Sahib Ram’s Tirathsangrah Maps and the Sacred Geography of Kashmir

Like for many of his generation, Sahib Ram Kaul’s exact date of birth is not known. What is known is that his father Dila Ram Kaul was revenue officer in the court of Maharaja Gulab Singh and lived in Anantnag. His mother was daughter of scholar Pandit Tika Lal Razdan of Srinagar. When his father died, Sahib Ram was only seven. His mother moved to Srinagar and that is where he grew and got his education. Sahib Ram eventually started his own family at Drabiyar, Srinagar.

Sometime after 1865 when Maharaja Ranbir Singh ascended the throne of Jammu and Kashmir, Sahib Ram Kaul, the best of Pandits of the time, the head of newly formed Sanskrit Mahavidyalaya was tasked with finding the old ancient texts of the place, in Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic, so that they could be placed in the library of the university for production of fresh scholarship. It was for this project that Sahib Ram Kaul procured various copies of Nilamatapurana and then finding them unsatisfactory, produced a critical edition that however was never published even as few decades later western scholars like Georg Bühler and Aurel Stein were to find Sahib Ram Kaul had shown which parts of Nilamatapurana had been used by Kalhana in Rajatarangini even as they at times disagreed with Sahib Ram’s approach. His work was to prove beneficial to these western men who arrived seeking glimpses of Kashmir past and it was widely accepted that Sahib Ram Kaul was the pinnacle of Kashmirian scholarship of his era.

What made Sahib Ram Kaul stand out was not just his skills of the languages (Sanskrit, Persian [he studied in a Persian language Maktab (school)] till the age of 18, picking up sanskrit only in adulthood) and his work on texts (ranging from shastras, kvyas, itihasa, commentary on erotica [Pañcasāyaka of by Kaviśekhara Jyotirīśvara], translation of work on Islamic morality [Ahalq-e Mohseni/Viraratnasekharasikha]) but his rooted understanding of geography of Kashmir in which he was able to visualize the past from present. The materialization of that vision of Sahib Ram Kaul was Kashmiriatirathasangrah, a work compiling all the major holy spots of Kashmir, mostly various nagas/springs all over the valley based on texts like Nilamatapurana, Kalhana’s Rajatarangini and Abu’l Fazl’s Ain-i-Akbari. Along with notes (in Sanskrit) Tirathasangrah had maps of the holy sites with topographical identifiers, local lore and village names. To compile the work, pandits across the valley were roped in to help collect the material. If there was a local spring or a holy village in some remote village, even that was recorded by Sahib Ram diligently. However, the work was never completed as Sahib Ram died in around 1870 or 72. The incomplete work already comprised hundred on pages of folia with maps, many of them incomplete, just sketched, not painted, some with no notes. The monumental work however was taken up again a few years later by his son Damodar Kaul

In 1875, when George Buhler arrived in Kashmir looking for Sanskrit manuscript, the “original” Rajatarangini and Nilamatapurana, he was directed to meet Sahib Ram’s son Damodar who was now the head of Sanskrit Mahavidyalaya. The visit triggered Damodar [who was working on continuing Kalhana’s Rajatarangini] to dwell into his father’s work. He again visited the locations mentioned by Sahib Ram in his maps, did a bit of digging at sites, probably to re-verify the claims of the text. The folios of Tirathasangrah got more notes. A copy was taken by Buhler to Poona. Decades later Stein for his translation and notes to Kalhana’s Rajatargini was to use the text to add notes to location of many (and many a) ancient sites like Sharda (which based on Sahib Ram’s work we find also existed at Khuyhom, Bandipore. Buhler probably informed by Damodar tells us it is at Horil in Khuyhom. Stein to add to that besides finding the actual Sharda, also tells us of a Sharda pilgrimage taken by Srinagar pandits to Harwan at a place called Sharda Kund ).

We find (and Stein mentions) that Pandits had forgotten the sites which were outside of valley, outside their area of influence, the “urban” areas, in the distant places, only lore, often mangled and jumbled, remained. They would visit holy sites, but often the origins were freshly re-invented. The limitation this brought about was noticed by Stein in Sahib Ram. Thus Stein who was trying to find the “true” meaning of texts, Sahib Ram’s work often proved too problematic. Centuries later, the work was summarised rather simplistically by political commentators as a political project of the Maharaja. A project to reclaim the Hindu past, ignoring the question if such a reclamation was needed by the community for survival.

The motivation of Sahib Ram Kaul in making the maps and studying the sites perhaps can be best understood by the fact that it was this man who pulled together the ruined pieces at top of Hari Parbat and reactivated the Chakreshwari Shrine. For Sahib Ram it was not just an academic project (like say for someone like Stein), instead, for Sahib Ram it was about putting back pieces and reclaiming. It was personal. When Stein notes that most Pandits didn’t know much of their own past, he is not wrong, and perhaps Sahib Ram was aware of that, and thus his project on the sites and history. It was a conscious effort by someone who could do something about it. It was not an act of some political vengeance as we can see that while executing his maps there is no erasure of islamic sites, the ziyarats. In fact, in the Maps, we find such monuments diligently shown in all their beauty. In Abul Fazal he must have read that in Kashmir valley there were 45 shrines dedicated to Shiva, 64 to vishnu, 3 to Brahma, 22 to Durga and around 700 nagas. In Sahib Ram’s time, in 1850s, although Pandits were again going on pilgrimages to sites like Tulamulla and Jwaladevi, the actual functional temples in Kashmir were not there yet. The temples that came up later and in this time were sites, which had lingered in memory, often people would bring broken discovered sculptures, place then at a site and worship. It was these sites that were verified by texts, sanctified by ruler, that gave birth to modern surviving functional temples in Kashmir. It was possible because of efforts of people like Sahib Ram. Yet, even today we find that most Kashmiri Pandits would be hard-pressed to make sense of the maps drawn by Sahib Ram. If Stein were to ask random Pandits today the same questions he asked them in 20th century, he would still conclude that they know little and have made up stories where the facts were missing, or that they have no interest. However, in all this it should be remembered that there has been no actual study of the work and few have actually seen the maps of Sahib Ram, fewer still even know about their existence, or even where it exists.

An original copy of Tirathsangrah was sold few years back on Bonhams. That told me the work did indeed exist (multiple copies?) and was in circulation.

About 250+ pages of maps from Tirathsangrah of Sahib Ram are at S.P.S Museum Srinagar (not on display!). A low-res digital version (with no proper details) was shared by them with National Mission on Monuments and Antiquities (NMMA), the (statewise) database for heritage, sites and antiquities.

Here, I am presenting some of the interesting maps from the collection, along with my notes on them.

Sahib Ram has given quite detailed maps of the hill. Covering all the sides of it. Important in the light of the fact that he was instrumental in rebuilding the Hari Parbat temple.

Srinagar back then was not the center of Kingdom, it was part of Anantnag and the administration used to run from there. It was only during Sikh rule that Srinagar name came back into vogue around 1846.

Reason for assumption: Single bridge on the river. Notice the tank temple on right, the same structure can be seen in the map giving the location of Naranthal shrine [jalshree] in Baramulla.

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Some more interesting ones from the series which have been bit challenging. [Low-res making it all the more difficult]

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few pages from folio of Kashmir Tirthasangrah sold few years back at bonhams

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Previously:

A fictional piece I write some years back inspired by Sahib Ram Kaul’s life and work

A Hill in the beak of a Scribe