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river Jailam comes,' that is, of the gorge through which the river flows immediately below Bārāmūla. This estimate agrees closely with the actual road distance between Muzaffarābād and Bārāmūla which is given by Drew as 84 miles. At the other or Kasmir end of the ravine Albērūni places quite correctly the watch-station Dvār' (Skr. Dvāra) the position of which, as we shall see below, is marked to this day by the site of the old gate known as Drang.

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"Thence leaving the ravine you enter the plain, and reach in two

Albērūnī's description of the Valley.

more days Addishṭān, the capital of Kashmir, passing on the road the village Üshkārā." All this is perfectly accurate. Adhiṣṭhāna 'the capital' is, of course, meant for Srinagara and Ushkärä for Uşkür, opposite Bārāmūla, the ancient Huşkapura already mentioned by Hiuen Tsiang.3 Albērūni's mention of Uşkür which is on the left river bank, shows that then as now the ordinary road from the Gate of Varāhamula' to Srinagara passed on the left or southern side of the Valley. Two marches are still counted for this part of the journey.

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The capital is correctly described as "being built along both banks. of the river Jailam which are connected with each other by bridges and ferry boats." It is said to cover a space of four farsakh.' This if interpreted to mean 'a space of four Farsakh in circumference,' would not be too far from the truth, assuming that all suburban areas around the city are included in the estimate. The course of the river above and below the capital is traced rightly enough as far as the Valley is concerned. "When the Jailam has left the mountains and has flowed two days' journey, it passes through Addishtan. Four Farsakh farther on it enters a swamp of one square Farsakh." Here, of course, the Volur lake (Mahāpadma) is meant. "The people have their plantations on the borders of this swamp, and on such parts of it as they manage to

1 See loc. cit. According to Drew's table six marches are counted, but one of them is very short. On the modern route following the opposite side of the river five marches are now reckoned from Domel, opposite to Muzaffarābād, to Bārāmūla.

• Adhiṣṭhāna, used again ii. p. 181, is a term which indicates that Albērūnī's informant was a Sanskrit-speaking person. The common designation of the capital was Srinagara or simply Nagara; see § 91 below.

8 The text as rendered by Prof. Sachau, speaks of "Ushkārā which lies on both sides of the Valley, in the same manner as Barāmūlā." There is either some corruption in the text here or Albērūnī's informant had not made himself sufficiently clear. What he must have meant, is that Ushkārā lay on the opposite side of the river in the same manner as Barāmūlā, that is at the entrance of the ravine. Barāmūlā as the text spells the name, reproduces an earlier form of the Kasmiri Varahmul, from Skr. Varāhamūla.

J. 1. 4

reclaim. Leaving this swamp, the Jailam passes the town of Ūshkārā, and then enters the above-mentioned ravine."

The only mistake and this one easily explained is contained in the account of the river's origin. It is described as rising "in the mountains Haramakōt where also the Ganges rises; cold, impenetrable regions where the snow never melts nor disappears." It is easy to recognize here the reference to Mount Haramukuța and the sacred Ganga-lake at the foot of its glacier in which Kaśmirian tradition places the source of the Sindhu river. The latter is the greatest tributary of the Vitastā within Kasmir and is traditionally identified with the Gangā, as on the other hand the Vitasta with the Yamuna. The special sanctity of the Sindu ('Uttaraganga') and the popularity of its supposed source as a pilgrimage place sufficiently account for the substitution in Albē

rūni's notice.

Entering the open plain of the Kasmir Valley by the Baramula gorge "you have for a march of two more days, on your left the mountains of Bolor and Shamilan, Turkish tribes who are called Bhattavaryān. Their king has the title of Bhatta-Shah." It is clear that Albērūni's informant here means the mountain ranges to the north and north-west of the Valley which form its borders towards the Dard country and Baltistan. The latter has been known by the name of Bolor for many centuries. I am unable to trace in Kaśmirian or other sources the names of the Shamilan' and 'Bhatta.' But as a subsequent remark mentions Gilgit, Aswira, and Shitas,' that is the modern Gilgit, Hasōr (Astōr) and Cilās as their chief places, there can be no doubt that the inhabitants of the Dard territory to the north-west of Kasmir are meant together with the Baltis.

