in bits and pieces
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| Came across it in rarest of Biscoe books, ’50 years against the Stream’, 1930. [Among other things can be seen the famous flood lights that were donated by Maharaja of Mysore in around 1918. A major milestone for electrification of Kashmir] -0- |
Hari Parbat is in Faridabad. Koh-e-Maran is in Balochistan and in Kashmir. Takht-e-Suleman is in Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Balochistan and now officially in Kashmir. And Adi Shankaracharya broke and re-built a temple in Srinagar of Gharwal, where they tell stories of a demon who died of head injury after getting hit by a divine rock.
To call everything by its true name and the trouble to be reminded that everything is a double.
Shankracharya and Takhht-e-Suleimani have both been used for a long time. But both names are essentially just names which people have given to it relatively recently. Name Shankracharya became a currency during Sikh/Dogra time. A name which Pandits, having recently regained ground, happily adopted. Thanks to work of Sir Stein, all kind of ancient places were getting reclaimed during this era. Takhht-e-Suleimani became a currency during Mughal/Afghan time. During Dogra time a inscription declaring the temple as ‘Takhht-e-Suleimani’ was destroyed by the soldiers. The inscription had come up during Mughal times probably when Noorjahan got the ancient stone stair case leading to the temple destroyed and had the stone used for her Pathar Masjid (which in turn provided stones for building Sher-Grahi palace by Afghans). By the time British arrived, re-naming war was already on, for the hill, both name were in currency. Based on which religious group you asked, a convenient name was provided. That’s how the dual name system gained currency. What about the one true name? The temple it is believed was originally known as Jyeshteswara and was first built by Jaloka, son of Asoka around 220 B.C. One of the old name of the hill was Sandhimana-paravata named after Sandhimana, minister of Jayendra (ruling from A.D. 341 to 360). In between, it is believed, Gopaditya (A.D. 238 to 253) repaired the old temple on the hill…giving the name ‘Gopadri’ to hill. Then there is a theory ( by James Ferguson countering the previous theory of A. Cunningham) that the temple we see now was commenced by a nameless Hindu during Jahangir’s time but remained incomplete when Aurangzeb arrived on the scene. This unfinished state gave it the ancient and misleading look. This assumption came from some Persian inscription on its staircase. But then there were other writing on the staircase too which read, other claims likes “the idol was made by Haji Hushti, a Sahukar, in the year 54 of the Samvat era”, while at the foot of the same pillar there was another scribble stating that “he who raised this temple was Khwaja Rukn, son of Mir Jan in the year___.”
Then there is theory that the spot was actually Buddhists and is still revered by them and called as ‘Pas-Pahar’. So it goes on…
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| From ‘Indian pages and pictures: Rajputana, Sikkim, the Punjab, and Kashmir’ (1912) by Michael Myers Shoemaker (1853-1924) |
If you have been atop the hill, if you have seen the temple, and if you have wondered about those names scribbled on its periphery wall, if you have wondered about ‘-Akbar-Ramesh-Suresh-‘ craved on its walls, read this passage by Augusta E. King from ‘The diary of a civilian’s wife in India, 1877-1882 (1884), Volume 2’ describing her visit to the temple:
“I had thought that the practice of writing one’s name on walls was confined to English and Americans, or the European nations. But here in this Hindu temple were thousands of Hindu autographs, and it is evidently the proper thing for any pious Hindu, who can write his name, to do so on these walls.”
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Here’s another chapter On scribbled walls of Shankracharya:
“Some people commit an unpardonable offence by scratching in with knives their names or other idle scrawls in with knives their names or other idle scrawls on the walls of ancient buildings, and visitors are misled by them. Even an antiquarian like Dr.Fergusson was misled by one of such scratchings on the staircase of this temple,”A.H. 1069”, and he, therefore, concluded that the temple was commenced “by a nameless Hindu in honor of Shiva during the tolerant reign of Jahangir”! There were also scratchings of the same nature inside the temple upon the pillar to its south-west, stating that “the idol was made by Haji Hushti, a Sahukar, in the year 54 of the Samvat era”, while at the foot of the same pillar there was another scratching stating that “he who raised this temple was Khwaja Rukn, son of Mir Jan in the year___.” Islam was unknown in that remote period when this temple was built, so there could not have been a Khwaya or a Mire then. Nor would have a Muhammadan built a temple as his own nor would he have used Sambat era for its erection.”
~ Pandit Anand Koul from his book ‘Archaeological Remains In Kashmir’ (1935)
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Example of Fergusson’s finding getting quoted by a western traveler:
~Rough notes of journeys made in … 1868,’69,’70,’71, ’72 &’73 in Syria, down the Tigris, India, Kashmir, Ceylon, Japan [&c.].
