[Reader-list] History of Amarnath Pilgrimage

[rashneek kher]

There is ample and conclusive historical evidence to prove that the holy
cave and the ice lingam were known to the people since very ancient times
and have been continuously and regularly visited by pilgrims not only from
Kashmir but also from different parts of India.
While the earliest reference to Amarnath can be seen in the Nilamata Purana
(v.1324), a 6th century Sanskrit text which depicts the religious and
cultural life of early Kashmiris and gives Kashmir's own creation myth, the
pilgrimage to the holy cave has been described with full topographical
details in the Bhringish Samhita and the Amarnatha Mahatmya, both ancient
texts said to have been composed even earlier.
References to Amarnath, known have also been made in historical chronicles
like the Rajatarangini and its sequels and several Western travellers'
accounts also leaving no doubt about the fact that the holy cave has been
known to people for centuries. The original name of the tirtha, as given in
the ancient texts, is of course Amareshwara, Amarnath being a name given
later to it.
Giving the legend of the Naga Sushruvas, who in his fury burnt to ashes the
kingdom of King Nara when he tried to abduct his daughter already married to
a Brahmin youth, and after the carnage took his abode in the lake now known
as Sheshnag (Kashmiri Sushramnag), Kalahana writes:
"The lake of dazzling whiteness [resembling] a sea of milk (Sheshnag), which
he created [for himself as residence] on a far off mountain, is to the
present day seen by the people on the pilgrimage to
Amareshwara."(Rajatarangini, Book I v. 267.Translation: M. A. Stein).
This makes it very clear that pilgrims continued to visit the holy Amarnath
cave in the 12th century, for Kalhana wrote his chronicle in the
years1148-49.
At another place in the Rajatarangini (Book II v. 138), Kalhana says that
King Samdhimat Aryaraja (34 BCE-17CE) used to spend "the most delightful
Kashmir summer" in worshiping a linga formed of snow "in the regions above
the forests". This too appears to be a reference to the ice linga at
Amarnath. There is yet another reference to Amareshwara or Amarnath in the
Rajatarangini (Book VII v.183). According to Kalhana, Queen Suryamati, the
wife of King Ananta (1028-1063), "granted under her husband's name agraharas
at Amareshwara, and arranged for the consecration of trishulas, banalingas
and other [sacred emblems]".
In his Chronicle of Kashmir, a sequel to Kalhana's Rajatarangini, Jonaraja
relates that that Sultan Zainu'l-abidin (1420-1470) paid a visit to the
sacred tirtha of Amarnath while constructing a canal on the left bank of the
river Lidder (vv.1232-1234). The canal is now known as Shah Kol.
In the Fourth Chronicle named Rajavalipataka, which was begun by
Prjayabhatta and completed by Shuka, there is a clear and detailed reference
to the pilgrimage to the sacred site (v.841,vv. 847-849). According to it,
in a reply to Akbar's query about Kashmir Yusuf Khan, the Mughal governor of
Kashmir at that time, described among other things the Amarnath Yatra in
full detail. His description shows that the not only was the pilgrimage in
vogue in Akbar's time - Akbar annexed Kashmir in 1586 - but the phenomenon
of waxing and waning of the ice linga was also well known.
Amareshwar (Amarnath) was a famous pilgrimage place in the time of the
Mughal emperor Shah Jahan also. In his eulogy of Shah Jahan's father-in-law
Asif Khan, titled "Asaf Vilas", the famous Sanskrit scholar and aesthete
Panditraj Jagannath makes clear mention of Amareshwara (Amarnath) while
describing the Mughal garden Nishat laid out by Asif Khan. The King of gods
Indra himself, he says, comes here to pay obeisance to Lord Shiva".
As we well know Francois Bernier, a French physician accompanied Emperor
Aurangzeb during his visit to Kashmir in 1663. In his book "Travels in
Mughal Empire" he writes while giving an account the places he visited in
Kashmir that he was "pursuing journey to a grotto full of wonderful
congelations, two days journey from Sangsafed" when he "received
intelligence that my Nawab felt very impatient and uneasy on account of my
long absence". The "grotto" he refers to is obviously the Amarnath cave as
the editor of the second edition of the English translation of the book,
Vincient A. Smith makes clear in his introduction. He writes: "The grotto
full of wonderful congelations is the Amarnath cave, where blocks of ice,
stalagmites formed by dripping water from the roof are worshipped by many
Hindus who resort here as images of Shiva….."
Another traveler, Vigne, in his book "Travels in Kashmir, Ladakh and
Iskardu" writes about the pilgrimage to the sacred spot in detail, clearly
mentioning that "the ceremony at the cave of Amarnath takes place on the
15th of the Hindoo month of Sawan" and that "not only Hindoos of every rank
and caste can be seen collecting together and traveling up the valley of
Liddar towards the celebrated cave……" Vigne visited Kashmir after his return
from Ladakh in 1840-41 and published his book in 1842. His book makes it
very clear that the Amarnath Yatra drew pilgrims from the whole of India in
his time and was undertaken with great enthusiasm.[image: Justify Full]
Again, the great Sikh Guru Arjan Dev is said to have granted land in
Amritsar for the ceremonial departure of Chari, the holy mace of Lord Shiva
which marks the beginning of the Yatra to the Holy Cave. In 1819, the year
in which the Afghan rule came to an end in Kashmir, Pandit Hardas Tiku
"founded the Chhawni Anmarnath at Ram Bagh in Srinagar where the Sadhus from
the plains assembled and where he gave them free rations for the journey,
both ways from his own private resources", as the noted Kashmiri naturalist
Pandit Samsar Chand Kaul has pointed out in his booklet titled "The
Mysterious cave of Amarnath".
Not only this, Amarnath is deeply enshrined in the Kashmiri folklore also as
stories like that of Soda Wony clearly show. One can, therefore, conclude
without any doubt that the Amaranth Yatra has been going on continuously for
centuries along the traditional route of the Lidder valley and not a century
and a half affair. May be during the Afghan rule when religious persecution
of the Kashmiri Hindus was at its height and they were not allowed to visit
their places of worship the pilgrimage was discontinued for about fifty or
sixty years and during this period the flock of some shepherd may have
strayed into the holy cave, but that in no way makes it of a recent origin
or a show window of so-called Kashmiriat.
-- 
Rashneek Kher
Wandhama Massacre-The Forgotten Human Tragedy
http://www.kashmiris-in-exile.blogspot.com
http://www.nietzschereborn.blogspot.com