In 1931-1932 as Georges-Marie Haardt’s Trans-Asiatic Expedition made its way from Beirut to Beijing on, tagging along was as an ‘Artistic Advisor’ was a brilliant Russian artist named Alexandre Yevgenievich Jacovleff (1887-1938). Jacovleff kept a log of the journey, etching his experiences and impressions in a diary and later painting over them to create one of the most fascinating ethnographic collection based on the lives of people living in the remotest of Central Asian Regions.
From ‘Our summer in the vale of Kashmir’ (1915) by Frederick Ward Denys. Below you can see the impact that these images from Kashmir had in shaping the western imagining of this land.
A page from a children’s book set in Kashmir and written around 1939.
‘Rhamon a boy of Kashmir by Heluiz Washburne, pictured by Roger Duvoisin‘ (1939).
The book tells the story of a little Kashmiri boat boy who is deputed by the King to visit the city on a special mission. There is houseboats, floating gardens, a mela, a trip to the big city alone, adventure, all the ingredients that would trigger the imagination of a young child. Most of the illustrations in the book are based on some old photograph of Kashmir, and in some cases (like the case of stealing of floating gardens) based on an old travelogue.
This is from a time when you could tell children wonderful stories about Kashmir – a far-off exotic land of simple, beautiful people, with a nice king – without you having to worry that they would one day grow-up and probably think that the world is actually a very messy place to be.
Yes, definitely it is a book meant for children
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Update: Below is an alternative view of the first image of “Living Human Welcome” published in National Geographic, Vol 40, 1921. We can see here that unlike the first image the word “welcome” is not mirrored, it actually spells right. Also, if one goes by the caption, the event was held to welcome the British viceroy (should be Minto and his wife) into Kashmir and not the Maharaja as claimed in the book ‘Our summer in the vale of Kashmir’ (1915) by Frederick Ward Denys.
A drawing from 1860s by Austrian artist Moritz von Schwind (1804-1871). Found it in ‘Schwind des Meisters Werke’ (1906) by Otto Albert Weigmann. The drawing is based on the story of “The Magic Horse” that appears in The Arabian Nights/Thousand and one nights. The scene depicts a Prince of Persia rescuing a Princess of Bengal from a King of Kashmir.
The are a couple of variations of the story (as it reached west) but mostly goes something like this: An Indian arrives in Shiraz with a magical mechanical flying horse. The price of Shiraz takes it for a test ride without knowing the landing instruction. He somehow lands in Bengal and brings back a princess with her. The Indian steals the princess and flies away to Kashmir. The king of Kashmir rescues the princess from the Indian by killing him but wants to marry the princess much against her wish. Princess loves prince of Shiraz. Meanwhile, the prince of Shiraz arrives in Kashmir with a plan to take back the princess. His plan works and he flies away on magic horse with the princess.
What is interesting about Schwind’s this particular painting is that in an earlier version of it the reaction of King of Kashmir was muted, he was an amazed spectator. But in the later painting, the one we see here, the Kings and his courtiers are gesticulating in helpless anger. Schwind took the text, in which no mention is made of reaction of King of Kashmir and added a layer of emotion over it.
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‘Aakho Sherer-e-Sheerazo‘ (You have come from city of Shiraz) remains a popular Kashmiri song at weddings. It’s about women singing about an ideal bridegroom who arrives from Shiraz. Probably not related to the tale but an interesting fact.
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Hemjuneh, Princess of Kashmir, be-spelled and held prisoner behind a trap door.
From ‘Tales of the Persian Genii’ (1917) by Francis Jenkins Olcott. Illustration by Hungarian illustrator Willy Pogany(1882 – 1955).
The story is told by Mahoud, a jeweller of Delhi, who tries to free her from a merchant of Fez who serves an an evil Enchantress, but is turned into a red toad. Her story is something like this:
A King of Kashmir wants to marry her daughter to the prince of Georgia but the girl does not want to get married at all. Then one day an enchantress in the form of an old woman hands her a handkerchief having a sketch of a handsome man. Enchanted, the princess resolves to marry that man. She seeks that old woman’s help and is flown away to Fez only to realized that the Enchantress has brought her there on request of a local merchant who had heard her beauty. She is now stuck in a foreign land with a bunch of evil types. Luckily for her a good genie, a servant of Soloman, arrives who tries to help her. This genie first admonishes the princess for leaving home of her parents on her own will driven by words of some stranger. He then puts a spell on her to protect her. The spell works in a strange way. If the merchant of Fez looks at the princess, she shall fall asleep till the next full moon. She shall sleep behind a trapdoor that the merchant can only find on the night of full moon and can only be opened by a friend of his. It is in this scenario that the jeweller of Delhi opened the trapdoor for the merchant of Fez but then tried to help the princess.
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Kids chanting “Samamber has a lover in Iran” in front of would-be husband of Samamber, daughter of Qazi of Kashmir. Haider Beg of Persia, a silent admirer of Samamber pays them to do it.