·

"Marching on the right side [of the river], you pass through

Description of Pir
Pantsāl.

villages, one close to the other, south of the capital and thence you reach the mountain Kularjak, which is like a cupola, similar to the

1 See below, § 57, and Rajat. note i. 57.

• See Rajat. note i. 57. In Haracar. iv. 54 the Vitasta itself is designated as the 'Ganga of the north' (Uttaraganga). This renders the location of its source in the lake of Haramukuta still more intelligible from a traditional point of view. 3 Compare YULE, Marco Polo, i. pp. 187, sq.; CUNNINGHAM, Anc. Geogr., p. 83. ♦ Albērūni's Bhatta may possibly represent the term Bhuṭṭa or Bhauṭṭa (the modern Kś. Buțe) which is applied in the Sanskrit Chronicles to the population of Tibetan descent generally, from Ladakh to Baltistan. (See Rajat. note i. 312). Albērūni calls their language Turkish, but it must be remembered that he has spoken previously (i. p. 206) of 'the Turks of Tibet' as holding the country to the east of Kasmir. There the Tibetans in Ladakh and adjacent districts are clearly intended.

mountain Dunbāwand (Damāwand). The snow there never melts. It is always visible from the region of Tākēshar and Lauhāwar (Lahore)."

I have already elsewhere shown that the mountain here described is the Tatakuti peak (33° 45' lat. 74° 33' long.). It rises to a height of 15,500 feet in the central part of the Pir Pantsāl range and is the loftiest as well as the most conspicuous point of the mountain chain to the south of Kaśmir. It has the shape described by Albērūnī, is surrounded by extensive snow-fields and can be seen through the greatest part of the year from the Panjab districts of Sialkōt and Gujranwala corresponding to the old Tākēshar (Takkadeśa). Albērūni puts the distance between this peak and the Kaśmir plain at two farsakh. This estimate is somewhat too low, inasmuch as the direct distance on the map between the peak and the nearest point of the open Valley is about 15 miles.

He is, however, quite exact in placing the fortress Lauhur to the west of it as we have already seen that this stronghold is identical with the Loharakoṭṭa of the Chronicle, the present Loh rin. The entrance to the Loh rin Valley lies almost due west of Taţakūti. To the south of the peak he places 'the fortress Rajagiri' which is also mentioned by Kalhaṇa, vii. 1270, and must be looked for somewhere in the Upper Suran Valley. Albērūni speaks of these two hill fortresses as "the strongest places" he had ever seen.

The result of this
Canon Masudicus,

He had personally had an opportunity of judging of their strength when accompanying Maḥmūd's expedition against Kaśmir. On that occasion he had made the observation of the latitude of Lauhūr (Lohara) to which he refers in another chapter of his work. observation, 33° 40′ lat. as shown in the author's very closely approaches the real one, which is 33° 48′ according to the Survey map. It is very probable that he obtained at the same occasion the very accurate information regarding the distance from Lauhūr to the Kasmir capital. He gives it as 56 miles, "half the way being rugged country, the other half plain." Albērūni's measurement according to the previously stated valuation represents about 69 English miles. This is but little in excess of the actual road distance viâ the Tōs maidan pass as estimated by me on the tour referred to in the above-quoted paper. The description of the road, too, corresponds closely to the actual character of the route.

Albērūni closes his account of Kaśmir geography with a reference to the town of Rājawarī which is the Rajapuri of the Chronicles, the

1 See my paper The Castle of Lohara,' Ind. Ant., 1897, § 12.

2 See India, i. p. 317, with Prof. Sachau's note ii. p. 341. In the same passage he quotes the latitude of Srinagar as 34° 9′ from the Karaṇasāra.

modern Rajauri. In Hindu times it was the capital of a small hill-state situated immediately to the south of the Pir Pantsal range and often tributary to Kaśmir. Albērūni distinctly names it as the farthest place to which Muhammadan merchants of his time traded and beyond which they never passed. We have already seen what the connection was which enabled him to collect reliable and detailed information of the region beyond that barrier. As another proof of the accurate knowledge thus acquired, we may finally mention his description of the Kasmir climate which is far more exact than any account available to us previous to the second quarter of this century.

