A woman, her head covered, like she was on her way to a temple, praying aloud for the welfare of her family, like at a temple, walked past me and entered the chamber that is believed to house the grave of Akbar. The unconventionally plain walled chamber in fact houses the cenotaph of Akbar the Great. Sikandra. U.P. July. 2011.
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In 1892, just three weeks after his death, Lord Alfred Tennyson, considered one of the greatest British Poet, was posthumously published. The collection of poems ‘The Death of Oenone, Akbar’s Dream, and Other Poems’. Among these, ‘Akbar’s Dream’ is considered his last possible work. The poem was set as a conversation between Akbar and his trusted friend Abu Fazal. In the verses giving us visions of Akbar’s great dream for his empire, its subjects, his fear of his sons and their budding blood thirst, his prophecy of a possible death of his dreams, and a possible salvation through adoption by a bigger dream – in all of it we can read how Tennyson believed British Empire was the only true inheritor and propagator of Akbar’s dream. The work is an interesting mixup of British imperialistic dreams with their oriental longings.
If one forgets that it’s actually a British poem and has a subliminal meaning, an Indian can now easily adopt Akbar’s dream. Or perhaps already has. Isn’t modern India imagined and presented as a part of Akbar’s great dream? That’s not even remotely interesting. What is interesting is that this dream of Akbar presented by Tennyson actually starts with Kashmir.
AN INSCRIPTION BY ABUL FAZL FOR A TEMPLE IN KASHMIR
(Blochmann xxxii.)
O GOD in every temple I see people that see thee,
and in every language I hear spoken, people praise thee.
Polytheism and Islam feel after thee.
Each religion says, ‘Thou art one, without equal.’
If it be a mosque people murmur the holy prayer, and if it be a Christian Church, people ring the bell from love to Thee.
Sometimes I frequent the Christian cloister, and sometimes the mosque.
But it is thou whom I search from temple to temple.
Thy elect have no dealings with either heresy or orthodoxy; for neither of them stands behind the screen of thy truth.
Heresy to the heretic, and religion to the orthodox,
But the dust of the rose-petal belongs to the heart of the perfume seller.
In 1872, Heidegger (Henry) Blochmann published the manuscript of ‘The Ain i Akbari’, and then in 1873 followed it with a translation.
In this book, about the origin of these lines, Blochmann writes:
“The ‘Durar ul Manshur’, a modern Tazkirah by Muhammad Askari Husaini of Bilgram, selects the following inscription written by Abul Fazal for a temple in Kashmir as a specimen both of Abul Fazal’s writing and his religious belief. It is certainly vey characteristic, and is easily recognised as Abul Fazal’s composition.”
The original with translation and his notes follows:
And so, that great experiment too started with Kashmir.
At SearchKashmir not only are some old dreams of ‘Earthly Paradise Kashmir’ catalogued, but not so strangely it is also helping re-create some old dreams. Here is someone’s visual interpretation of Dimitri Tiomkin’s score for Otto Lang’s ‘Search For Paradise’ (1957). The film was about two WW-II pilots, two Marco-Polos searching for paradise in East and of course visit Kashmir. It is about the adventures they have, there are high flying planes (new Jet planes meant new age of science ), fast flowing rivers (there was US presence in the region) and invincible mountains (Nanga Parbat was conquered only in 1953).
As rising on its purple wing
The insect-queen of easter spring,
O’er emerald meadows of Kashmeer
Invites the young pursuer near,
And leads him on from flower to flower
A weary chase and wasted hour,
Then leaves him, as it soars on high,
With panting heart and tearful eye:
So Beauty lures the full-grown child
With hue as bright, and wing as wild;
A chase of idle hopes and fears,
Begun in folly, closed in tears.
If won, to equal illd betrayed,
Woe waits the insect the maid,
A life of pain, the loss of peace,
From infant’s play, or man’s caprice:
The lovely toy so fiercely sought,
Has lost its charm by being caught,
For every touch that wooed it’s stay
Has brush’d the brightest hues away
Till charm, and hue, and beauty gone,
‘Tis left to fly or fall alone.
