oneself on the front deck, which should be decorated with
UP THE RIVER 47
whatever flowers are in season — in May the purple or
white iris.
The river, which shares in the universal disregard of
Time, covers as much ground as it is possible for a river
to do in its course from Islamabad, where it begins, to
Baramulla, where it ceases, to be navigable. It is as if
it were loath to leave the Valley, a disposition which it
is impossible to blame or even criticise ; besides, the
innumerable windings forbid monotony in the prospect,
while the river, like a conscientious guide, shows you
from every possible point of view the lovely changing
landscape.
It is with a dream-like feeling one goes up the wide,
calm river ; following its thousand windings, one passes
in and out of all varieties of climate, sunshine and
shadow chasing each other through the day. It is a
sunny, brilliant morning ; the light breeze made by the
motion of the boat sets the delicate iris petals fluttering,
and the water ripples gaily against the prow; while before
one's eyes a magnificent and ever-changing panorama un-
folds itself, dominated by a splendid succession of lofty
snow-peaks, the serene and silent guardians of this en-
chanted land. Later we pass out of the sunlight, and the
prevailing tints of the afternoon are violet and indigo
under the heavy clouds which hang over the Valley ;
4 8
KASHMIR
while an occasional gleam of sunlight brings out soft and
lovely hues on the lower hills. To the right the Pir
Panjal range towers stern and white against a back-
ground of stormy sky, while, far in front, rises a lovely
range of snowy peaks touched to pale rose and gold
in the rays of the setting sun, which linger on them,
turning the shadowed slopes below to the transparent
violet of the amethyst, the whole like some fair dream
standing at the gate of sunset, of such exceeding beauty
that one can hardly believe in its permanence or reality ;
while, to accentuate its distant, smiling loveliness, we
ourselves move under an outstretched wing of storm, the
dark river mirroring the heavy clouds above.
Ill
THE END
Enough for me in dreams to see
And touch thy garment's hem ;
Thy feet have trod so near to God
I may not follow them.
Rudyard Kipling. To the True Romance.
THE end of the river-road, for those who are
handicapped by house-boats, is at Khanbal — the
port, as the guide-books call it, of Islamabad,
and about a mile from it by road. A charming road, one
49
5o KASHMIR
of the poplar - bordered avenues of Kashmir; young
poplars whose stems of silver-grey frame succeeding
pictures of lovely landscape ; a foreground of marshy
rice-fields, pools of water in spring and early summer,
faithful mirrors of hill and cloud and sky, while in
autumn they are patches of bronze and delicate green,
rose-pink, and scarlet. Beyond them on the right,
across the rich meadow-land, is the range of the Pir
Panjal on one side, and, on the other, the steep, frowning
wall, through a gap in which comes the Liddar. Closing
in the end of the valley are, first, the bare little peak
round which lies Islamabad, and then, across the level
karewah, the lovely, rounded slopes of the Achebal Hills,
the steep, wooded heights which shut in the Nowboog
Valley, and, beyond, the snowy summits across which
lead the passes to Kishtwar, the Wardwan, and high
Zanskar.
But, if in spite of the well-meant advice of friends,
you have risked the discomforts of a doonga, for you the
end of the river-road will be far beyond Khanbal,
through about two miles of devious windings and sharp
corners, where the current runs like a mill-race, to little
islands of young willows which break up the river — now
narrowed to about thirty yards from bank to bank — into
numerous channels. You may take your boat right up