Our community for several centuries are known as Kashmiri Pandits world over .The torch bearers of learning and dispensing knowledge in very facets of life that concern the human being inter alia the whole biosphere.Never in the contemporary history concerning to us have been mentioned as Kashmiri Hindus.In fact the entire literature pertaining to Kashmir from medieval to the current times is referred as Kashmiri Pandits or Kashmiri Brahmins.However , since last couple of years Kashmiri Pandits are being called Kashmiri Hindus.
The revised nomenclature is fraught with suspicion.This reminds of the name changes like Takht-e-Suleiman for Shankaracharya and Kohi-Maran for Hari Parbat.Are we in for identity change and its dilution for some similar designs of subversion?Worrisome how overnight became Kashmiri Hindus from Kashmiri Pandits and Why?
Religion has been a dominating aspect of life in Kashmir from time immemorial . Various religions have seeped into Kashmiri society. To begin with , Kashmir in the hoary past followed the Nagamat. That gave way to Buddhism in the 3rd-4th century. Buddhism was replaced by the Saivites in the 9th century.
However the most powerful religious convulsion came in the 14th century when most Kashmiri Hindu population converted to Islam. Thus it is evident that Kashmiri society has always been in some kind of religious transition. Kashmiri Pandits are Sawarsat Brahmins ardent followers of Shaivism, the oldest living religion in the world? Kashmir Shaivism or Trika Shaivism is a non dualistic tradition of Shiva-Shakti .
Which originated sometime after 850 CE worship of Shiv and Shakti continues till date? Where the traditions and philosophies are assimilated in the non-Vedic Shiva-tradition as a creator and destroyer of worlds. Believes in superiority of knowledge (gyana) over ritual (karma) looks beyond divisions that create dualities (dvaita) and affirms non-duality (advaita). Wisdom is seen here as the tool to transcend caste .Shivling or Lingam the union of mind and soul.
According to the Linga Purana, the Lingam is a complete symbolic representation of the formless Universe Bearer – the oval-shaped stone is the symbol of the Universe, and the bottom base represents the Supreme Power that holds the entire Universe in it. Kashmiri Pandits have retained its character despite being subjected to state sponsored onslaught for centuries .Which resulted in more than half a dozen forced migrations to safeguard the faith at all costs .
That has been the
reason Kashmir Shaivism has survived till date . Those who
migrated from time to time have carried and protected Shaivism
in letter and spirit with all rituals and traditions . Sawarswat
Brahimins over the passage of time came down from the Himalayas towards south.
Goa is one of the main places of their deities and covers
the entire Konkan belt.Slowly it spread to other places in
the southern part far and wide Worst phase of history has been
observed during King Harshas and the Skinderbudh Shikan a
persian word for the destroyers of the Idols continued till
end of Afghan rule a longest prosecution in the world history.
However, this great religious wealth of Kashmiri Pandits lay dormant and unknown throughout the Muslim era in the Kashmir history. But the minority Kashmiri Pandit community preserved its doctrine in several manuscripts written in Sanskrit. However, at the popular level, Kashmir Saivism survived through its practitioners.They performed and lived its expositions as their way of life.
They breathed Kashmir Saivism in and out all their lives so much so that even during the tyrant Afghan rule in Kashmir, this idolatry religious philosophy could not be exterminated from the lives of these aboriginal Pandits.
Who collected Sanskrit manuscripts in Kashmir in 1875, Buhler was ably supported in his mission by the then Dogra Maharaja, Ranbir Singh. In the end, Buhler collected three hundred Sanskrit manuscripts from Kashmir which included a rich cache of Saiva texts.
It was this undertaking of Buhler that actually brought the corpus of Kashmir Saiva texts to the attention of the world. Before that, the world was practically oblivious of this great philosophy. Once this religious wealth of Kashmir came to light, it was left to the enlightened vision of the Dogras who undertook to search for all the rest of surviving manuscripts of Kashmir Saivism.
It was mainly
during the enlightened rule of Maharaja Pratap Singh that the entire corpus of
Saiva texts of Kashmir were discovered and in the following decades till
India's independence as many as 90 of these texts were published between
1911 and 1947 by the Department of Research, Museum and Archaeology of
the State under the Kashmir Series of Sanskrit Texts.
Dogras being Suryavanshi, introduced the Ram Cult along with the Bhagavad Gita, philosophy here in the valley for the first time . At the same time Dogra rulers encouraged the inquest of our ancient history, culture, and Faith traditions. The religion one professes emerges not by choice but from the family where birth takes place.
Universal truth that gives hardly any room to disagree. Wherever conversation takes place , when one is independent to do so or forced by the circumstance .Again their siblings shall carry the faith of parents , till another conversation may take place in the family.
There is hardly any evidence a family professes the religion of choice more than one. Read once in erstwhile Yugoslavia, in one family brother and sister living in the same house profess two different Religions.Shri Adi Shankracharya, traveled across India on his return from Kashmir established a Mutt Sringeri Sharada Peetham in Chikkamagalur district, Karnataka.
Thereafter three more were established Badrikashram Jyotirpeeth in the north, Dwarka's Shardha Peeth in the west, Govardhan Peetha in Puri in the east said to have established the various akharas of hermits who were told to use their knowledge and their physical and yogic powers to protect Shivism. Kashmir Mutt remained an unfinished task, as he died young at the age of 32.
This writer is of the firm view that faith is a matter of personal choice. To follow it as ordained to worship and perform the rituals in complete letter and spirit, follower religiously as told. There is nothing to be read between the lines, deviation, dilution or short cuts as suits one or desire so.