With wounded wing, or bleeding breast,
Ah! where shall either victim rest?
Can this with faded pinion sir
From rose to tulip as before?
Or Beauty, blighted in an hour,
Find joy within her broken bower?
No: gayer insects fluttering by
Ne’eer droop the wing o’er those that die,
And lovelier things have mercy shown
To every failing but their own,
And every woe a tear can claim
Except an erring sister’s shame.
~ Lines from “The Giaour” (1813) by Lord Byron. A work of romantic Orientalism that looks at contrast between Christian and Islamic ideals. This was also one of the first works in which Vampire made an appearance.
His biography was written by Thomas Moore who went on to make Kashmir famous with his Lalla Rookh. Byron was father of Ada Lovelace, the first programmer.
Not the purple queen of Kashmir
June 2013. Kochi.
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Kashmir in forced exiles and paradise lost
There [in Cashmire’s vale], Heaven and Earth are ever bright and kind;
Here [in Albion], blight and storms and damp forever float,
Whilst hearts are more ungenial than the zone –
Gross, spiritless, alive to no pangs but their own.
There, flowers and fruits are ever fair and ripe;
Autumn, there, mingles with the bloom of spring,
And forms unpunched by frost or hunger’s gripe
A natural veil o’er natural spirits fling;
Here, woe on all but wealth has set its floor.
Famine, disease and crime even wealth’s proud gates pollute
~ lines from ‘Zeinab and Kathema’ (1809) by Percy Bysshe Shelley, husband of Mary Shelley (of Frankenstein fame), and a friend of Lord Byron. This poem was about a Princess from Paradise – Kashmir – forceable taken to Hell – England.
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Kashmir in evil that ignites poetry
The Poet, wandering on, through Arabie,
And Persia, and the wild Carmanian waste,
And o’er the aerial mountains which pour down
Indus and Oxus from their icy caves,
In joy and exultation held his way;
Till in the vale of Cashmire, far within
Its loneliest dell, where odorous plants entwine
Beneath the hollow rocks a natural bower,
Beside a sparkling rivulet he stretched
His languid limbs. A vision on his sleep
There came, a dream of hopes that never yet
Had flushed his cheek. He dreamed a veiled maid
Sate near him, talking in low solemn tones.
Her voice was like the voice of his own soul
Heard in the calm of thought; its music long,
Like woven sounds of streams and breezes, held
His inmost sense suspended in its web
Of many-coloured woof and shifting hues.
Knowledge and truth and virtue were her theme,
And lofty hopes of divine liberty,
Thoughts the most dear to him, and poesy,
Herself a poet. Soon the solemn mood
Of her pure mind kindled through all her frame
A permeating fire; wild numbers then
She raised, with voice stifled in tremulous sobs
Subdued by its own pathos; her fair hands
Were bare alone, sweeping from some strange harp
Strange symphony, and in their branching veins
The eloquent blood told an ineffable tale.
The beating of her heart was heard to fill
The pauses of her music, and her breath
Tumultuously accorded with those fits
Of intermitted song. Sudden she rose,
As if her heart impatiently endured
Its bursting burthen: at the sound he turned,
And saw by the warm light of their own life
Her glowing limbs beneath the sinuous veil
Of woven wind, her outspread arms now bare,
Her dark locks floating in the breath of night,
Her beamy bending eyes, her parted lips
Outstretched, and pale, and quivering eagerly.
His strong heart sunk and sickened with excess
Of love. He reared his shuddering limbs and quelled
His gasping breath, and spread his arms to meet
Her panting bosom:…she drew back a while,
Then, yielding to the irresistible joy,
With frantic gesture and short breathless cry
Folded his frame in her dissolving arms.
Now blackness veiled his dizzy eyes, and night
Involved and swallowed up the vision; sleep,
Like a dark flood suspended in its course,
Rolled back its impulse on his vacant brain.
