Mixed Housing societies have always been good theme for ‘Indian Stories’. We find them in writings of Salman Rushdie and in cinema of Sai Paranjape. The stories often suffer from usual racial stereotype syndrome: Gujrati goes ‘Kemcho’, Tamil goes ‘Aiyyo’, old Parsi goes ‘Dikra’, Marathi doesn’t go ‘Bokmay’, Punjabi doesn’t go ‘Pencho’, Sardarji goes ‘Peg lagao’ and now Kashmiri goes…’Kashmir ye…Kashmir wo’…which of course is boring.
Kanakavatsa, the Bihari Monk in Kashmir
14th century Thangka painting via: British Museum |
Kanakavatsa, the legendary figure from Buddhism, one among the sixteen Arahat of Indian origin from Buddha’s time, is believed to have been born in Bihar and lived with his 500 Arahats on the “Saffon Hill” in Kashmir under the patronage of the local King. In the the iconography of Kanakavatsa, a barbarian King is often shown kneeling before him worshipping. In the above image, an “an Indian adorant offers coral” while the ethnicity of Kanakavatsa by his color.
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Ghalib’s letters to his Kashmiri friends
and in 1849 the first students at Mission School Lahore were of course…
“The Punjab was annexed April 2nd, 1849. The boy King, Rajah Dhulip Singh, was deposed and given an annual al- lowance of 50,000 pounds. He retired as a gentleman to Norfolk, England.
During these months of turmoil and anxiety, the missionary work continued as usual. Soon after the annexation of the Punjab, a letter was received by the missionaries at Lodiana, sent by Dr. Baddely, a Christian surgeon at Lahore, urging them to move on to the capital without delay, assuring them that every encouragement might be expected from the Lawrences and Mr. Montgomery and others. Accordingly the Rev. John Newton and the Rev. Charles W. Forman were appointed by the mission to take up the work of establishing the mission in Lahore. Accompanied by Mrs. Newton, they arrived in Lahore on the 21st of November, 1849.
As the Christian community had urged the establishment of the mission, an appeal was made for financial aid, with the approval of the Board of Administration and the Governor General. In response thereto, the sum of Rs. 4,238 were contributed. A suitable house was secured in the city as a temporary residence. In this house an English school was begun on the 19th of December. It began with three pupils, all being Hindu Kashmiris, two of them having been formerly students in the mission school at Lodiana. The number gradually increased until it became necessary to find more capacious quarters. Happily a soldiers’ chapel built by an English gentleman at his own expense had been placed at the disposal of the mission, and being well adapted to the uses of a school the classes were transferred to it. The number of pupils rapidly increased until, at the end of the year, the attendance amounted to eighty. Of these fifty-five were Hindus and twenty-two Muslims, and three Sikhs. Racially the eighty ranked as Punjabis thirty-eight, Kashmiris three, Bengalis seven, Hindustanis twenty-eight, Afghans three and one Baluch.”
~ ‘Our Missions In India: 1834-1824’ (1926) by E. M. Wherry.
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A rug factory that was in Amritsar
William Sloane arrived in America as an emigrant from a Scottish town famous for weaving carpets and rugs. In 1843, William Sloane along with his younger brother John W. Sloane went on to form a company called W.& J. Sloane, importing rugs and carpets into America and changing the way the rich and famous decorated their homes in that country.
Young hands at Shaikh Gulam Hussun’s factory, Amritsar. 1915. Photograph: ‘The Bombay Presidency, the United Provinces, the Punabb, Kashmir, Sind, Rajputana and Central India: Their History, People, Commerce and Natural Resources’ (1920) by Somerset Playne -0- |
First Kashmiri Bible and the translation affairs, 1821
The first meeting of Kashmiri language and English language happened through a translation of Bible, in Bengal. In 1821, missionary William Carey of Serampore, who spent a most of his life producing translations of Bible into various Indian languages, brought out the Kashmeere Holy Bible. Carey is known to have used native experts for most of his translations, but the names of his Kashmiri helpers isn’t known. What is known is that the script used for this book was Sharda.
A snippet of Kashmiri Bible in Sharda Script [An Introduction to the Critical Study of the Holy Scriptures, Volume 2. By Thomas Hartwell Horn. 1836] Update [Transcription of the lines by Mrinal Kaul: “yima lookh anigati andar bihith a’yes timav…………dochas (?) hiy kaayaayi andar behan vaalyen emad sapa (?).“ Which I believe would probably mean Matthew 4:16: The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up.] |
H.S. Godwin Austin (1866) [collected]
[Also to his credit goes: The Book of Common Prayer, and Administration, &c …. (in the Cashmírí language). Published by the Punjab Christian Knowledge Society. First edition. Amritsar; Printed at the Safir-i-Hind Press, . . . 1884.]