Deficiency of non

Kaśmīrian texts.

SECTION IV.-INDIAN NOTICES.

15. Nothing, perhaps, can illustrate better the lamentable lack of exact geographical information in general Sanskrit literature than to turn from the accounts of the Chinese pilgrims and Albērūni to what Indian authors, not Kaśmirians themselves, can tell us of the Valley.

Were we to judge merely from the extreme scantiness of the data to be gleaned from their extant works, we might easily be led to assume that Kasmir was to them a country foreign and remote in every way. However, we observe the same vagueness and insufficiency of local references in the case of territories immediately adjoining the old centres of literary activity. It is hence evident that the conspicuous absence of useful information on Kaśmir may equally well be attributed to the general character of that literature.

The name Kaśmīra, with its derivative Kāśmīra, as the designation of the country and its inhabitants, respectively, is found already in the Gaņas to Pāņini's grammar and in Patañjali's comments thereon. The Mahābhārata too refers in several passages to the Kaśmīras and their rulers, but in a fashion so general and vague that nothing more but the situation of the country in the hill region to the north can be concluded therefrom.3

The Puranas enumerate the Kasmiras accordingly in their lists of northern nations. But none of the tribal names, partly semi-mythical,

I See India, i. p. 211, and below, § 77.

2 See the references in the Thesaurus of BÖHTLINGK-ROTH, s. v. Kāśmira, and in supplement V., p. 1273. The references to other texts in this paragraph have also been taken from that work except where otherwise specified.

3 Compare in particular Mahābh. II. xxvii. 17.

which are mentioned along with them in the Purāņas examined by me, indicate any more distinct location of the country.1

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Varahamihira (circ. 500 A.D.) in his Bṛhatsamhita includes the Kāśmiras curiously enough in the north-eastern division. Among the regions and peoples named under the same heading there are a number of purely legendary character like the kingdom of the dead' (naṣṭarājya), the 'gold region,' 'the one-footed people,' etc. But besides these names and others of a different type which cannot be clearly identified, we recognize the names of tribes which undoubtedly must be located in the immediate neighbourhood of Kaśmir. Thus we have the Abhisāras, Daradas, Dārvas, Khaśas, Kīras, and somewhat more distant the country of Kulūta (Kulu) and the Kaunindas or Kaulindras (Ptolemy's Κυλινδρίνη).

Perhaps the most specific piece of information regarding Kaśmir that Sanskrit literature outside the Valley can convey to us, is contained in the term Kāśmira or Kāśmiraja which designates the saffron and according to the lexicographers also the root of the kustha or costus speciosus. Both the saffron and the Kustha have since early times been famous products of Kaśmir.3

SECTION V.-THE KAS'MIR CHRONICLES.

Abundance of Kaśmīrian sources.

16. The want of detailed and exact geographical information just noticed in old Indian literature generally stands in striking contrast to the abundance of data supplied for our knowledge of old Kasmir by the indigenous sources. The explanation is surely not to be found in the mere fact that Kaśmirian authors naturally knew more of their own country than others for whom that alpine territory was a distant, more or less inaccessible region. For were it so, we might reasonably expect to find ourselves equally well informed about the early topography of other

1 Compare Vayupur. xlv. 120 ; xlii. 45; Padmapur. I. vi. 48, 62; Bhāgavatapur. XII. i. 39; Viṣṇupur. IV. xxiv. 18.

2 See Bṛhatsaṁhitā, xiv. 29 sqq., and Ind. Ant., 1893, pp. 172, 181; also ALBĒRŪNĪ, India, i. p. 303.

8 Regarding the saffron cultivation of Kaśmir, compare LAWRENCE, Valley, p. 342, and below, § 78.

The kustha, now known in Kasmir by the name of kuth, is the aromatic root of the Saussurea Lappa which grows in abundance on the mountains of Kaśmir; see LAWRENCE, p. 77. The kuth is still largely exported to China and might be hence one of the medicinal plants which Hiuen Tsiang particularly notices among Kasmir products; see Si-yu-ki, i, p. 148.

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