Alastor (1815) by Percy Bysshe Shelley, about a man traveling from Arabia finding perfection, a woman, in Kashmir
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All of these works were the by-product of Bernier’s description of Kashmir traveling in Europe, including the work that directly influenced these poets – by a novel called The Missionary (1811) by Sydney Owenson. Influenced by more recent travelogues too, this story was about a Missionary traveling from Goa who falls in love with a Prophetess of Kashmir named Luxima whose brave ‘Sati’ death causes a revolution.
At last, through the branches of a spreading palm-tree, he beheld, at a distance, the object who had thus agitated and disturbed the calmest mind which Heaven’s grace had ever visited. She was leaning on the ruins of a Brahminical altar, habited in her sacerdotal vestments, which were rich but fantastic. Her brow was crowned with consecrated flowers; her long dark hair floated on the wind; and she appeared a splendid image of the religion she professed – bright, wild, and illusory; captivating to the senses, fatal to the reason, and powerful and tyrannic to both.
The famous story of Kashmiri shawls arriving in Europe goes like this:
In around 1796, in the time of Abdulla Khan, an Afghan Governor of Kashmir, a blind man named Sayyid Yahyah came to Kashmir from Bhagdad, and left with a orange Shawl as a gift from the governor. The Sayyid then went to Egypt, and gave it to the Khedive (Ruler) there. When Napoleon arrived in Egypt, Khedive gave the same shawl as present to him. In turn, Napoleon on reaching back France gave it to Josephine. It was Josephine who made it, a Shawl worn in the subcontinent by men, a rich fashion statement for women.
A Guest post by Komal Kaul on discovering a bit of Kashmir in an art exhibit in Chicago.
I recently went to the Chicago Art Institute , where they had a special exhibit on Impressionism , Fashion and Mordern Art. One of the paintings ( actually a loaner from Met Museum of Art NY) was this:
Madame Louis Joachim Gaudibert, 1868
The lady in the paintings actually has a very intricately embroidered Koshur Jamavar Shawl. The artist is Claude Monet.
When Tyndale Biscoe started his school, among many problems he had to deal with while trying to correct the character of Kashmiris was a problem of particularly vicious nature. He found most of his students addicted to literature of the dirty kind. He found the problem to be of epidemic proportions. He needed a cure for the disease. The solution he came up had a typical stamp of ingenuity. He talked to Dr. Neve and asked him how much paper can a human body have before it causes any serious damage. After getting the scientific estimate he put his solution into play: Any boy caught with such dirty literature was made to eat it.
Did the Pandit boys, who were probably not even allowed to have Tomato, wonder if paper is Satvik or Tamasic?
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An Ad from The Indian Express dated December 9, 1942
‘Serpentine Head Gear’
Kashmiri Pandit Woman. 1939. [By Ram Chand Mehta]
A recently heard a Pandit priest claim that all Kashmiri women come from ‘Nagas’ or the Snake race.
The snake woman or Lamiaby J. Lockwood Kipling, father of Rudyard Kipling. It accompanies the story of ‘The snake-woman and the king Ali Mardan’ in ‘Tales of the Punjab : told by the people’ (1917) by Flora Annie Webster Steel (1847-1929). Another version of the story can be found in ‘Folk-Tales of Kashmir’ by Rev. J. Hinton Knowles (Second Edition, 1893. Narrated by Makund Bayu of Srinagar), in which the snake woman claims to be Chinese and Ali Mardan Khan, actually the Mughal governor of Kashmir, builds Shalimar Garden for her. In Kashmiri the name for the snake is given as Shahmar.
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Kadru, is the mother of Nagas, and wife of Kashyap, the mythical creator of Kashmir. In, Adi Parva, we learn that Kadru cursed her offsprings for not doing her bidding. The curse with played out by King (Arjun’s great-grandson) Janamejaya’s famous Snake Sacrifice. The serpent race was saved by intervention by Astika, born of wedlock between Rishi Jaratkaru of Yayaver and Manasa, sister of Vasuki Naga.
