Kashmir, described by Sir Francis Younghusband, painted by Major E. Molyneux

by Sir Francis Edward Younghusband

CHAPTER IX

THE HISTORY OF KASHMIR

A country of such striking natural beauty must, surely, at some period of its history have produced a refined and noble people? Amid these glorious mountains, breathing their free and bracing air, and brightened by the constant sunshine, there must have sprung a strong virile and yet æsthetic race? The beautiful Greece, with its purple hills and varied contour, its dancing seas and clear blue sky, produced the graceful Greeks. But Kashmir is more beautiful than Greece. It has the same blue sky and brilliant sunshine, but its purple hills are on a far grander scale, and if it has no sea, it has lake and river, and the still more impressive snowy mountains. It has, too, greater variety of natural scenery, of field and forest, of rugged mountain and open valley. And to me who have seen both countries, Kashmir seems much the more likely to impress a race by its natural beauty. Has it ever made any such impression?

The shawls for which the country is noted are some indication that its inhabitants have a sense of form and colour, and some delicacy and refinement. But a great people would have produced something more impressive than shawls. Are there no remains of buildings, roads, aqueducts, canals, statues, or any other such mark by which a people leaves its impress on a country? And is there any literature or history?

RUINS OF TEMPLES, WANGAT, SIND VALLEY

All over the Kashmir valley there are remains of temples remarkable for their almost Egyptian solidity, simplicity, and durability, as well as for what Cunningham describes as the graceful elegance of their outlines, the massive boldness of their parts, and the happy propriety of their outlines. The ancient Kashmirian architecture, with its noble fluted pillars, its vast colonnades, its lofty pediments, and its elegant trefoiled arches, is, he thinks, entitled to be classed as a distinct style; and we may take it as implying the existence of just such a people as this mountain country might be expected to produce. Three miles beyond Uri, on the road into Kashmir, are the ruins of a temple of extremely pleasing execution. Near Buniar, just beyond Rampur, is another right on the road. At Patan, 13 miles before reaching Srinagar, are two more ruined temples of massive construction. Two and a half miles southward of Shadipur, the present junction of the Sind River with the Jhelum, are the remains of a town, the extent and nature of which show conclusively that it must once have been a large and important centre. On the summit of the hill, rising above the European quarter in Srinagar, is a dome-shaped temple erroneously known as the Takht-i-Suliman. At Pandrathan, three miles from Srinagar, is a graceful little temple and the remains of a statue of Buddha, and of a column of immense strength and size. At Pampur and Avantipur, on the road to Islamabad at Payech, on the southern side of the valley, where there is the best preserved specimen temple, and at many other places in the main valley, and in the Sind and Lidar valleys, there are remains of temples of much the same style. But it is at Martand that there is the finest, and as it is not only typical of Kashmir architecture at its best, but is built on the most sublime site occupied by any building in the world,—finer far than the site of the Parthenon, or of the Taj, or of St. Peters, or of the Escurial,—we may take it as the representative, or rather the culmination of all the rest, and by it we must judge the people of Kashmir at their best.

On a perfectly open and even plain, gently sloping away from a background of snowy mountains, looking directly out on the entire length both of the smiling Kashmir valley and of the snowy ranges which bound it—so situated, in fact, as to be encircled by, yet not overwhelmed by, snowy mountains—stand the ruins of a temple second only to the Egyptians in massiveness and strength, and to the Greek in elegance and grace. It is built of immense rectilinear blocks of limestone, betokening strength and durability. Its outline and its detail are bold, simple, and impressive. And any over-weighing sense of massiveness is relieved by the elegance of the surrounding colonnade of graceful Greek-like pillars. It is but a ruin now, but yet, with the other ruins so numerous in the valley, and so similar in their main characteristics, it denotes the former presence in Kashmir of a people worthy of study. No one without an eye for natural beauty would have chosen that special site for the construction of a temple, and no one with an inclination to the ephemeral and transient would have built it on so massive and enduring a scale. We cannot, for instance, imagine present-day Kashmiris building anything so noble, so simple, so true, and so enduring. The people that built the ancient temples of Kashmir must have been religious, for the remains are all of temples or of sacred emblems, and not of palaces, commercial offices, or hotels; they must have held, at least, one large idea to have built on so enduring a scale, and they must have been men of strong and simple tastes, averse to the paltry and the florid. What was their history? Were they a purely indigenous race? Were they foreigners and conquerors settled in the land, or were they a native race, much influenced from outside, and with sufficient pliability to assimilate that influence and turn it to profitable use for their own ends?

RUINED GATEWAY OF MARTAND

Fortunately one of their native historians has left us a record, and Dr. Stein's skill and industry in translating and annotating this record makes it possible to obtain a fairly clear idea of ancient Kashmir. From this and from the style of the ruins themselves, we gather that the main impulses came from outside rather than from within, from India and from Greece. And perhaps, if in place of their mountains, which tend to seclusion and cut a people off from the full effects of that important factor in the development of a race, easy intercourse and strenuous rivalry with other peoples, the Kashmirians had, like the Greeks, been in contact with the sea, with ready access to other peoples and other civilisations, they might have made a greater mark in the world's history. But they had this advantage, that the beauty of their country must always, as now, in itself have been an attraction to outsiders, and so from the very commencement of its authentic history we find strong outside influences at work in the country.

Thus among the first authentic facts we can safely lay hold of from among the misty and elusive statements of exuberant Oriental historians, is the fact that Asoka's sovereign power extended to Kashmir-Asoka, the contemporary of Hannibal, and the enthusiastic Buddhist ruler of India, whose kingdom extended from Bengal to the Deccan, to Afghanistan and to the Punjab, and the results of whose influence may be seen to this day in Kashmir, in the remains of Buddhist temples and statues, and in the ruins of cities founded by him 250 years before Christ, 200 years before the Romans landed in Britain, and 700 years before what is now known as England had yet been trodden by truly English feet.

