in bits and pieces
 |
| Num. Nail. The front portion of a Kashmiri boat. |
-0-
 |
| Cave inside Chenar Tree. By a British Army Officer, around 1907. [via: bonham] |
In Abul Fazal’s Akbarnama there is an episode in which during a storm, Akbar and 34 of his men take shelter inside the hollowed trunk of an aged Chinar tree. In ‘Tuzk-i-Jehangiri’, returing to the same episode, Jehangir recounts that he too took shelter in a cave inside a Chinar tree that time, he along with five or seven of his horsemen and with their horses.
-0-
The world is indeed getting smaller.
 |
| The present Vitasta -Sindhu -Samgama the conflunce of Jhelum and Sind rivers at Naranbagh near Shadipur. The river in the left foreground with greyish coloured water is the Sind river and the other with the bluish green coloured water in the right background is the Jhelum. Suyya the able engineer of King Avantivarman by his skill shifted the position of Vitastasindhusamgama from Parihaspura Trigami area to its present location in the vicinity of Sundribhavana (Naran Bagh) by forcing the course of Vitasta north east wards by blocking its original course with embankments to reclaim the cultivable land from flood prone areas and marshes. A Vishnu temple by the name of Yogavasmin was also built by Suyya at the instance of Avantivarman. |
 |
| The solitary Chinar standing in water in the immediate vicinity of the confluence is considered holy and compared to the holy fig tree at Triveni near Allahbad |
-0-
 |
| The Chinar tree at Shadipore in a photograph by Fred Bremner. 1905 |
-0-
Preyaghuch buni nah thadan nah lokan nah badan.
The chinar of preyag neither become taller, nor shorter, nor bigger.
A poor sickly child, who does not grow or become fat.
An explanation about the Chinar tree of prayag that can be found in the book ‘A Dictionary of Kashmiri Proverbs and Sayings’ by James Hinton Knowles (1885):
This chinar tree is in the middle of a little island just big enough to pitch your tent on, in the midst of the Jhelum river by the village Shadipur. The Hindus have consecrated the place, and a Brahman is to be seen twice every day paddling himself along in a little boat to the spot, to worship and to make his offerings.
This chinar tree at Shadipur is believed to be the (sangam) confluence of rivers Indus (Sind) and Jhelum (Vitasta) and is called `Prayag’ by Kashmiri pandits – alluding to Prayag that is Allahabad where Yamuna and Ganga meet up. Kashmiri Pandits used to immerse the ashes and remains of their dead at this spot.
-0-
Previously: Kashmiri Proverbs borne of Chinar tree
Saplings and Sandbags.
Khir Bhawani. June 2008.
These proverbs and their meaning have been taken from the remarkable book ‘A Dictionary of Kashmiri Proverbs and Sayings’ by James Hinton Knowles (1885).
1.
Kentsan rani chhai shihij buni, nerav nebar shukul [Shuhul] karav.
kentsan rani chhai bar peth huni, nerav nebar tah zang kheyiwo.
kentsan rani chhai adal tah wadal; kentsan rani chhai zadal tshai.
Some have wives like a shady chinar, let us go under it and cool ourselves.
Some have wives like the bitch at the door, let us go and get our legs bitten.
Some have wives always in confusion, and some have wives like bad thatch upon the roof.
– Lal Ded
Salman Rushdie used the first line from this proverb in Salimar the Clown but didn’t trace the line’s orgin to Lal Ded.*
2.
Panah san kheyih buni tah jits san kheyih huni
He will eat the chinar tree- leaves and all, and he will eat the dog with the skin.
A regular cannibal, not satisfied with enough.
3.
Preyaghuch buni nah thadan nah lokan nah badan.
The chinar of preyag neither become taller, nor shorter, nor bigger.
A poor sickly child, who does not grow or become fat.
An explanation about the Chinar tree of prayag that can be found in the book:
This chinar tree is in the middle of a little island just big enough to pitch your tent on, in the midst of the Jhelum river by the village Shadipur. The Hindus have consecrated the place, and a Brahman is to be seen twice every day paddling himself along in a little boat to the spot, to worship and to make his offerings.
This chinar tree at Shadipur is believed to be the (sangam) confluence of rivers Indus (Sind) and Jhelum (Vitasta) and is called `Prayag’ by Kashmiri pandits – alluding to Prayag that is Allahabad where Yamuna and Ganga meet up. Kashmiri Pandits used to immerse the ashes and remains of their dead at this spot.