A Dictionary of Kashmiri Language (1916-1932, 4 parts) by G.A. Grierson based on material by Ishwara Kaul. [Online Word Search Engine, Part 1]
A Strange Case of Beauty, 1907
At the beginning of 20th century, it seems, there were so many Kashmiris living in Punjab that if a random photographer went out to shoot a random Punjabi woman there was a good chance he would come back with a random shot of Kashmiri woman.
The following postcard dated 1907 (Bombay) and captioned ‘A model of Panjab Beauty’ is probably the strangest curio in my collection.
But, it obviously needed some fixing…
Kashmir in Satyajit Ray’s Art
To get the feel of the era right for Satyajit Ray’s Shatranj Ke Khilari (1977), among other things, the art director used authentic antique Kashmiri shawls from private collection. The art director was Bansi Chandragupta. If Satyajit Ray is considered one of the greatest Indian film directors of all time, his regular art director Bansi Chandragupta can be considered one of the best and pioneering art directors in India.
Bansi Chandragupta was born in 1924 in Sailkot. When still a child his family moved to Srinagar where he did his basic education. In 1942, in midst of ‘Quit-India’ movement he moved to Bengal and was introduced to Satyajit Ray as a painter. Along with Ray he was one of the founders of Calcutta film society. In years to come, Bansi Chandragupta went on to be Ray’s ‘Kashmiri’ friend who helped him in creation of almost all his cinematic masterpieces.
Portrait of a Kashmiri Girl Bansi Chandragupta Early 20th century |
Fire on the Mountain, Anita Desai, 1977
An old woman living in a colonial house on a hill in Kasauli would let no one enter her little paradise – a hard won lonely life after a ages spent serving a husband, many children and many grand-children. She is a recluse. She wants no one. Not even her great-grand child. But then the child arrives. A sickly young girl who turns out to be just as much of recluse. The child doesn’t want anyone to enter she little paradise, a child’s world half lived in fantasies. A mind that seeks little adventures like looking for berries, snakes, jackals and ghosts in the peaceful loneliness offered by the hills. The old woman realizes while they are similar, there is a difference too, while her reclusiveness in self-imposed, the child was just born into it. The old woman starts changing, she now wants to enter the child’s world and share her own world with her. She tries, but fails. The child wants no one. The old woman falls back to the age old stratagem of ‘Nani Ki Kahani‘ to try and reach out. She weaves stories of her life by taking snippets of inspirations from travelogue of Marco Polo, in desperation she makes her own father a reflection of Marco Polo who travelled far into the mysterious lands of East. The child’s mind is stirred and old woman senses a relation blossoming. She tries harder. Nanda Kaul tells her great-grand daughter Raka about the paradise where she was born, she tells her grand exaggerated stories about Kashmir. Strange stories about a house with a private zoo and backdoors that opened into flooded rivers. The child listens. But…
Raka’s words did not reflect the poetry of this vision. They were blunt and straight. ‘Why did you come here then,’ she asked, ‘instead of going back to Kashmir?’
Nanda Kaul simply shook her head and seem to wander in a field of grey thoughts, alone. ‘One does not go back,’ she said eventually. ‘No, one doesn’t go back. One might just as well try to become young again.’
The child soon catches on to the tricks and again retreats back into her world while Nanda Kaul’s world suffers another intrusion. Ila Das, a childhood friend whose shrill voice even sends birds into frenzy, arrives at the house, this paradise of recluses. She is a recluse of another kind, she has no choice, she has no one. And the friend she has doesn’t find it in her to offer her company, even though in moment of lapse Nanda Kaul does almost end up inviting Ila Das to stay with her. The moment passes. Ila Das leaves the house. It is with her leaving that the world of this little reclusive paradise, its neatness, its sweet lies and deceptions, its inhabitants, and the fableistic preambles of the story itself, get violently swallowed by the real world. Like by fire, like by life. And the mountains go up in flames.
The book won Anita Desai Sahitya Akademi Award and Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize in 1978. This was the first time Anita Desai visited Kashmir. Just a year ago, she had written a book called ‘Cat on a Houseboat’ (1976) for children. That one was about a cat (again a reclusive animal) that goes to Kashmir for a holiday.
