I couldn’t stop smiling. An awesome post by Man Mohan Munshi Ji.
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‘This man is ordered to walk in front of you to enforce 4 miles speed per hour.’
In 1958 I came across a road bridge somewhere near Jammu & Kashmir – Himachal Pradesh border where speed limit was enforced by a man walking in front of any vehicle crossing the bridge.
A view of the worlds 14 the highest peak known at present as Nanga Parbat (Naked
Mountain). It is also called by the natives as Dyamur (Moor’s head).
View of Nanga Parbat drawn by Alexander Cunningham published in his book Ladakh published in 1854
During the Purana times it was known as Dumra Lohita (The king of mountains ) which can be visualized by the fact that submit of Nanga Parbat 26,660 ft above the msl with its base at the side by the side of Sindu (Indus) at about 3,500 ft. exposes a fall of about 23,160 at the Astor valley or one of the passes connecting Kishenganga valley with that of Indus valley. The unparalleled view is more impressive than that of Grand Canyon of Colorodo USA and Namchebarwa Peak and Bed of river Tsangpo(Brahmaputra). The fall of more than 23,000 ft exposed to the gaze of observers during the purana times led to the belief that Dumraluhita (Nanga Parbat ) is the highest mountain in the world.
A couple of days ago Man Mohan Ji sent me this wonderful painting.
The originally Persian mythical bird, Simurgh, holding fast nine elephants symbolizing lower constituents of the partial self. Kangra school, 19th century. Gouache on paper.
I came across stories of Simurgh a couple of times while reading things about Kashmir. And interestingly in these stories Simurgh was a very lose term that was easily applied to many kind of mythical birds.
The story titled ‘Good King Hatam’, narrated to Reverend James Hinton Knowles by a barber of Amira Kadal named Qadir, revolves around a golden egg-laying bird Huma. In the footnote to the story Knowles tells us that Huma is ‘A fabulous bird of happy omen peculiar to the East. It haunts the mountain Qaf. It is supposed that every head it overshadows will wear a crown. The Arabs call it ‘anqa’ and the Persians simgh (lit. of the size of thirty birds).’
Another story about Kashmir and Simurgh comes all the way from ancient China.
According to a Chinese legend, a king of Kashmir named Chi-pin caught a Simurgh and caged it, but the bird never sang a single note for three years (in an Indian original the bird would be a kalavinka , a melodious songbird). The king’s wife then tells him that Simurghs only sing when they see their own kind, so the king deceives the bird by putting a mirror in its cage. Mistaking its own reflection for the lost mate, Simurgh sings a mournful song and dies. The story about the “single simurgh” (ku-luan) is from Liu Ching-shu’s Garden of Anomalies (I-yilan). *
* from ‘The age of Eternal Brilliance: Three Lyric Poets of the Yung-ming Era’ (Richard B. Mather, Yue Shen, Tiao Xie, Rong Wang ) and ‘The oceanic feeling: the origins of religious sentiment in ancient India’ (Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson)
An engraved copper plate, Ratendeep (Deep) , copper vessel, copper Niaruin for pouring water on Saligram and a copper spoon for amrit on a brass Badrapeeth used by my grandparents ( 1868-1954).
