Tag: free books

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The Pundits of Kashmir by J.J. Modi, 1915

Jivanji Jamshedji Modi’s paper ‘The Pundits of Kashmir’ (1915) for Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay (Vol. X, No. 6, pp. 401-85) was probably one of the first writing on pandits that looked at them from the prism of an ethnographic questionnaire. An interesting work because some of the topics touched here were mostly left unsaid by Pandit writers of the time.

Check: An additional division of Pandits along language spoken, Malechchas of Mirkhula as Zoroastrian fire worshipers, no marriage with outsiders, no talking in front of elders for married couple, no to polyandry but yes some cases of polygamy, mechanics of divorce, dressing differences between followers of Shiva and those of Shakti, river in Lar as nakali Ganga, rare cases of private prostitution, yes to meat, no to beef, pork and eggs, no to onions, tomatoes, carrots as they can cause ‘excitement’, can only eat uncooked food sitting with other Hindus and no food with others, yes to opium, charas and wine while some non-pandit Kashmiris brew Kehwa with snuff.

Read:

Download link

We have come a long way.

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Kashmir and Kerala by Pandit S. Anand Koul, 1928


Note on the Relation between Kashmir and Kerala
(By Pandit S. Anand Koul. Kerala Society Papers -1928. T. K. Joseph (Ed.) )

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Aside:

I waited a week for the book to arrive. All for a paper that I expected would throw up something interesting. But Koul Saheb’s paper turned out to be a bit disappointing. Much of what he writes her already was presented by him in his book on Kashmir Pandits. Besides reference to Kerala astrology in Kashmir and (in comments) Mankha’s work traveling to Kerala, there isn’t much. The story of white men on Malabar coast could well have been of Parsees or the Jews, but Koul Sabheb mentions in any case and tries to imagine them as Pandits. He seems to have been quite fascinated by the story, mentioning it in his Pandit book too. In an attempt to reach borders of Kerala, his only manages to reach Durbhanga (Bihar, where from returned the Kouls), Ellichpur (Maharashtra, where from returned the Dhars) and then Madras (where from came Ramanuja). It’s a sad attempt. I wish there was more.

Why more was I expecting? Consider this: there is Thiruv’anantha’puram in Kerala and there is Anantnag in Kashmir. Two cities dedicatedly named after a snake. King Solomon’s ships sailed to Kerala coast. Solomon’s throne is supposed to be in Kashmir. Ancient Jews lived in Kerala. And according to some at one time only Jews were allowed to enter Kashmir. (and not to forget, Kashmiri obsession with Jews. Interestingly, first person to broach up persecution of Jews in Germany during world war into a discussion about persecution of Pandits in medieval Kashmir was one Mr. GMD Sufi in his book Kashir (1948) while trying to form a defense for Sikandar Butshikan’s actions in response to popular discourse on the subject, an example of which would be writings by Anand Koul. Weird circular world, like a snake eating it’s own tail). Malayalam, the language that survives today was considerably shaped by westerners (particularly Rev.Benjamin Bailey and Hermann Gundert) who pulled it closer to Sanskrit (even at cost of other variants). The language is alive and kicking. In case of Kashmiri,  which is much older than Malayalam, here is the difference, one time opium agent Grierson’s work still divides the people on origins of the language as it pulls it away from Sanskrit. The is no single definitive script. Result: My Christian friend from Kerala, who is great at using programming languages, uses Malayalam in regular life, can sing some Sanskrit prayers as they are quite popular in the land, know sHindi as it was part of school curriculum but is not so great with English. In my case, I am not so great at programming, can barely speak Kashmiri, definitely can’t read or write it in anything besides Roman script, don’t know Sanskrit, can’t truly appreciate Hindi and can just about manage English, using it as a tool to earn my bread and butter.
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Kashmiri Lyrics, 1945

Jayalal Kaul’s pioneering book ‘Kashmiri Lyrics’ published in 1945 was probably the first proper attempt to document rare poetic works of Kashmiri language in roman script with corresponding English translations. Here’s the digital copy of the first edition. Read and share.

[Read here]

Compiled from the pages of the book available at Digital library of India.

A more recent edition of the book was published in 2008, revised and edited by Neerja Mattoo.

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Rama Rau Battas from down South

Daughter: Santha Rama Rau spent most of her life defining and explaining India to the world. A citizen of the free world.