RUINED TEMPLES OF AVANTIPUR

At this time Buddhism was the dominating religion in northern India, and perhaps received an additional impulse from the Greek kingdoms in the Punjab, planted by Alexander the Great as the result of his invasion in 327 b.c. Asoka had organised it on the basis of a state religion, he had spread the religion with immense enthusiasm, and in Kashmir he caused stupas and temples to be erected, and founded the original city of Srinagar, then situated on the site of the present village of Pandrathan, three miles above the existing capital. He had broken through the fetters of Brahminism and established a friendly intercourse with Greece and Egypt, and it is to this connection that the introduction of stone architecture and sculpture is due. The Punjab contains many examples of Græco-Buddhist art, and Kashmir history dawns at the time when Greek influence was most prominent in India.

The first great impulse which has left its mark on the ages came, then, not from within, but from without—not from within Kashmir, but from India, Greece, and Egypt. Little, indeed, now remains of that initial movement. The religion which was its mainspring has now not a single votary among the inhabitants of the valley. The city Asoka founded has long since disappeared. But the great record remains; and on a site beautiful even for Kashmir, where the river sweeps gracefully round to kiss the spur on which the city was built, and from whose sloping terraces the inhabitants could look out over the smiling fields, the purple hills, and snowy mountain summits of their lovely country, there still exist the remnants of the ancient glory as the last, but everlasting sign that once great men ruled the land.

The next great landmark in Kashmir history is the reign of the king Kanishka, the Indo-Scythian ruler of upper India. He reigned about 40 a.d., when the Romans were conquering Britain and Buddhism was just beginning to spread to China. He was of Turki descent, and was part of that wave of Scythian immigration which for two or three hundred years came pouring down from Central Asia. And he was renowned throughout the Buddhist world as the pious Buddhist king, who held in Kashmir the famous Third Great Council of the Church which drew up the Northern Canon or "Greater Vehicle of the Law." In his time, too, there lived at a site which is still traceable at Harwan, nestling under the higher mountains at the entrance of one of the attractive side-valleys of Kashmir, and overlooking the placid waters of the Dal Lake, a famous Bodhisattva, Nagarjuna, who from this peaceful retreat exercised a spiritual lordship over the land.

Buddhism was, in fact, at the zenith of its power in Kashmir. But a reaction against it was soon to follow, and from this time onward the orthodox Brahministic Hinduism, from which Buddhism was a revolt, reasserted itself, and Buddhism steadily waned. When the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Hiuen Tsiang visited Kashmir, about a.d. 631, he said, "This kingdom is not much given to the faith, and the temples of the heretics are their sole thought."

Passing now over a period of six centuries, the only authentically recorded event in which is the reign, a.d. 515, of Mihirakula, the "White Hun," a persecutor of the Buddhist faith, "a man of violent acts and resembling Death," whose approach the people knew "by noticing the vultures, crows, and other birds which were flying ahead eager to feed on those who were to be slain," and who succeeded to a kingdom which extended to Kabul and Central India, we come to the reign of the most famous king in Kashmir history, and the first really indigenous ruler of note—Lalitaditya. And of his reign we must take especial notice as Kashmir was then at its best.

Whether Lalitaditya was a pure Kashmiri it is impossible to discover. His grandfather, the founder of the dynasty to which he belonged, was a man of humble origin—whether Kashmiri or foreign the historian does not relate—who was connected by marriage with the preceding ruling family. His mother was the mistress of a merchant settled in Srinagar. The dynasty which his grandfather succeeded was foreign, and it is impossible, therefore, to say how much foreign blood Lalitaditya had in his veins; but his family had at any rate been settled in Kashmir for a couple of generations, and Kashmir was not in his time the mere appanage of a greater kingdom, but was a distinct and isolated kingdom in itself. From this time for many centuries onwards, till the time of Akbar, the tide of conquest and political influence was to turn, and instead of more advanced and masterful races from the direction of India spreading their influence over Kashmir, it was from Kashmir that conquerors were to go forth to extend their sway over neighbouring districts in the Punjab.

Lalitaditya's reign extended from about 699 to 736. He was therefore a contemporary of Charlemagne, and preceded our own King Alfred by more than a century. Mohamed was already dead a hundred years, but his religion had not yet spread to India. The Kashmiri historians speak of Lalitaditya's "conquering the world," and mix up much fable with fact. But what certainly is true is that he asserted his authority over the hilly tracts of the northern Punjab, that he attacked and reduced the King of Kanauj to submission, that he conquered the Tibetans, successfully invaded Badakhshan in Central Asia, and sent embassies to Peking.

Though, then, he was not the "universal 'monarch' that the historian described him, and did not move round the earth like the sun," or "putting his foot on the islands as if they were stepping-stones, move quickly and without difficulty over the ocean," he is yet the most conspicuous figure in Kashmir history, and raised his country to a pitch of glory it had never reached before or attained to since. It was he who erected the temple at Martand; and the ruins of the city Parihasapura, near the present Shadipur, are an even fuller testimony to his greatness. These, therefore, we must regard as the most reliable indication we have of the degree of culture and civilisation to which Kashmir attained in its most palmy day twelve hundred years ago.

Lalitaditya's rule was followed by a succession of short and weak reigns, but his grandson was almost as great a hero of popular legend as himself. He too, "full of ambition, collected an army and set out for the conquest of the world." He reached the Ganges and defeated the King of Kanauj, but had to return to Kashmir to subdue a usurper to his throne. He encouraged scholars and poets and founded cities. After him followed, first, "an indolent and profligate prince"; then a child in the hands of uncles, who as soon as he grew up destroyed him and put another child on the throne. He indeed maintained his position on the throne for 37 years, but only on account of the rivalries of the uncles, and as a mere puppet king, and was eventually deposed by the victorious faction to make place for yet another puppet king, who again was killed by a treacherous relative. So the record goes on till we come to the reign of Avantivarman, 855-883, and this appears to have brought a period of consolidation for the country, which must have greatly suffered economically as well as politically from the internal troubles during the preceding reigns. There is no indication of the reassertion of Kashmir sovereignty abroad, but there is ample proof of the internal recovery of the country, and the town of Avantipura, named after the king, has survived to the present day. It lies one march above Srinagar, and the ruins of the ancient buildings, though not equal in size to Lalitaditya's structures, yet rank, says Stein, among the most imposing monuments of ancient Kashmir architecture, and sufficiently attest the resources of the builder.

