[Reader-list] Early Kashmiri Society & The Challenge of Islam-I

[Pawan Durani]

Early Kashmiri Society & The Challenge of Islam-I



Dr. S.S. Toshkhani

Prefatory

Exploring what kind a society existed in Kashmir before the advent of Islam
is a very



interesting but also a challenging task. How was it organized ? What were
its institutions, its belief systems and traditions, its values and ideals ?
To know this in full and exact detail, we have but fragmentary and scattered
sources of information available to us. Buried beneath a several kilometer
long embankment running across the Dal Lake in Srinagar are hundreds and
thousands of ancient manuscripts that could have provided us with a wealth
of evidence. But they seem to be irretrievably lost.

All is not lost though. On the basis of still extant source materials:
pioneering work of treat value has been done in the recent decades by
erudite scholars like Dr. Ved Kumari Ghai, Dr. S.C. Ray and Ajay Mitra
Shastri to prepare a coherent and connected account of ancient Kashmir’s
social and cultural life. Yet the field of investigation is so vast, and the
available evidence so limited, that there still remain large areas which are
unexplored and unlimited Furthermore, the studies- of these scholars seem to
suffer from a certain lack of perspective and orientation, based as they are
on the Western lndoiogists’ line of approach consisting of too literal an
interpretation of myth.

The immediate necessity, therefore, is for someone to carry the work of the
pioneering scholars further on, and to offer fresh perspectives and new
insights into things. It is a colossal exercise. It is extremely important
to trace the genesis and evolution of Kashmiri society from the earliest
times in view of attempts being made by some people to present the entire
pre-Islamic past of the valley as one long period of darkness. A lot of
mischief has been done by those who in the garb of historiographers are
using negativist and reductionist tactics to suppress what is true and
suggest what is false. They have mined the whole area of historical
investigation with numerous falsehoods and fact distortions. These shall,
therefore, have to be cleared from the path of our vision so that it will be
possible for us to see and place things in a clear and correct perspective.

At the outset, we must understand that when we talk of early Kashmiri
society, we do not mean thereby any particular racial or ethnic group.
Several such groups - Manvas, Nagas, Pishachas and others have come together
in some distant pre-historic past to give shape to this society.  Their
mixing and commingling is commemorated in the Nilamata Purana, a 6th or 7th
century text in Sanskrit which gives Kashmir’s own creation legend.
According to this Purana, gods intervened to reclaim the Himalayan Valley
from the waters of a primordial lake that filled it. Killing the demon who
infested the lake, they drained away the water at the request of Rishi
Kashyapa, preceptor and progenitor par excellence, who took the initiative
in populating the land thus reclaimed. But there was a hiccup. The Nagas,
resented Kashyapa’s recommendation of allowing Manavas (descendents of Manu)
cohabit with them. They had second thoughts as soon as an enraged Kashyapa
gave them the option of having to live with the “terrible” Pischachas. In
the end we find all the elements that constituted the ancient population of
Kashmir living together in a spirit of harmony and cordiality, following the
instructions of, the Naga king, Nila. These instructions, as we see, concern
performance of certain rites and ceremonies, which for the most part are
quite similar to those prescribed in other Puranas, except in case of a few
rites related to Naga worship. The Nilamata Purana is a record of their
coming together, a process which must have taken centuries of assimilation.
On its pages we see the earliest contours of a Kashmiri society beginning to
emerge.