Mother: Dhanvanthi Handoo Rama Rau, founder and president of the Family Planning Association of India, fought for women’s reproductive rights in India. First Kashmiri girl to marry outside the community. A citizen of free India. 
Grand-mother: A just about five feet tall imposing woman who lived in India but held on to the age-old beliefs of Pandit creed. A woman who worried about finding a suitable ‘Pandit’ boy for her tall grand daughter. A woman of old world pre-occupations, old world biases, and at times old world charm and wisdom. A citizen of imagined Kashmir. 


In ‘Cooking of India’, Santha Rama Rau had this to say about her mother’s side of the family:

“In all of this, their fierce sense of origins, their strong feeling for the “Kashmiri Brahmin community,” remained undiminished even though they were exiled in uncomprehending, if not hostile territory. So intense was this feeling that it never allowed them to realize that their food, like their manners, language, even in some cases their dress, had been strongly influenced by centuries of Muslim rule in Kashmir and later in Allahabad. Unlike most Brahmins they ate meat (though not beef); on the rare occasions when they served rice it was in the form of pulaus (imaginative variation of the Persian polo, or pilaf). They delighted in serving an iced sherbet like mixture of fruit juices, a drink they had adopted from the Moghul courts of North India.”

To my collection of Kashmir travelogues, I add Santha Rama Rau’s description of Kashmir visited in 1939 when she was sixteen. Santha Rama Rau’s Home to India (1945):

The diary I kept of the summer Premila and Mother and I spent in Kashmir was entitled romantically. Journey into Limbo. The reason which suggested the title is obscure, but in retrospect it does not seem inappropriate, for it conveys the timelessness of that summer.On the route to Kashmir you can go by train only as far north as Rawalpindi. From there the hourney has to be made in one of the cars on hire at Rawalpindi station. The stockily built Mohammedan driver of our battered Fiat, with his gaudy turban, knew he was a “character”. He warned us before he left the station that he was always sick on this trip, but if we would let him stop the car every forty minutes or so, things could be managed very neatly.
All the way up to Srinagar he used one hand for steering and the other for holding the door on. While Premila, with remarkable imperviousness, slept through the entire journey, the driver talked to me about the good done by the Congress Party for the peasants and small shopkeepers in this part of the country. He said too few people realized how far-reaching the influene of the Congress was in the princely States. Certainly there was a great deal of work still to be done, but while the Bristish protected the Maharajas the people were bound to remain oppressed. I was surprised at his fluent use of political phraseology as he discussed representative government needed in the States which the Congress wanted, and hoped to institute in time, when the power of the Princes could be broken. We of British India, he said, under-estimated the force of the people themselves in the States.
When I asked him why he wasn’t afraid to talk to us so freely, he became excited. “Tell the officials if you want to! Tell the Maharaja himself! We will fight them and the British. Wait and see, we’ll fight!”
I asked him what he would fight the British with – guns? machines? I reminded him that we had not been allowed to produce armaments in the country.
“Machinery!” he said, and tool his hand off the steering wheel to dismiss the industrial age with a flourish.”If we have it, good. If not, still good.”
“Then what will we fight with?”
He looked at me with scorn.”What we really need is to exploit our unity. If every Indian were to spit once, we could drown the British!”


–


You can read the complete book here.


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Probable clues to what Pandit writing would read like in a few decades from now when fresh blood will start describing their world, and the world of their parents and grand-parents. And when they will describe their visits to The One Great Limbo of their lives. 
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Daughters Of The Vitasta by Prem Nath Bazaz, 1959

This monumental book from 1959 by Prem Nath Bazaz is among the first few books written in exile by a modern Kashmiri. In fact, a bunch of these first books were written by Bazaz while living in Delhi after his political estrangement with Sheikh Abdullah. Most of these books had a lot of Kalhana and little droplets from the great river of Kashmiri history, much like the present exilee writing by Pandits. But there is a difference. Prem Nath Bazaz wrote about history while consciously avoiding revivalist temptations.

In Preface to this book, Bazaz writes:
“Lest reading of the early part of the book gives rise to revivalist tendencies, I would like to say that it is none of my desires to create a mythical golden age in which Kashmiri women achieved unsurpassable glory. I am fully aware of the limitations under which they lived during the best epochs of history to advocate revival of ancient ideals and beliefs. Despite the imperfections of modern social life, there is no gainsaying that today we live in a better world where both men and women find vaster opportunities and greater freedom for the unfoldment of their potentialities. Revivalism is by no means a healthy doctrine nor can its adoption contribute to prosperity of a people. My endeavour in narrating the  heroic and noble deeds of Kashmiri women is not to idolise the past but to rekindle the spirit of adventure which characterized them before was bound down in servitude.”