This reign was, too, remarkable for the execution of an engineering scheme to prevent floods and drain the valley, a precisely similar idea to that on which Major de Lotbinière is working under the direction of the present Maharaja. The Kashmiri engineer Suyya, after whom is named the present town of Sopur, saw more than a thousand years ago what modern engineers have also observed, that floods in the valley are due to the waters of the Jhelum not being able to get through the gorge three miles below Baramula with sufficient rapidity. The constricted passage gets blocked with boulders, and both Suyya and our present engineers saw that this obstruction must be removed. But while Major de Lotbinière imported electrically-worked dredgers from America and a dredging engineer from Canada, Suyya adopted a much simpler method: he threw money into the river where the obstruction lay. His contemporaries, as perhaps we also would have, looked upon him as a madman. But there was method in his madness, for the report had no sooner got about that there was money at the bottom of the river than men dashed in to find it, and rooted up all the obstructing boulders in their search. So at least says the legend. In any case the obstruction was removed by Suyya, and the result was the regulation of the course of the river, a large increase of land available for cultivation, and increased protection against disastrous floods. May the modern Suyya be equally successful!

The successor of Avantivarman, after defeating a cousin and other rivals to the throne, started on a round of foreign expedition, in the historian's words, "to revive the tradition of the conquest of the world." The practical result does not appear to have been much more than an invasion of Hazara, an attack on Kangra and the subjugation of what is now the town of Gujrat in the Punjab, since remarkable as the spot where we finally overthrew the power of the Sikhs. But the record is of interest, as showing that the conquering tendency was still from Kashmir outwards, and not from the Punjab into Kashmir.

But this was the last outward effort, and from this reign onward the record is one long succession of struggles between the rulers and usurping uncles, cousins, brothers, ministers, nobles, and soldiers. The immediate successor was a child whose regent mother was under the influence of her paramour the Minister. After two years he was murdered by the Minister. Another boy succeeded who only lived ten days. Then the regent mother herself ruled for a couple of years, but a military faction overruled her councils, and by open rebellion obtained the throne for a nominee of their own, and the land became oppressed by exactions of the soldiery backed by unscrupulous ministers. The Queen was captured and executed, and a disastrous flood and terrible famine increased the general misery. After two years' reign the soldiers' nominee was deposed and a child put in his place. Then there was a fresh revolution and still another nominee, who, as he could not pay a sufficient bribe to the soldiery, was deposed and the crown sold to the Minister.

And now another power makes itself felt, the influence of the feudal landholders, whose interests had suffered from the prolonged predominance of the military party. They marched upon Srinagar, defeated the soldiers, threw out the usurping minister, and restored the legitimate king, who, however, showed little gratitude, but abandoned himself to vile cruelties and excesses, till the feudal landholders became so exasperated that they treacherously murdered him at night within the arms of one of his low-caste queens. The successor was no better. He surpassed his predecessor in acts of senseless cruelty and wanton licence, and was encouraged by his ambitious minister (who was scheming to secure the throne for himself) to destroy his own relatives. Some were murdered, and others captured and allowed to starve to death. He himself died after a reign of only two years, and his successor had to flee after occupying the throne for a few days. The commander-in-chief tried to seize it, but on placing the election in the hands of an assembly of Brahmins, they chose one of their own number, who for nine years, by a wise and mild rule, gained a respite from the constant troubles of previous reigns. Only a short respite, however, for on his death the aforementioned scheming minister, after first putting his rivals out of the way, forced an entrance to the palace, killed the successor of the Brahmin, and threw him into the Jhelum. He grossly oppressed the land for a year and a half, and then died of dropsy, to be succeeded by a youth grossly sensual and addicted to many vices, who married a princess of the house of Punch. This lady happened to have considerable force of character, and when her son succeeded as a child, exercised as his guardian full royal power. She ruthlessly put down all rival parties, executing captured rebels, exterminating their families. She even, on her son's death, murdered two of her own grandsons that she might herself retain power. Finally, she fell in love with a letter-carrier who had begun life as a herdsman; she appointed him her Minister, and he retained undisputed predominance over her for her reign of twenty-three years, his valour supplementing her cunning diplomacy and bribes in overcoming all opposition.

The following reign, which was prudent, but weak, is noticeable from the fact that the famous Mahmud of Ghazni, who forced Mohamedanism upon upper India, made an attempt, a.d. 1015, to invade Kashmir. It was unsuccessful, but it marks the first sign of the returning flood of invasion from the Punjab inwards to Kashmir. The outward flow had ceased. The inward was now to begin.

In the meanwhile, until the Moghals, five hundred years later, finally established themselves in Kashmir, the ceaseless round of intrigue, treachery, and strife continued. The powerful herdsman minister and his son were foully murdered, and a succession of low favourites rose to power and plundered the people. A reign of twenty-two days which follows was terminated by the licentious mother killing her own son. Then comes a dangerous rising of the feudal landholders and more short reigns, murders, suicides, till we arrive at the reign of Harsa, 1089-1101, who is said to have been "the most striking figure among the later Hindu rulers of Kashmir." He was courageous and fond of display, and well versed in various sciences, and a lover of music and the arts, but "cruelty and kindheartedness, liberality and greed, violent self-willedness and reckless supineness, cunning and want of thought, in turn displayed themselves in his chequered life." He kept up a splendid Court and was munificent to men of learning and poets. He also succeeded in asserting his authority in the hilly country outside Kashmir on the south. But he eventually became the object of conspiracies, and to put them down resorted to the cruellest measures. He had his half-brother, as well as his nephews, and some other relatives, who had given no cause for suspicion, heartlessly murdered. Extravagant expenditure on the troops and senseless indulgence in costly pleasures gradually involved Harsa in grave financial trouble, from which he endeavoured to free himself by ruthless spoliation of sacred shrines, and even by confiscating divine images made of any valuable metal. He was further reduced to the necessity of imposing new and oppressive imposts. All this misgovernment spread discontent and misery among the people; and while the plague was raging, and robbers everywhere infesting the land, there occurred a disastrous flood which brought on a famine. A rising against Harsa was the result. He was slain in the fighting; his head was cut off and burned, while his body, naked like that of a pauper, was cremated by a compassionate wood-dealer.