[Near Jammu, Mansar Lake is the spot associated with Mansa Devi. One of the early description of the Lake can be found in Vigne’s travelogue from 1842]
Ferdinand Stoliczka ( Czech, 1838-1874) was a palaeontologist who worked in Indian Palaeontology, Geology and various aspects of Zoology including ornithology and herpetology. Stoliczka studied Geology and Palaeontology at Prague and Vienna graduated with a P.H.D. in 1861. He joined the Geological Survey of India under the British Govt. under Thomas Oldham. He along with W.Thomas Blandford documented the cretaceous fossils of South India. He studied the geology of Western Himalayas, Ladakh and Tibet. He also made two trips to Andaman and Nicobar Islands. He also worked in the Rann of Kutch from where he reported Hunting leopards and Stoliczka’s Bushchat. His third and last expedition to central Asia i.e. 2nd Missions to Yarkand with T.D. Forysth. They set out from Rawalpindi to Leh Shahidulla and finally reached Yarkand in December 1873 and began their return journey in March 1874 and after crossing the Karakorum, he suffered from severe headache from which he could not recover and died at Moorghi village in Ladakh on 16 th June 1874 probably due to acute mountain sickness pulmonary or cerebral oedema. The British Government of India erected a grand memorial as a mark of respect for the service he rendered to the 2nd Yardkand mission.
Memorial of Ferdinand Stoliczka at Leh
Officers of Geological survey of India paying their homage to Stoliczka in 1960s
Khoni keth doda-not ware heth bari drav Lokan chu sapharun tav Tahkhith doda-gur Jenatuk bagwan
Yarkand anon zenan Watal dop watje bonay sara zah
Chim mangan dalomuy ta kah Tsoratsh ta or heth met hay, pakanawan
A few lines from a lost song ‘Phorsat Sahibn Shar Yeli Yarkand Zeneni Gau‘ [The song of Forsyth Sabib when he went to conquer Yarkand]’ by a Kashmiri folk bard named Sobir Tilawon recorded in Sir Aurel Stein’s ‘Hatim’s Tales: Kashmiri Stories and Songs’ (1928), recorded with the assistance of Pandit Govind Kaul. It talks about the turmoil created in lives of Kashmiri working class by Sir Douglas Forsyth‘s mission to Yarkand in 1873-4. In lives of workers, cobblers, tillers and carpenters. It probably is the first recored instance of the native consciousness in a work of folk art acknowledging the presence of Western men in their land and the impact it having on them. I wasn’t content with the translation of the lines given in the book. Kaul sahib seemed a bit lenient on the British Imperialists. Or, may be a bit too smart. He translates ‘Jenatuk bagwan’ as ‘Heaven’s Gardner’ and doda-gur as ‘cow herder’…but if going with the way Kashmiri words work really, if Bhagwaan is actually Bagwaan and Doda gur is actually reference to color of a horse, these lines could as well mean:
Yarkand he is conquering
Carrying a milk-pail in his haunch,
earthern pots in a load
he goes forth
For people
journey is exhaustion
He , forsooth
White horse
Heavenly God
Yarkand he is conquering
Cobbler said to Cobbler’s wife
“I shall not remember forever,
they want my leather and lace,
leather-cutter and awl,
and they want me.
O, they are taking me too”
Yarkand he is conquering
Punting up the river Jhelum, a gentleman aboard a dourmjah with two attendants
Punjab Hills, early 19th Century
If from one side we have a consciousness that ‘other’ was like a God, with power to move men and matter at his whim, from the other side too we see a consciousness of a Godly impunity, a consciousness that ‘We’ have even intruded into domains where ‘they’ would only let ‘their’ Gods intrude, and a consciousness about what havoc it must be having on ‘their’ simple minds, and an unassuming confidence in ‘his’ power to get into the mind of these sorry creatures, and define the relations between ‘Us’ and ‘Them’.
In ‘Indian Memories: Recollections of Soldiering Sport, Etc.’ (1915) by Sir Robert Baden-Powell, father of Scout Movement, we find this curious little incident showcasing white man’s God moment and white man’s consciousness of it:
At Bidjbehara, which I found too tempting to be resisted and stopped there a whole day, our charming bagh was invaded towards evening by the Resident of Kashmir and his camp, and 40,000 coolies (more or less), escort, tagrag and bobtail.