Beside telling story of interesting women from ancient history of Kashmir. and from not so distant past (like the fascinating story of Begam Samru, a Kashmiri Muslim nautch girl who ruled a princely state neat Meerat called Sardana and died a Christian), this book provides insight into a period when ‘naya Kashmir’ was being built and when women affairs in the state underwent a paradigm shift. Bazaz recall the early unsung pioneers who challenged the society, predominantly the Pandit community (Did you know the first film ever banned in Kashmir was due to Pandit protests?), to re-think its stand on core issues like women’s rights and education.

Prem Nath Bazaz wrote all this while living in Delhi.

Here is  ‘Daughters Of The Vitasta: A History of Kashmiri women from early times to the present day’ by Prem Nath Bazaz.

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The Kashmiri Ramayana, 1930



hechith buzith wuchith lagun pazaya on
phalis chuy hyol helis chuy sampanan gon


panun dam chuy ganimath boz yih rtch kath
chuh bruthyum broth rozan chuy patyum path



 “During my stay in Kashmir in the year 1893 I often heard of the existence of a Ramayana in the Kashmirir language, but failed to obtain a copy of it. I ascertained, however, that the name of the author, Divakara Prakasa Bhatta, was well known, and that there was a tradition that he was alive during the eight years of the reign of the Hindu king, Sukhajivana Simha, who, according to Hariscandra’s Kashmira Kusuma, came to the throne in 1786, and he lived in the Gojawar (Skt. Gulikavatika) Quarter of the City of Srinagar. So far as I could make out, in 1893 the poem could be found only in fragments, no entire copy of the epic being then known to exist. I accordingly employed Pandit (afterwards Mahamahopadhyaya) Mukunda Rama Sastru, who was assisting me in the preparation  of my Kashmiri Dictionary, to endeavor to collect the fragments and from them to piece together as complete a copy of the whole as was possible. He was fortunate enough to procure several long sections and from them the text of the poem as given in the following pages has been compiled. This is the text to which references are made in the Kashmiri Dictionary, and it is offered merely as a valuable specimen of the language, and in no way as a critical edition.”

Here is: ‘The Kashmiri Ramayana: Comprising the Sriramavataracarita and the Lavakusayuddhacarita of Divakara Prakasa Bhatta’ compiled by George Abraham Grierson in 1930.

I came across it at Digital Library of India and converted it to pdf format for easy reading. Here is the download link.

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Previously:

Sketches from Kashmiri Ramayan in Persian Script, 1940s, with some notes on the Kashmiri version of the epic . From when I had only heard about this book.

My Nani’s song that led me to look for the Kashmiri Ramayanas. Sadly, the lines she sings do not appear in this book. But at least I now know where those lines probably fit in the epic.

Last year I heard my nani sing following lines to herself.

Khir Khand Khyen’chi ae’sis pr’ye
kan-mool khey’th wo’yn kad’ya su dyeh

ga’yom hay’e Ram dand’ak wan
s’yeeth Seeta ti by’e Lakhman

ga’yom hay’e Ram dand’ak wan
ky’end ma’sy’nas tha’ye kho’ran

ga’yom hay’e Ram dand’ak wan

pyeth’kaayan osus na waar
burzakaayan wo’yn an’ya su baar

A transliteration of the lines:

He used to have Candy and Kheer
Now he lives on wild roots and vegetables

My Ram has gone to live in Dandaka Forest
Along with him have gone Sita and Lakshman

My Ram has gone to live in Dandaka Forest
Will not thorns bruise his soft feet
My Ram has gone to live in Dandaka Forest

Even silken robes weren’t soft enough for his skin
Now, will he roam around wearing Birch barks?

…

In this book similar lines occur in the section on Ram’s departure to forest and the subsequent laments by his near and dear ones. In book we have line:

wolukh tani burza trowikh tasa-makhamal
pakan gay trenaway az-rah-i-jangal

Interestingly, above are drawing on Persian (makhamal: velvet, rah-i-jangal: forest-way) while in my Nani’s version similar thought is conveyed using words pyeth’kaayan: Silken.