The position of his successor, Vecula, was no less precarious than that of the generality of Kashmir rulers. His younger brother was ready to rise against him, and the leaders of feudal landholders, to whose rebellion he owed his throne, behaved as the true rulers of the land. He protected himself by fomenting jealousy and mutual suspicion, and murdered or exiled their most influential leaders, and then openly turned upon the remainder and forced them to disarm and submit. He also systematically persecuted the officials. On the other hand he showed considerate regard for the common people, and was on the whole a liberal, capable, and fairly energetic ruler. Nevertheless he, too, met with a violent end. The city-prefect and his brothers attacked him at night in the palace as, unarmed and attended only by a few followers, he was proceeding to the seraglio. He fought with desperate bravery, but was soon overpowered by his numerous assailants and cruelly murdered, December 1111.

His immediate successor reigned only a few hours; his half-brother only four months. He was then made prisoner by his brother, whose reign of eight years was one succession of internal troubles caused by rebellious and powerful landholders whom he in vain tried to subdue. He imprisoned his Minister and the Minister's three sons, and finally had them all strangled. He executed with revolting cruelty some hostages of the landholders; and, finally, in face of a rebellion caused by his cruelty and by his oppressive imposts, he had to fly from Srinagar to Punch. A pretender occupied the throne for a year, during which the people were at the mercy of bands of rebels, while rival ministers contended for what was left of regal power. Trade was at a standstill and money scarce. The rightful ruler returned and again occupied the throne, and, owing to the want of union among the feudal landholders, was able to retain it for another five years. But eventually he also met the usual fate of Kashmir kings, and was murdered.

Jayashima, the successor, reigned for twenty-one years, though he had found his country in a pitiable state. The feudal landholders were like kings, while the resources of the King and people alike were well-nigh exhausted by the preceding struggles. His predecessor had been unable by force to permanently reduce the power and pretensions of these petty nobles, and Jayashima tried to effect the same object by cunning diplomacy and unscrupulous intrigue. But he was no more successful, and they continued to preserve a rebellious, independent attitude for centuries later, far into the Mohamedan period.

The accounts of this and the immediately preceding reigns are of particular interest, because Kalhana, the historian to whom the facts are due, lived at this period. We get then a first-hand account of the state of Kashmir eight hundred years ago. It is a petty, melancholy, and sordid history, but it is the record of a contemporary, and I have no hesitation in adopting it as giving a true impression of the state of the country, because I have myself seen a precise counterpart of it in independent states on this very frontier. When I visited Hunza in 1889 the then chief—now in exile—had murdered his father, poisoned his mother, and thrown his two brothers over a precipice. The chief of Chitral, when I was there in 1893, was one of only four survivors of seventeen brothers who were living when their father died, and he himself was subsequently murdered by one of his three surviving brothers—a brother whom he had frequently asked my permission to murder, on the ground that if he did not murder the brother, the brother would murder him. In Chitral there was also the same struggle with "nobles" as is recorded of Kashmir, and murders of "nobles" were horribly frequent.

We may accept, then, as authentic that the normal state of Kashmir for many centuries, except in the intervals when a strong, firm ruler came to the front, was a state of perpetual intrigue and assassination, of struggles with brothers, cousins, uncles, before a chief even came to the throne; of fights for power with ministers, with the military, with the "nobles" when he was on it; of constant fear; of poisoning and assassination; of wearying, petty internecine "wars," and of general discomfort, uncertainty, and unrest.

For two centuries more Hindu rule maintained itself, but it was steadily decaying. In the meanwhile Mohamedanism had, especially in consequence of the invasion of Mahmud of Ghazni in 1000 a.d., made great advances in the adjoining kingdoms of the Punjab; and, in 1339, a Mohamedan ruler, Shah Mir, deposed the widow of the last Hindu ruler and founded a Mohamedan dynasty. The influx of foreign adventurers from Central Asia as well as from India had prepared the ground for Mohamedan rule, and when Shah Mir appeared there was little change in the system of administration, which remained as before in the hands of the traditional official class, the Brahmins.

From this time till the Moghal emperors finally conquered Kashmir in 1586, there was, with one exception, the usual succession of weak rulers and constant struggles between rival factions of territorial magnates. But this one exception is worthy of notice, as his reign is even now quoted by Kashmiris as the happiest of their history. Zain-ul-ab-ul-din (1420-70) was virtuous in his private life and liberal. He was the staunch friend of the cultivators, and built many bridges and constructed many canals. He was fond of sport, and was tolerant towards Brahmins, remitting the poll-tax on them, and encouraging them by grants of land. He also repaired some Hindu temples and revived Hindu learning. Further, he introduced many art-manufactures from foreign countries, and his Court was thronged by poets, musicians, and singers.

GATE OF THE OUTER WALL, HARI PARBAT FORT, SRINAGAR

But this reign seems to have been a mere oasis in the dreary record, and it was followed by a succession of weak reigns till 1532, when a direct conquest of the country by a foreign invader was effected. In that year Mirza Haider, with a following which formed part of the last great wave of Turkis (or Moghals) from the north, invaded Kashmir and held it for some years. Then followed one last short period, during which Kashmir became once more the scene of long-continued strife among the great feudal families, who set up and deposed their puppet kings in rapid succession, till finally, in 1586, Kashmir was incorporated in the dominions of the great Akbar, the contemporary of Elizabeth, and remained as a dependency of the Moghal emperors for nearly two centuries.

Akbar himself visited the country three times, made a land revenue settlement, and built the fort of Hari Parbat, which from its situation on an isolated hill, in a flat valley surrounded by mountains, bears some resemblance to the Potala at Lhasa. Akbar's successor, Jehangir, was devoted to Kashmir and he it was who built the stately pleasure gardens, the Shalimar and Nishat Baghs, where we can imagine that he and his wife, the famous Nurmahal, for whom he built the Taj at Agra, must have spent many a pleasant summer day.