Just opposite to where I lay moored was a Hindu temple. I had been interested in watching the ways of the devotees, and I took my dinghy and rowed unobserved close under their bank and listened to what they were saying. A priest came to them while they were eating their midday meal. He talked, not directly to them at first, but rather at them, steadily harping on one thing. ” Life is vanity, the great river flowing by is like the Destiny of Life ; it rolls on ceaselessly, unmoved by the desires, or prayers, or tears of men; quiet but irresistible; calm but inscrutable.” They seemed to forget their meal as his impressive refrain began to hold their attention.
“Aye, brothers,’ he continued,” look at those straws, those bubbles borne along by the current. What are we but such as they ? borne along by Father Destiny, the Great River, whence ? it matters not: whither? we know not : what use for us to have ambitions, loves or hates ? Can we, mere straws, turn the Great River to suit our little aims? Do you, my brothers, not see the might of the great God ? Yes, in your heart you begin to comprehend his greatness and your own littleness. He comes to you – he comes -”
Yes, he does, or the next thing to him does. An English tourist, kodak in hand, nose in the air, walks in, stepping through the assemblage as if they were so much dirt, and proceeds to ” snap” their best idol.
The spell was broken. Poor old priest, I quite felt for him. All his high-falutin thrown away. The disenchantment was complete. The women covered up their faces from the white man, and the men resumed their eating and began jabbering to each other their various experiences of the “mad sahib logue” they have met.
Sometime History teases us with waggish little tales that make up this world and its present complexities. In fact, it often does that. You just have to read.
This is the funny little story of how the first government sponsored Madarsa for Kashmiri Muslims opened in the state, a school for the rich; the odd consequence of a Pathan sending his sons to read English language.
The story is told by W.J. Elmslie, the first medical missionary in Kashmir who after facing much difficulties and harassments did manage to operate in the kingdom, and her burning yearning of Christian pity to save souls for heavenly Lord did sow some seeds of good christians in what was then considered most fertile land for such deeds in the Empire. Also, during his five years in Kashmir he discovered what came to be coined as ‘Kangir Cancer’, and driven by his problems at communicating with natives, Elmslie was the first to compile a proper guide to Kashmir Vocabulary for future visitors [published in 1872, here].
The incident of interest happened during Elmslie’s fourth year in Kashmir, an account of which appears in a letter he wrote to his mother and dated 6th May, 1868. The letter appears in his biography written by his wife, ‘Seedtime in Kashmir: a memoir of W.J. Elmslie by his widow and W. B. Thomson’ published in 1875. In the letter he excitingly tells his mother:
“A little progress is being made in the valley. The first school established in Kashmir by the Maharajah has just been opened. Its history is the following. The father of the family of which I have already spoken, was particularly desirous that his two sons, two very fine lads, should learn a little English. He asked me if I would teach them. I said I had not time to do so, for my medical and other duties; but I would allow one of my assistants, who knew a little English, to teach his sons. One of the two lads has been very regular in his attendance, and has made some progress. A report of all this was carried to the Diwan, the Maharajah’s representative in the valley. Thereafter, a vigorous effort was made to get the father to give up sending his son to the mission bungalow to learn English. The effort failed, however. The father, I must tell you, is a Pathan, and is not so much afraid of the Kashmir Government as indigenous Kashmiris generally are. The Maharajah, in due time, received a full account of all that was going on; and His Highness, after some time, gave orders for the opening of a school for the teaching of Arabic, and desired the Diwan to try to prevail upon Sher Ali, my Pathan friend, to desist from sending his sons to the Doctor Sahib to receive instruction in English. In this effort, I am happy to say, the Diwan has failed. The boys came daily to us. This class for Arabic, got up primarily to decoy Sher Ali’s sons away from us, is the first Government school the valley has seen during the reign of Gulab Singh and his son, the present Maharajah. The class, I am told, is intended exclusively for sons of those who may be called the nobility of Kashmir. It is a pity the language was not Persian, and the school intended for any who was willing to attend. This is trying to boil the kettle from above.”