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Folk tales from Kashmir by S.L. Sadhu,1962

Almost seventy five years after Rev. John Hinton Knowles came out with his famous collection of Kashmiri folk tales, in 1962, S.L. Sadhu, came out with a new collection of Kashmiri folktales that had some old popular stories, like ‘Himal and Nagrai’, ‘Akanandun’, ‘Shabrang’ and ‘Musa – Kapas’ (interestingly, a cousin recently informed me that a version of this famous Kashmiri folktale was published in popular Indian Children’s magazine Target in 1980s with phrase ‘Musa – Kapas’ replaced with ‘Kong – Posh’) and then it had some new stories too. While Knowles told these stories like an Orientalist, with extensive notes and with an eye for origins of the tales, in a language that was at times too pedantic, S.L. Sadhu seems to have written the same stories with a sense of enjoy, a joy that might have been felt while hearing these stories in person, on cold dark night, curled up in bed, holding on to a Kangri, doing Shalfa with family. The Kashmiri in these stories does not come across as a specimen compiled by an Orientalist for study. Kashmiri in these stories comes across more strongly. And the language is what would now qualify for ‘Indian English’ with its seemingly strange use of phrases (the kind that makes western readers throw fits).

The book is also interesting as it also ties to add some new folktales to the Kashmiri literary space. Thus we have a story like ‘The Hydra-Headed’: they say a mysterious monstrous creature now infests waters of Jhelum, it is devouring unsuspecting people, waters are dangerous. The story is about the way news used to float around Srinagar. We are offered various sound-bites from the city-folks about this monster.
As we near these sounds, a picture of Kashmri society – imagined, dreamed -around 1960s and not from early 1900 when this news about a ‘man-eating crocodile’ was in fact doing the rounds of the city, an incident recorded by Tyndale Biscoe and a imaginary beast slayed by ‘Biscoe Boys’ by swimming en-mass in the river. S.L. Sadhu, a former student of C.M.S. Biscoe School, was probably paying tribute to his school in that tale.

Reading S.L. Sadhu’s collection along with the book from Knowles actually broadens the space of Folk tales in Kashmir. Sadhu wrote these stories with young readers in mind. The book embellished with some wonderful sketches by Mohan Ji Raina.

It is a shame that while the book by Knowles is still in print and easily available both offline and online, S.L. Sadhu’s book is not so easy to find.

I came across the book recently at Digital Library of India and converted it to pdf format for easy reading.

 

[Download Here]
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Archaeological Remains In Kashmir by Pandit Anand Koul, 1935

Part 1 of this old book lists the various ancient Hindu shrine spots of Kashmir along with their contentious history (most of these places are already forgotten and so, not so contentious anymore).

Part 2 lists all the Gardens of Kashmir, not just the bog famous ones but almost all the gardens ever built in Kashmir during Mughal time). Anand Koul argues that C.M. Villiers Stuart’s ‘Gardens of the Great Mughals’ (1913) ( posted earlier here for easy reading) had only scratched the surface and that the history of these gardens had a deeper link with the locals and were not just a result of Mughal passion of Gardens. I believe these two works, one by Anand Koul and the other by C.M. Villiers Stuart, together cover all that you ever wanted to know about history of Kashmiri Gardens.

[Download and Google Doc link for sharing: HERE]
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Came across the book at Digital Library of India. It was available in a difficult to browse and read format, needed all kind of plug-ins and what not, so I converted the book to pdf format and uploaded it here for easy consumption. Happy reading!

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Guide To Kashmir, 1954

I knew it was vintage. But the description on ebay offered no date, it just said ‘Guide to Kashmir’, old, very old, or something like that. Once I bought it and went through it, finding the date proved to be fun little exercise. Clues: In which year a double room at Nedous Hotel cost Rs. 40 a day, a month in a Five room ‘A Class’ House boat cost Rs.800, Ahdoos was still there, there were only three Film theaters in the city and visitors needed permits to bring firearms into the state…in which year?

I talked around but got only approximations. In the end the fact that it was published The Tourist Traffic Branch, Ministry of Transport New Delhi proved to be vital. Searching the web led me to the listing for this booklet available in the National Library of Australia [link]. The match on the number of pages proved to be the clincher.

I present to you: Guide To Kashmir, 1954. Enjoy!

Update:
January 22, 2014

Uploaded the book to archive.org
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