The rule of the Moghals was fairly just and enlightened, and their laws and ordinances were excellent in spirit. Bernier, who visited Kashmir in the train of Aurungzebe, makes no allusion, as travellers of a subsequent date so frequently do, to the misery of the people, but, on the contrary, says of them that they are "celebrated for wit, and considered much more intelligent and ingenious than the Indians." "In poetry and the sciences," he continues, "they are not inferior to the Persians, and they are also very active and industrious." And he notes the "prodigious quantity of shawls which they manufacture." Kashmir was indeed, according to Bernier, "the terrestrial paradise of the Indies." "The whole kingdom wears the appearance," he says, "of a fertile and highly cultivated garden. Villages and hamlets are frequently seen through the luxuriant foliage. Meadows and vineyards, fields of rice, wheat, hemp, saffron, and many sorts of vegetables, among which are mingled trenches filled with water, rivulets, canals, and several small lakes, vary the enchanting scene. The whole ground is enamelled with our European flowers and plants, and covered with our apple, pear, plum, apricot, and walnut trees, all bearing fruit in great abundance."

All this and the absence of remarks on ruined towns and deserted villages, such as we shall hear so much of later on, implies prosperity. And of the governors of Kashmir under the Moghals, we read that many were enlightened, reduced taxation, and put down the oppression of petty officials. But as the Moghal Empire began to decay, the governors became more independent and high-handed. The Hindus were more oppressed. The officials fought among themselves, and Kashmir fell once more into wild disorder; and eventually, in 1750, came under the cruellest and worst rule of all—the rule of the Afghans, who to this day are of all the oppressive rulers in the world the most tyrannical. The period of Afghan rule was, says Lawrence, a time of "brutal tyranny, unrelieved by good works, chivalry, or honour." Men with interest were appointed as governors, who wrung as much money as they could out of the wretched people of the valley. It was said of them that they thought no more of cutting off heads than of plucking a flower. One used to tie up the Hindus, two and two, in grass sacks and sink them in the Dal Lake. The poll-tax on Hindus was revived, and many either fled the country, were killed, or converted to Islam.

At last the oppression became so unendurable that the Kashmiris turned with hope to Ranjit Singh, the powerful Sikh ruler of the Punjab, who, after an unsuccessful attempt, finally in 1819, accompanied by Raja Gulab Singh of Jammu, defeated the Afghan governor and annexed Kashmir to his dominions. It came then once again under Hindu rulers, though in the meantime nine-tenths of the population had been converted to Mohamedanism.

But the unfortunate country had still to suffer many ills. The Sikhs who succeeded the Afghans were not so barbarically cruel, but they were hard and rough masters. Moorcroft, who visited the country in 1824, says that "everywhere the people were in the most abject condition, exorbitantly taxed by the Sikh Government, and subjected to every kind of extortion and oppression by its officers ... not one-sixteenth of the cultivable surface is in cultivation, and the inhabitants, starving at home, are driven in great numbers to the plains of Hindustan." The cultivators were "in a condition of extreme wretchedness," and the Government, instead of taking only one-half of the produce on the threshing-floor, had now advanced its demands to three-quarters. Every shawl was taxed 26 per cent upon the estimated value, besides which there was an import duty on the wool with which they were manufactured, and a charge was made upon every shop or workman connected with the manufacture. Every trade was also taxed, "butchers, bakers, boatmen, vendors of fuel, public notaries, scavengers, prostitutes, all paid a sort of corporation tax, and even the Kotwal, or chief officer of justice, paid a large gratuity of thirty thousand rupees a year for his appointment, being left to reimburse himself as he might."

AT THE RIVER'S EDGE, SRINAGAR

Villages, where Moorcroft stopped in the Lolab direction, were half-deserted, and the few inhabitants that remained wore the semblance of extreme wretchedness. Islamabad was "as filthy a place as can well be imagined, and swarming with beggars." Shupaiyon was not half-inhabited, and the inhabitants of the country round, "half-naked and miserably emaciated, presented a ghastly picture of poverty and starvation." The Sikhs "seemed to look upon the Kashmirians as little better than cattle ... the murder of a native by a Sikh is punished by a fine to the Government of from sixteen to twenty rupees, of which four rupees are paid to the family of the deceased if a Hindu, and two rupees if a Mohamedan."

Vigne's description is hardly more favourable. He visited Kashmir in 1835. Shupaiyon was "a miserable place, bearing the impression of once having been a thriving town. The houses were in ruins." Islamabad was "but a shadow of its former self." The houses "present a ruined and neglected appearance, in wretched contrast with their once gay and happy condition, and speak volumes upon the light and joyous prosperity that has long fled the country on account of the shameless rapacity of the ruthless Sikhs." The villages were fallen into decay. The rice-ground was uncultivated for want of labour and irrigation.

Clearly the Kashmiris had not yet come to a haven of rest, but they were nearing it.

The Raja Gulab Singh of Jammu has already been mentioned as accompanying Ranjit Singh's troops on their victorious march to Kashmir in 1819. On the death of Ranjit Singh there was much violence and mutiny among the Sikh soldiery, and the Governor of Kashmir was murdered by them. Thereupon a body of about 5000 men, nominally under the command of the son of Sher Singh, Ranjit's successor, but really under the charge of Gulab Singh, was sent to Kashmir to restore authority. This was in the year 1841, when the British were still behind the Sutlej, but were engaged in the fruitless and disastrous expedition to Kabul, which resulted in the murder of the envoy. Gulab Singh quelled the mutiny in Kashmir, placed there a governor of his own, and from this time he became virtual master of the valley, though till the year 1846 it nominally belonged to the Sikh rulers at Lahore.

LALLA ROOKH'S TOMB, HASSAN ABDA

As he was the founder of the present ruling dynasty, it will be well to pause here to describe who he was and where he came from. He was what is known as a Dogra Rajput, that is, a Rajput inhabiting the Dogra country—the hilly country stretching down to the plains of the Punjab from the snowy range bounding Kashmir on the south. His far-away ancestors were Rajputs who for generations had followed warlike operations. Originally settled in Oudh or in Rajputana they eventually moved to the Punjab, and settled at Mirpur in the Dogra country. One branch then migrated to Chamba, another to Kangra, and the one to which Gulab Singh belonged to Jammu, where the great-great-grand-uncle of Gulab Singh—Throv Deo—was during the middle of the eighteenth century a man of importance. In 1775 the son of Throv Deo built the palace at Jammu, and about 1788 Gulab Singh was born. In 1807, when Ranjit Singh's troops were attacking Jammu, Gulab Singh so distinguished himself that he gained the favour of Ranjit Singh. He took service under the Sikh ruler, and with the assistance of his brother, Ranjit Singh's Dewan, acquired such influence that when the principality of Jammu had been annexed by the Sikhs, Ranjit Singh in 1818 conferred it upon Gulab Singh, with the title of Raja. The brother, Dhyan Singh, was likewise made Raja of Punch, and the third brother, Raja of Ramnager.