[More about Chinar and Kashmir here ]
[Image on left: The Chinar tree at Shadipore in a photograph by Fred Bremner. 1905 ]
-0-
*The poets wrote that a good wife was like a shady boonyi tree, a beautiful chinar – kenchen renye chai shihiji boonyi – but in the comman parlance the imagery was different. The word for the entrance to a house was braand; stone was kany. for comical reasons the two words were sometimes used, joined together, to refer to one’s beloved bride: braand-kany, “the gate of stone.” Let’s just hope, Shalimar the clown thought but did not say, that the stones don’t come smashig down on our heads.
– Salman Rushdie trying to work linguistic acrobatics in Shalimar the Clown. Although a deft performer of the art, his text here seems to stay flat on trampoline, or so it may seem to a Kashmiri reader. The jump from ‘Boonyi’ to ‘Braand’ to “the gate of stone” seems disjoint.
A newly wed women was often referred to as Braand-kany. The imagery it is supposed to invoke is that the woman is the base of the house and the family. A Braand-Kany actually consists of a small stone stairway that leads to the entrance of the house. If the stones in this stairway were too loose, ill-fitted or just too slippers, often, passage to the inside of the house could become quite hazardous for the visitors. And the visitors were to remeber this house for its bad Braand-kany, a bad reflection on its inmates.
-0-
A Chinar tree at Khir Bhawani.
June 2008.
Akbar was the first Emperor to enter Kashmir. He built the fort at Srinagar called Hari Pabat (the Green Hill), and planned a large garden not far away on the shores of the Dal, that beautiful lake which lies between the city and the mountain amphitheatre to the north of Srinagar. The Nisim Bagh, Akbar’s garden, stands in a fine open position well raised above the lake; and takes its name from the cool breezes that blow all day long under its trees. The walls, canals, and fountains have disappeared ; and the avenues of magnificent chenars with which it is closely planted must have been added long after the garden was laid out, if ‘Ali Mardan Khanwas the first to introduce these trees into the country. Fully grown they resemble heavy- foliaged sycamores with serrated leaves and smooth, silvery boles and branches. They were, and are, greatly prized for their size and beauty, and more especially for their dense shade. Apart from the garden avenues, chenars are often to be seen in the villages and by the sides of the old caravan roads. They are usually planted at the four points of a square so as to shade a plot of ground all day long, and thus formed a series of halting-places between one camp and the next. In Kashmir they still remain royal trees ; they are Government property, not to be cut down with- out a special permit from the Maharaja. Green turf covers the ruined masonry terraces of the Nisim Bagh, which rise grandly from the water ; but the trees are in their prime, and the view from under their boughs across the blue expanse of the lake, crowned by the snow -streaked Mahadev, remains as enchanting as when Akbar chose this site for the first Mughal garden in Kashmir.
Between the Nisim and the Fort there is a smaller lake, at the far end of which are the remains of a picturesque garden called the Nageen Bagh. What is left shows another lake- side garden, smaller, but in character much like that of Lalla Rookh on the Manasbal. It is built on a narrow point of land, its terraces rising on three sides out of the water which forms large canals on either hand. A pavilion shaded by great chenars stands close down by the edge of the lake. All round the sides of the Dal Lake there are broken walls and terraces, the remains of early Mughal gardens. Hazrat Bal, the village close to the Nisim Bagh, stands on the site of one of these. The large mosque, where the hair of the Prophet is preserved, and specially venerated once a year at a great mela, is built round the principal garden-house. The narrow stone water- course runs beneath it, and through the village square, in the midst of which a beautifully carved stone chabutra figures conspicuously and still forms a convenient praying platform. The old entrance can be seen in the long line of stone steps leading down to the water, but the most interesting feature at Hazrat Bal is the carved stone fountains.
-0-
From C.M. Villiers Stuart’s ‘Gardens of the Great Mughals’ (1913)
Read more:
-0-
Photograph:
1. A Chinar Tree at a Garden on the bank of the Jehlum river, near Zero Bridge, Rajbagh, Srinagar.
2. Courtesy of George Eastman House Photography Collections Online
They have a great collection of “Lantern Slides of India” Do check it out!
The caption for the old photograph (probably dating back to 1890s) reads:
TITLE ON OBJECT: Hurri Purbut, from Nusseeb Bagh
PUBLISHER: McAllister, T.H.
transparency, woodburytype on glass