Either
carry faith as scripture or leave it.Faith can be judged by those who has
devoted entire life to read, understand , feel and experience and
followed by its worshipers, in its complete devotion .It has become a
fashion these days to challenge rituals, strictly ordained to follow, in
the court of law. Indulgence tantamount to sacrilegious act. God cannot
come to defend, his representation is pleaded through scriptures
centuries old followed in sincerity.
Kashmir Shaivism, after post 1947, has been found in a waning phase day after day. Need was to establish , as Adi Shancreacrya established various Ashram for Hermits to impart knowledge of Kashmir Shaivism and preserve , protect and propagate far and wide. Efforts of Swami Lakhman joo Ashram, after Swami ji attained nirvana, has somehow kept it a float. it is painful to observe that Shaivsm has been subjected to neglect with resulted in its dilution got corrupt under scheme of things, brought Sain Baba, Tirupati Temple in its place all the more Baba Amarnath yatra the hallmark of our faith in summer and Saivratri in winter, is taken in a lakidiscal manner. Never in the entire history of Shaviasm in the valley, it has been so blatantly fiddled with , for some time now.
As per ritual and tradition Chadi Muark, the Holy Mac has to have the first Darshan of Baba Amarnath followed by others who make pilgrimage , which painful by the Kashmiri Pandits is resented and call it sacrilegious , a bad practice and the omen.Follow tradition as carried over centuries unless there is any reference to do as one lies, faith after all is not a fum or joy making it the devotion as ordained.. These days it has become fun travel, hurting the sentiments dear to KP.Shrine board should have on its board Sawrsat Brahmins exclusive, on whose advice the Governor should decide how to conduct. Moreover it should establish a remaining task of Adi Shancreacrya to establish a Mutt.
It requires mention of
a Shiva Lingam, at Barammul the southern gateway to Kashmir .There
used to a large Sarai, on the right side of the river Jhelum at
Khadanyar, for the non native travelers, only on left side of the river
opposite Khadanyar is a Durga Temple known as Devibal native
had free access from here the main route .
Al-Biruni Was first outside to be allowed the Devibal route. He was an Iranian scholar "founder of Indology", "Father of Comparative Religion"and the first anthropologist He travelled to the Indian subcontinent in 1017. He explored the faith practiced in India and authored a study of Indian culture Tārīkh al-Hind (History of India).
There stands in the heart of town at a place called Ushkar, Kanilbagh unattended, tall , huge in size, a Shivling, the most magnificent, the tallest & the fattest Shivling in Kanibag @ Baramula.
It's more than 13 tall & has a Garth of about 30 feet of Pir Panjal formation stone deep dark in color. Over centuries now in the open reminding great ethos of the faith of Kashmiri Pandits.At the same time one of the many examples how Kashmiri Pandits of present generation take care.
It was photographed first by J.Ph. Vogel during his trip to Kashmir in early 1904 .when he surveyed all the major temple monuments of Kashmir as in charge ASI of Kashmir Circle. Vogel submitted his Report to Raja Amar Singh in August 1904. The Report eventually became the precursor to the foundation of crethe Research, Archives and Museum Department which was formally established by Maharaja Pratap Singh in 1911.
Vogel was thus the first person whose work led to the formation of the museum movement in India. After nearly four decades, Sir Aurel Stein also photographed this Siva Linga in 1940. Stein this time intended to publish an illustrated Rajatarangini with photographs of other Kashmir monuments also. Sadly Stein died in 1943 at Kabul before he could complete and publish the illustrated Rajatarangini.
The clues to the existence of Stein's incomplete Rajatarangini
were first indicated by Kashmiri Stein scholar S.N.Pandita in 2005
after he completed his major work on Stein's Kashmir Heritage Website .
From Pandita's researched clues , the German scholar Luther Obrock has
now published Stein,' a illustrated Rajatarangini at Halle University in
Germany in 2011.
Now after 174
years in 2014 an laborious effort not smooth sailing was made
to locate. and picture the site once more. By Parimoo brothers, elder Bai Moti
Parimoo, younger Ashok Parimoo, along with Guru Kamath, also Sawarsat,
associated with Shingiri Mutt,
What was surprising was that after these pictures were
shared, majority of the Kashmiri Pandits expressed never seen or
heard.Even from Baramulla district and adjoining , Handwara, Kupwaraa
Kashmir Pandits shared never heard of it those a few who has seen it do
admit very casually.
Needless to add the other day ,while sharig with an recent acquaint from Delhi that myself is Saivite worshiper by virtue of born in the family of Kashmiri Pandit, by faith not Hindu.To it queered that means then a Muslim, responded no.To drive my point home added that the Hindu is no religion, instead corrupted word of Persian who called this subcontinent as Sndhu mean other side of the river Sindh.Every one who lies on this part is a Hindu, irrespective of faith color , caste creed or region.
Aboe all it believes in on worl world as one family created by Shiva , that shall be destroyer by Him, no untouchability feel of it one used to have on this side of the Pir Panchal. Shiv and Shakti, never born in any form in our mythology, remain Pure, Satyam Siavim Sunderam.Om Namah Shaive .
-- Colossal Siva
Linga, Ushker.(1904) Photo Credit: Ghulam Nabi, Source: Vogel Photo
archive Collection, Kern Institute, Leiden, Holland.
Sir Aurel Stein also photographed this Siva
Linga at Ushkar, Baramulla in 1940
Parimoo Brothers Ashok
and Moti, 2014.
Bai Moti Parimoo.
Shoouke Ashok Parimoo.
Bushan Parimoo
(The writer is a Jammu based environmentalist and a regular contributor to this Website .)
(Feedback at: blparimoo@gmail.com)