In the course of the next 15 years the three brothers subdued all the neighbouring principalities, and Gulab Singh's troops under Zorawar Singh had conquered Ladak and Baltistan, and even invaded Tibet, though there Zorawar Singh himself was killed and his army annihilated.

Thus when Ranjit Singh died in 1839 Gulab Singh, though still feudatory to the Sikh Government, had established his authority in Jammu and neighbouring principalities, and in Ladak and Baltistan, and he had a commanding influence in Kashmir then still under a Sikh governor. The traveller Vigne saw him in this year at Jammu, and speaks of him as feared for his cruelty and tyrannical exactions—very common and, it would almost appear, necessary characteristics of strong rulers in those unruly times—but he remarks on his tolerance and liberality in religious matters. He was never a popular ruler, and the people feared and dreaded him; but he had courage and energy, and above all was successful.

BRIDGE OF BURBUR SHAH, CHENAR BAGH, SRINAGAR

On Ranjit Singh's death all was once more in the melting-pot, and for a time it looked as if Gulab Singh would come crashing down even faster than he had risen. His influence at the Lahore Court was lost through the murder of his brother. He himself was attacked by the Sikhs and taken to Lahore. His fortunes were sinking rapidly. Then suddenly there was a turn in the wheel of fortune; and the man who had started life as a courtier of Ranjit Singh, was confirmed in the possession not only of all that he had subsequently acquired by his own prowess, but also of the rich and beautiful vale of Kashmir as well. On the payment of three-quarters of a million sterling down, and of an annual tribute of one horse, twelve goats, and six pairs of shawls, all this was confirmed by the strongest power in Asia to himself and his heirs for ever. It was one of those wonderful strokes of fortune which must have lent such zest and interest to life in those otherwise sordid days.

It was due to the advent of the British upon the scene. On the death of the strong, stern ruler, Ranjit Singh, the Punjab had fallen into a state of hopeless anarchy. His successor died prematurely of excess, and Ranjit's reputed son, Sher Singh, once Governor of Kashmir, had marched upon Lahore and seized the government in 1841. The Punjab was now entirely in the hands of the Sikh soldiery, whose movements were regulated not by the will of the sovereign or of the minister, but by the dictation of army committees. The minister, Dhyan Singh (Gulab Singh's younger brother) shot the ruler Sher Singh, and was in turn murdered by a Sikh chieftain, Ajit Singh, who, again, was murdered by the Sikh soldiers. Dhulip Singh, so well known afterwards as an exile in England, and then a child of five years of age, was put on the throne, and from this time the army became the absolute master of the State, though Hira Singh, Dhyan Singh's son, and therefore nephew of Gulab Singh, was nominally minister. He tried to curb the army by distributing the regiments, but the army committees would not allow a single corps to leave the capital without their permission. He had eventually to flee, but he was overtaken and killed, and his head brought back in triumph to Lahore.

SPRING FLOODS IN THE KUTICAL CANAL, SRINAGAR

On Hira Singh's death the power fell into the hands of the brother of the infant Dhulip Singh's mother and her paramour, Lal Singh, a Brahmin. They increased the pay of the soldiers, and in order to keep them quiet turned them against Gulab Singh at Jammu. He was brought to Lahore and had to pay a crore (ten millions) of rupees. They were then turned against Multan. Another son of Ranjit Singh raised a revolt, but was suppressed and murdered by the regnant maternal uncle of the infant Dhulip Singh. Then this uncle was himself murdered. The mother, with the aid of the minister Lal Singh, and of Tej Singh, the commander-in-chief of the army, assumed the government and, as it is thought, with the object of employing the army, which was a positive danger to the throne, ordered an advance upon British territory. In November 1845 the Sikh army of 60,000 men with 150 guns crossed the river Sutlej which was then our frontier, and by the 16th of December was encamped by Ferozepore fort held by only 10,000 British and British Indian troops. A bloody and indecisive battle was fought at Mudki, December 18, 1845. Another most hard-won battle—"the most severe and critical the British army had ever fought in India"—and in which the Governor-General, Lord Hardinge, himself took part, and lost five aides-de-camp killed, and four wounded, was fought at Ferozeshah on December 21. This just stemmed the tide of invasion, but at such a cost of men and ammunition, that the British could not follow up their success till January 28, 1846, when the decisive battle of Aliwal was fought, which utterly disheartened the Government at Lahore. Lal Singh, the minister, was deposed for his incapacity, and Gulab Singh was invited from Jammu to negotiate with the Governor-General.

Here was the wonderful turn in the wheel of fortune, which, when his own brother and so many of the leading men of the Punjab had been murdered or debased, brought him alone and his descendants after him to a position of security.

LOOKING DOWN THE GURAIS VALLEY, FROM DUDHGAI VILLAGE

Gulab Singh immediately made overtures to the British Government, but the Sikh army was not yet thoroughly defeated, and it was not till after the battle of Sobraon, on February 10th, that the way for negotiations was really clear. The British troops occupied Lahore. The Sikh Government submitted, and the treaty of Lahore was concluded on March 9th. By this, amongst other things, the Sikhs ceded to the British all the hill country between the rivers Beas and Indus, "including the provinces of Kashmir and Hazara"; and "in consideration of the services rendered by Raja Golab Singh, of Jummu, to the Lahore State, towards procuring the restoration of the relations of amity between the Lahore and British Governments," the British agreed to recognise "the independent sovereignty of Raja Golab Singh in such territories and districts in the hills as may be made over to the said Raja Golab Singh, by separate agreement between himself and the British Government, with the dependencies thereof, which may have been in the Raja's possession since the time of the late Maharaja Khurruk Singh"; further, the British Government, "in consideration of the good conduct of Raja Golab Singh," agreed "to recognise his independence in such territories, and to admit him to the privileges of a separate treaty with the British Government."

