in bits and pieces
Old photographs of Ladakh from ‘Kashmir in Sunlight & Shade: a Description of the Beauties of the Country, the Life, Habits and Humour of its Inhabitants, and an Account of the Gradual but Steady Rebuilding of a Once Down-trodden People’ by Cecil Earle Tyndale-Biscoe (1922).
Mulbe is famous for great Maitreya rock sculpture.
Read about the account of Hye Ch’o, a Korean pilgrim who travelled through the Himalayas between 724 and 727.
found in ‘Kashmir in Sunlight & Shade: a Description of the Beauties of the Country, the Life, Habits and Humour of its Inhabitants, and an Account of the Gradual but Steady Rebuilding of a Once Down-trodden People’ by Cecil Earle Tyndale-Biscoe (1922).
– A Snake Charmer in the New Bazaar, Srinagar, Kashmir, 1892
from Illustrated London News. [found it here at Columbia.edu]
[Update: It was the work of J. E. Goodall]
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‘[They] are good-looking…but they are crafty’.
wrote Buddhist pilgrim from China, Huen Tsang who arrived in Kashmir in A.D. 631 as a state guest and stayed for two years. The exact words,”light and frivolous, and of a weak, pusillanimous disposition. The people are handsome in appearance, but they are given to cunning. ‘They love learning and are well-instructed.”
Some more vintage photographs from ‘Kashmir in Sunlight & Shade: a Description of the Beauties of the Country, the Life, Habits and Humour of its Inhabitants, and an Account of the Gradual but Steady Rebuilding of a Once Down-trodden People’ by Cecil Earle Tyndale-Biscoe (1922).
Dussehra sequence from Salman Rushdie’s Shalimar The Clown wasn’t mere magic realism.
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Photograph by Pandit Vishwanath.
There’s a good chance that the photo depicts the thread ceremony of Pandits or Yagnopavit. It’s the sahibaan, the tent, in the background that I found interesting.
Found it in: ‘Kashmir in Sunlight & Shade: a Description of the Beauties of the Country, the Life, Habits and Humour of its Inhabitants, and an Account of the Gradual but Steady Rebuilding of a Once Down-trodden People’ by Cecil Earle Tyndale-Biscoe (1922).
The writer must have caught hold of her and given her a good shake and out must have tumbled all her possessions. A needle, a knife, a snuff-box. From the description, I have heard stories about snuff boxes; practice of cleaning pots with mud continued well into the 90s. And then slowly mud was replaced by Nirma.
Photo by Pandit Vishwanath, a student of Biscoe and the first Kashmiri photographer.Found it in the book ‘Kashmir in Sunlight & Shade: a Description of the Beauties of the Country, the Life, Habits and Humour of its Inhabitants, and an Account of the Gradual but Steady Rebuilding of a Once Down-trodden People’ (1922) by Cecil Earle Tyndale-Biscoe.
The thing that really interested me in the photograph is her footware. Must be the famous Pulhor [ recent photo] woven from leaves of Iris ( Krishm in Kashmiri ).
(I suspected it) Turns out she is wearing Krav or wooden sandals.
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Panditanis
With graceful steps, erect and slow
Adown the stone-built, broken stair
The panditanis daily go
And on their head help high they bearBright vessels, which they stoop fill
Beneath the bridge’s wooden pier:
In pools of clouded amber still
Which gurgle deep and glowing here.Their movements of unconscious grace
Glint in the Jhelum’s flowing stream
Where rich hues shimmering interlace
And in the glancing ripples gleam,Then with their slender rounded arms
They poise the shining lotas high,
Ot bashful, with half feigned alarms
Draw close their veils with gesture shy.Bedecked by jewels quaint of form
In pherans robed, whose soft folds show
Tints dyed by rays of sunset warm
Flame, crimson, orange, rose aglow!With you gay tulips they compare
Which on these grass-grown house-tops blow:
What types for artist’s brush more fair
Does all Srinagar’s city know?
~ Muriel A.E. Brown
Chenar Leaves: Poems of Kashmir (1921)
Muriel Agnes Eleanora Talbot Brown was the daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Adelbert Cecil Talbot, Resident, Kashmir 1896- 1900. And first wife of Percy Brown, art historian famous for his work on History of Indian Architecture ( Buddhist and Hindu, 1942 ).
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Here are some old photographs of Kashmir from the book ‘Topee and turban, or, Here and there in India’ (1921) by Newell, H. A. (Herbert Andrews, b. 1869). Photographs are by a Sialkot based photographer named R.E. Shorter.
Found this incredible rare old photograph of Kashmiri pandit woman in a travelogue ‘Topee and turban, or, Here and there in India’ (1921) by Newell, H. A. (Herbert Andrews, b. 1869 ). The photograph by R.E. Shorter was used as the frontispiece for this book..
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Bedecked by jewels quaint of form
In pherans robed, whose soft folds show
Tints dyed by rays of sunset warm
Flame, crimson, orange, rose aglow!
– lines from poem ‘Panditanis’ by Muriel A.E. Brown
(Chenar Leaves: Poems of Kashmir, 1921)
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I have previously posted old photographs of Kashmiri Pandit women Here and Here
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Update [Thanks to Avi Raina]
The tight bracelet around the neck was known as ‘Tulsi’ and long teethy necklace was known as ‘Chapkali’.
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