Illustration by Hilda Roberts for “Persian tales written down for the first time in the original Kermani and Bakhtiari, and tr. by D. L. R. Lorimer and E. O. Lorimer. (1919). The story is a Bakhtiari tale presented in the book. In this a story a woman from Kashmir goes to a place in Persia to collect herbs once every year. A man sees her and falls in love with her. The woman does’t like it, challenges him, almost kills the guy and goes back to Kashmir where her father arranges her marriage. The man from Persia arrives in Kashmir and tries to win her even as she is about to be married. After some twists, the woman falls for the Persian man and goes away with him, gets married. Later still in the story, the man asks his wife to leave him and marry his best friend as his best friend has fallen in love with her (a scenario on Hindi cinema was to make countless flicks). She agrees. But at last moment truth is revealed, she is re-married to her original husband and everything turns out fine.
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Princess Farruchnas daughter of Togrul bey, who ruled over Kashmir. Doesn;t want to get married but later falls for Persian prince Farruchshad. From ‘Gulistan: Tales of Ancient Persia’ (1977) by Gotlinde Thylmann Von Keyserlingk, Karl Thylmann. The story is identified by Richard Burton as “Farrukh-Shad, Farrukh-Ruz, and Farrukh-Naz”.
Map of Srinagar. Names of some of the place are hard to identify with present Srinagar. Suggestion and corrections are welcome.[Update: some input from Yaseen Tuman on Facebook page of the blog:
road from Saidakadal bridge to Ashaibagh is no where
Amdakadal is exactly where Sadrebal is today
Sodarbal has to be corrected with Naushahar
]
Map of Jammu
Some other
Zoji La Pass [Based on a photograph by Samuel Bourne, 1864]
The above ones are from ‘The Durbar’ (1903) by Mortimer Menpes and Dorothy Menpes based on Delhi Durbar of 1903. The below ones are from an earlier publication ‘World pictures; being a record in colour’ (1902).
From ‘Wall-Street to Cashmere : a journal of five years in Asia, Africa, and Europe : comprising visits, during 1851, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, to the Danemora iron mines, the “Seven Churches,” plains of Troy, Palmyra, Jerusalem, Petra, Seringapatam, Surat, with the scenes of the recent mutinies (Berares, Agra, Cawnpore, Lucknow, Delhi, etc., etc.), Cashmere, Peshawur, the Khyber pass to Afghanistan, Java, China, and Mauritius’ (1859) by John B. Ireland.
Char Chinar
Jhelum or Hydaspes
First View of Cashmere
Shah Hamadan
Ruins of the Temple of ‘Koran Padan’.
That would be Martand
Shalimar Garden
Suspension Bridge at Uri
“The Cashmere valley differs in one respect from every part of India. In India they always live in villages ot towns, while here,on every side peering from among the trees, on the mountain side, or boldly conspicuous on some naked rock, are the huts or hovels of the present ryot occupants and the ruins of former ones. Occasionally a large house will indicate the residence of a jemindar (owner of the land). the country is badly cultivated, and almost depopulated by the tyranny that has existed for some years past.
[…]
on the birth of every lamb, the owner must pay a tax of one anna…the birth of a calf is four annas. For a marriage one rupee. A fishing boat four annas a day. Walnut trees ten annas a year for the oil, and if the crop fails, must be made up with ghee.”
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Paintings from ‘An eastern voyage: A journal of the travels of Count Fritz Hochberg through the British empire in the East and Japan (1910) by Hochberg, Friedrich Maximilian, Graf von, (1868-1921) ,Volume: 1 and 2. Year 1908.
From ‘Indian pictures, drawn with pen and pencil’ (1881) by William Urwick (1826-1905)
Floating Gardens. Dal Lake, Srinagar.
A description of how these floating gardens were created, from G.T. Vigne’s ‘Travels in Kashmir, Ladak, Iskardo, the countries adjoining the mountain-course of the Indus, and the Himalaya, north of the Panjab’ (1842):
“We now enter the division of the lake called Kutawal; it is chiefly around this that the far-famed floating gardens of Kashmir are anchored, or rather pinned to the ground by means of a stake. These, however, are very un-Lallah-Rookhish in their appearance, not being distinguishable from beds of reeds and rushes. Their construction is extremely simple, and they are made long and narrow, that they may be the more easily taken in tow. A floating garden ten yards long’ by two or three in width, maybe purchased for a rupee.
Mr. Moorcroft has well described the manner in which these gardens are made. The weeds at the bottom, cut by means of a scythe, rise and float on the surface; these are matted together, secured, and strewed with soil and manure; a protecting fence of rushes is allowed to spring up around them; — and upon this platform a number of conical mounds or heaps of weeds are constructed, about two feet in height. On the tops of these is placed some soil from the bottom of the lake; the melon and cucumber plants are laid upon it; and no further care is necessary.”
Illustrations from ‘Church Missionary Intelligencer’ (1854), a book that among other things has an account of a bunch of Christian missionaries in Kashmir getting chased around by Muslim mobs and getting asked ‘trick’ questions by a Pandit.
Baramulla on the Jailum, Kashmir
The geography of this place has been messing with my mind. Previously, I believed that the hillock in the background was misplaced, a figment of western imagination that mixed up Srinagar and Baramulla. It turns out that the composition of illustration is in all probability correct. The doubt created my native imagination. This is Sumbul Bridge in Baramulla ( and the hillock is probably Aha Teng ?)
From ‘The diary of a civilian’s wife in India’ by Augusta E. King 1877-1882 (1884), Volume 2. Year of the visit is probably 1881 based on the chronology on dates given in the book.