A week later, on 16th March 1846, was signed this separate treaty with Gulab Singh, by which the British Government "transferred and made over, for ever, in independent possession, to Maharaja Golab Singh and the heirs male of his body, all the hilly and mountainous country, with its dependencies, situated to the eastward of the river Indus and westward of the river Ravi, including Chamba and excluding Lahoul, being part of the territories ceded to the British Government by the Lahore State." In consideration of this transfer Golab Singh was to pay the British Government 75 lakhs of rupees, and in token of the supremacy of the British Government, was "to present annually to the British Government one horse, twelve perfect shawl-goats of approved breed (six male and six female), and three pairs of Kashmir shawls." He further engaged "to join with the whole of his military force the British troops when employed within the hills, or in the territories adjoining his possessions"; and on their part the British Government engaged to "give its aid to Maharaja Golab Singh in protecting his territories from external enemies."

Thus it was that Kashmir came under its present rulers; and surprise has often been expressed that when this lovely land had actually been ceded us, after a hard and strenuous campaign, we should ever have parted with it for the paltry sum of three-quarters of a million sterling. The reasons are to be found in a letter from Sir Henry Hardinge to the Queen, published in The Letters of Queen Victoria. The Governor-General, writing from the neighbourhood of Lahore on 18th of February 1846—that is nearly three weeks before the treaty of Lahore was actually signed—says it appeared to him desirable "to weaken the Sikh State, which has proved itself too strong—and to show to all Asia that although the British Government has not deemed it expedient to annex this immense country of the Punjab, making the Indus the British boundary, it has punished the treachery and violence of the Sikh nation, and exhibited its powers in a manner which cannot be misunderstood." "For the same political and military reason," Sir Henry Hardinge continues, "the Governor-General hopes to be able before the negotiations are closed to make arrangements by which Cashmere may be added to the possessions of Golab Singh, declaring the Rajput Hill States with Cashmere independent of the Sikhs of the Plains." "There are difficulties in the way of this arrangement," he adds, "but considering the military power which the Sikh nation had exhibited of bringing into the field 80,000 men and 300 pieces of field artillery, it appears to the Governor-General most politic to diminish the means of this warlike people to repeat a similar aggression."

This was the reason we did not annex Kashmir. We had not yet annexed the Punjab. We did not finally conquer it till three years later, when the continued unruliness of the Sikhs and the murder of British officers had rendered a second campaign necessary. In 1846 the East India Company had no thoughts or inclinations whatever to extend their possessions. All they wished was to curb their powerful and aggressive neighbours, and they thought they would best do this, and at the same time reward a man who had shown his favourable disposition towards them, by depriving the Sikhs of the hilly country, and by handing it over to a ruler of a different race.

So Gulab Singh became nominal ruler of Kashmir. But he did not acquire actual possession of his new province without difficulty. The governor appointed under the Sikh Government showed no disposition to hand over the province, and with the aid of feudatories attacked Gulab Singh's troops. Gulab Singh had to apply to the British Government to aid him, and British troops were accordingly sent to Jammu to enable Gulab Singh to send his Jammu troops to Kashmir, and two British officers, one of whom was the famous Sir Henry Lawrence, accompanied Gulab Singh to Srinagar. Owing to his character for oppression and avarice he was not a popular ruler, and the people did not welcome him. But with the support of the British Government he was finally able to establish his rule over Kashmir by the end of 1846, and Sir Henry Lawrence returned to Lahore.

The state of Kashmir when Gulab Singh took it over was deplorable. The Government took from two-thirds to three-quarters of the gross produce of the land—about three times as much as is now taken. The crops when cut by the cultivators were collected in stacks. One-half was taken as the regular Government share, and additional amounts were taken as perquisites of various kinds, leaving one-third or even only a quarter with the cultivators. Of this some was taken in kind and some in cash. The whole system of assessment and collection was exceedingly complicated and workable only in the interests of the corrupt officials; and Government held a monopoly in the sale of grain. Gulab Singh during his lifetime did very little to ameliorate this state of things. He took things as he found them and troubled little to improve them. He died in 1857, and was succeeded by his son Ranbir Singh, who rendered valuable services to Government during the Mutiny, and received, in recognition, the right to adopt from collateral branches an heir to the succession on the failure of heirs-male of Gulab Singh on whom alone the country had been conferred by the British. Maharaja Ranbir Singh died in 1885.

During his reign there was a steady improvement, but it was very slow, and an account of the condition of Kashmir then reads curiously ill beside the account of the province now after nearly a quarter of a century of the present Maharaja's reign. The Maharaja Ranbir Singh himself was extremely popular both with his people and with Europeans—in this respect being a marked contrast to his father. He was manly, fond of sport, affectionate in his family, and simple and moral in his private life. And Mr. Drew has given a pleasant picture of how this chief, in the old-fashioned way so liked by the people and so conducive of good relations between rulers and subjects, used to sit daily in public Durbar in full view of his people, receiving and answering his people's petitions.

AKBAR'S BRIDGE, KARALLAYAR

With the vastly more complicated system of administration of the present day it is practically impossible for a ruler of Kashmir to conduct his business on precisely these lines; but I have seen the same system working in Chitral, and quite realise the advantages it has for small states. If it does nothing else it teaches the people good manners, for they learn from observation of others how to comport themselves in high society. But these public Durbars are also an education of no small value. Here the people discuss men and events. They learn character and hear outside news, and it is surprising to see how much more native intelligence, dignity, and character men brought up in these conditions have than the school-bred men of to-day.