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Shakyashri – the Great Kashmiri Pandit of Tibetans
An undertaking accomplished without analysis,
But who would regard it as wise?
After worms have eaten,
Although a letter may appear, they are not skilled writers.
~ Sakya Pandita, student of Shakyashri
http://nicbommarito.com/translation/sakyalegshe/sakyalegshe.pdf
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…
“Jagadhala, name of a place in Orissa where Sakya Sri Bhadra of Kasmir had taken refuge, after his flight from Odantapuri vihara when that place was sacked bv Bakhtyar Khilji in 1202 A.D.35”
The Indian Historical Quarterly – Volumes 30-31 – Page 144, 1954
books.google.co.in/books?id=A98BAAAAMAAJ
According to Taranatha, at Odantapuri the vihar was turned into a Tajik fort and pandits fled to other countries.9 Sakyasri went to Jagar- dala (Jagaddala) of Odivisa, i.e. in Orissa, and from there, three years after, to Tibet. Ratnaraksita went to …
Studies in Asian history: proceedings – Page 46
books.google.co.in/books?id=2lrRAAAAMAAJ
Indian Council for Cultural Relations 1969
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taranatha
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikrama%C5%9B%C4%ABla_University
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakhtiyar_Khilji
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Shakyashri Bhadra (11271225), whose immense learning was incomparable even in
India, who was head of the famed dharma universities of Vikramashila and Nalanda, and who was continually blessed with visions of the mother of the buddhas, Arya Tara, was
the last of the great Indian panditas to visit Tibet. He is somehow less wellknown to Westerners than his two predecessors, perhaps because, unlike them, he did not compose
a major text of his own; yet his impact was immense. In Tibet, the name Shakyashri Bhadra, or Khache Panchen (‘the Mahapandita of Kashmir’), was known in the gompas of every tradition across the entire Himalayan plateau.
At Nyang, northeast of Sakya in Tsang, he was visited by the 23 yearold Khon lama and
future ‘Sakya Pandita’, Kunga Gyaltsen, whose knowledge of Sanskrit greatly impressed
the mahapandita. The descendants of Sachen had already inherited a vast ocean of
dharma, unrivalled by other institutions, of which the foremost were the tantric teachings
of the great lotsawas Bari, Drokmi and Mal.Through his studies with the mahapandita
and the junior panditas, the young Khon’s learning was increased yet more with works of
sutra, tantra and, importantly, classical secular subjects which were previously unknown3
in Tibet, brought from the now destroyed universities of India. Sapan returned to Sakya
to continue his studies with Sugatasri, one of the learned assistant panditas.
In 1214, after ten years in Tibet, he set out on the road back through Gungtang and Ngari
in the west of Tibet. Before departing Tibet, he donated his considerable remaining gold
to the astounded Trophu Lotsawa who had accompanied him that far. After a long but unmolested journey across the Himalayas by the now very aged mahapandita, he arrived back in the luscious valley of his Kashmiri homeland, not seen since his youth. There, he
restored many viharas and greatly increased the teachings, as the sun of dharma was
setting on the country of the Aryas. Shakyashri Bhadra passed into nirvana in 1225. His
life was one of remarkable accomplishments, and great historical significance. For the
fortunate followers of Shri Sakya, the blessings of Shakyshri Bhadra endure in the precious jenangs and sadhanas held by contemporary Sakya masters.
http://www.dechen.org/resources/pdfs/shakyashri.pdf
http://www.treasuryoflives.org/biographies/view/sakyasribhadra/2810
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Kha che pan chen (‘The Great Kashmiri Pandit“; Kha che, which literally means ‘big mouth‘, being the appellation by which the Tibetans refer to Kashmiris and Moslems). Kha che pan chen spent the years between 1204 and 1214 preaching
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The Royal Chapel (Chogyel Lakhang) depicts clay images of the ancient kings. Images of Atisha, Kamalashila, Padmasambhava, Shantarakshita, Manjushri, eleven-faced Avalokiteshwara,Vajrapani and Shakyashri of Kashmir are also seen in this chapel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palcho_Monastery
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A Treasury of Aphoristic Jewels: The Subhāṣitaratnanidhi of Sa Skya Paṇḍita in Tibetan and Mongolian
Sa-skya Paṇḍi-ta Kun-dgaʼ-rgyal-mtshan, James E. Bosson, 1969
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