Ranbir Singh was then a typical ruler of a type that is now almost gone. Unfortunately he had not the officials capable of the immense labour required to remove the terrible effects of many centuries of misgovernment, and especially of the harsh, cruel rules of the Afghans and Sikhs. His officials were accustomed to the old style of rule and knew no better. In the early 'sixties cultivation was decreasing; the people were wretchedly poor, and in any other country their state would have been almost one of starvation and famine; justice was such that those who could pay could at any time get out of jail, while the poor lived and died there almost without hope. There were few men of respectable, and none of wealthy appearance; and there were almost prohibitive duties levied on all merchandise imported or exported. By the early 'seventies some slight improvement had taken place. The labouring classes as a general rule were well fed and well clothed, and fairly housed. Both men and women were accustomed to do hard and continuous labour, and it was obvious that they could not do this and look well unless they were well nourished. Their standard of living was not high, but they certainly had enough to eat. And this is not surprising, for a rupee would buy 80 to 100 lbs. of rice, or 12 lbs. of meat, or 60 lbs. of milk. Fruit was so plentiful that mulberries, apples, and apricots near the villages were left to rot on the ground. And fish near the rivers could be bought for almost nothing. Crime of all kinds was rare, chiefly because of the remembrance of the terrible punishments of Gulab Singh's time, and because of the system of fixing responsibility for undetected crime upon local officials. Drunkenness, too, was almost unknown. About half a lakh of rupees was spent upon education, and another half-lakh on repairing the "paths." A slight attempt was also made to assess the amount of land revenue at a fixed amount This much was to the good, but yet the country was still very far indeed from what it ought to have been. The means of communication were rough and rude in the extreme, so that men instead of animals had to be used as beasts of burden. Even the new assessment of the land revenue was three times as heavy as that of the amount demanded in British districts in the Punjab. And there was still much waste land which the people were unwilling to put under cultivation, because under the existing system of land revenue administration they could not be sure that they would ever receive the results of their labour. A cultivator would only produce as much as would, after payment of his revenue, provide for the actual wants of himself and his family, because he knew by experience that any surplus would be absorbed by rapacious underling officials. In matters of trade there were, too, still the impediments of former days. Upon every branch of commerce there was a multiplicity and weight of exactions. No product was too insignificant, and no person too poor to contribute to the State. The manufacture or production of silk, saffron, paper, tobacco, wine, and salt were all State monopolies. The sale of grain was a State monopoly, and though the State sold grain at an extraordinarily cheap rate, the officials in charge did not always sell it to the people who most required it, or in the quantity they required. Favourite and influential persons would get as much as they wanted, but often to the public the stores would be closed for weeks together, and at other times the grain was sold to each family at a rate which was supposed to be proportionate to the number of persons in the family; but the judges of the said quantity were not the persons most concerned, viz. the purchasers, but the local authorities. Private grain trade could not be openly conducted, and when the stocks in the country fell short of requirements they could not be replenished by private enterprise.

On the manufacture of shawls parallel restrictions were placed. The wool was taxed as it entered Kashmir; the manufacturer was taxed for every workman he employed, and at various stages of the process according to the value of the fabric; and, lastly, the merchant was taxed, before he could export the goods, the enormous duty of 85 per cent ad valorem. Butchers, bakers, carpenters, boatmen, and even prostitutes were still taxed, and coolies who were engaged to carry loads for travellers had to give up half their earnings.

The whole country, in fact, was still in the grip of a grinding officialdom; and the officials were the remnants of a bygone, ignorant, and destructive age, when dynasties and institutions and life itself were in daily danger, when nothing was fixed and lasting, when all was liable to change and at the risk of chance, and each man had to make what he could while he could; and when, in consequence, a man of honesty and public spirit had no more chance of surviving than a baby would have in a battle.

No wonder that in 1877, when—through excess of rain which destroyed the crops—famine came on the land, neither were the people prepared to meet the emergency, nor were the officials capable of mitigating its effects, and direful calamity was the consequence.

In the autumn of 1877 unusual rain fell, and owing to the system of collecting the revenue in kind and dilatoriness in collection, the crop was allowed to remain in the open on the ground, and then it rotted till half of it was lost. The wheat and barley harvest of the summer of 1878 was exceedingly poor. The fruit had also suffered from long continual wet and cold, and the autumn grains, such as maize and millet, were partly destroyed by intense heat and partly devoured by the starving peasants. The following year was also unfavourable, and it was not till 1880 that normal conditions returned.

These were the causes of the scarcity of food-supply; and when this calamity, which nowadays could be confidently met, fell upon the country, it was found that people had nothing in reserve to fall back on; that the administrative machine was incapable of meeting the excessive strain; that even the will to meet it was wanting; and that corruption and obstruction impeded all measures of relief, and even forbade the starving inhabitants migrating to parts where food could be had. In addition, the communications were so bad that the food, so plentiful in the neighbouring province, could be imported only with the greatest difficulty.

As a result two-thirds of the population died; a number of the chief valleys were entirely deserted; whole villages lay in ruins, as beams, doors, etc., had been extracted for sale; some suburbs of Srinagar were tenantless, and the city itself was half-destroyed; trade came almost to a standstill, and consequently employment was difficult to obtain.

The test of this great calamity showed bare the glaring defects of the system the present dynasty had taken over from their uncultured predecessors, and which in their thirty years' possession of the valley they had not been able to eradicate.

During the five years which remained of the late Maharaja's reign the first important steps were taken to remedy this terrible state of affairs; the assessment of the land revenue was revised, and the cart-road into the valley was commenced. But it has been during the twenty-three years of the present Maharaja's reign that the most real progress has been made. First and foremost the land revenue has been properly assessed; it has been fixed in cash for a definite number of years, and the share claimed by the State has been greatly reduced. Then a first-rate cart-road up the Jhelum valley has been made. The heavy taxes on trade have been reduced. A well-trained set of officials have been introduced, and they have been well paid. Increased, though not yet nearly sufficient attention has been paid to education. Surveys for a railroad have been made, and a great scheme for draining the valley, reclaiming waste land, and preventing floods has been commenced. As a result, and in spite of the State taking a smaller share of the cultivator's produce, the revenue has more than doubled. More land is being taken up. The population is steadily increasing. The darkest days are over, and the future is assured.

The history of the people has shown that there is latent in them much ability and taste, but that they have always prospered most when most subjected to the influences of the great world outside Kashmir. Those influences are now strong upon the country, and the future prosperity of the people will very largely depend upon how they meet and profit by them.

Needless to add, a weighty responsibility lies also upon the British Government that it should guide their destinies aright.