But that is not the manner some people would like things to have been. In
their eagerness to be counted among ethno-historians, they see a bloody
ethnic strife to be at the root of it all. Presenting the episode of the
Nagas’ initial unwillingness to accommodate, let us say, Vedic Aryans, as a
gory struggle for domination a la colonial historians’ theory of Aryan
invasion, they read discord into accord and accuse “alien” Aryans to have
“annihilated” the original inhabitants of Kashmir. “The blood of Nagas flows
on the pages of the Nilamata”, shrieks one poet-turned-politician-turned
ethnologist. “Massacre most foul”, cries another, forgetting that there is
nothing in the Nilamata even remotely suggestive of any such conflict or
tension, and that it was Vishnu who gave Nagas fleeing from the wrath of
Garuda, their arch enemy, shelter on the mountains surrounding the Kashmir
Valley. After all, the Nilmata does not read like a document of war but a
document of compromise and reconciliation, of the birth of a unique
civilization on the banks of river Vitasta against the backdrop of snow clad
mountains. Besides, as we have said earlier, in that age of mass migrations
of people, no geographical boundaries were fixed, and the state just did not
exist Anyway, let us not give the feverish imagination of these people more
attention than it deserves. These are, we must know, tactics to draw
attention.

We have, however, to study closely the implications of the archaeological
explorations which suggest that the earliest inhabitants of Kashmir were the
Neolithic pit-dwellers of Burzahom, a village near Srinagar. Some Neolithic
sites have been discovered in several places in the southern parts of the
Valley also. Neolithic culture is said to have flourished there between 2300
BC and 2nd century AD. But as data available from Burzahom has not yet been
systematically studied and analyzed, the identity of its Neolithic settlers
has not been identified. Nor do we know whether they have any relations with
the people of the Nilamata age or the present inhabitants of Kashmir. We are
also not sure whether they had any social organization worth the name. To
get a clear picture of how early Kashmiris lived, thought and worked, we
have to fall back upon the Nilamata Purana and other literary sources,
including Kalhana’s Rajatarangini, Damodargupta’s Kuttanimata Kavya,
Kshemendra’s writings. Bilhana’s Vikramankadeva Charit, Somadeva’s
Kathasaritsagara, Buddhist Avadana literature, Laugakshi’s Grihyasutra,
Shaiva and Shakta Tantric literature, and stray references in other early
works. Chinese and Tibetan records including Taranatha’s history of Buddhism
in India and translations of old Buddhist texts are also of great value.
Information gleaned from these different sources can then be checked for
authenticity by relating it to archaeological evidence wherever available.

Caste in Early Kashmir:

Let us again revert to the Nilamata Purana and its reference to immigrant
Brahmanas who followed Chandradeva and settled in Kashmir. It is highly
possible that a bulk of them were from the Saraswati Valley who must have
decided to migrate to Kashmir after the legendary river changed its course
and finally dried up. There is a persistent and strong tradition among
Kashmiri Pandits that they are Saraswat Brahmins, and the presence of a
large number of words of Vedic origin in the Kashmiri language seems to
confirm it. From accounts given in the Nilamata. Rajatarangini and other
early sources, they appear to have emerged as the dominant and highly
respected social group in Kashmir, not just because they were associated
with religious rites and ceremonies, but because of their intellectual
proclivities, their natural gravitation towards cultivation of cerebral
graces. They  were intellectual people who prized learning above everything
else. And indeed it is because of their contributions that Kashmir came to
be known all over the world as a great seat of Sanskrit learning. In the
ancient texts referred to above, we see them as people “engaged in
self-study, contemplation, performance of sacrifice, penance and the study
of the Vedas and Vedangas” Respect was shown to them because they were
supposed to be “itihasvidah” and “kalavidah”, that is “knowers of history
and the connoisseurs of art. And who can provide a better proof of this than
Kalhana, the great author of Rajatarangini, and  the whole host of
chroniclers  of Kashmir who followed  him — Jonaraja and Shrivara,
Pragyabhatta  and  Shuka  ? Brahmins were also required to have a thorough
grounding  in  the six schools of philosophy, astrology and astronomy,
grammar, logic, prosody and medicine, besides religious texts. They had to
live an austere life and adhere to a high moral code. Nowhere has it been
suggested that they should be worshipped “as gods on the earth” even if they
are illiterate and ignorant. And yet all Brahmins have been equated with
priests and shown as representatives of an exploitative and oppressive
social order by historians whose only pastime is Brahmin bashing. They are
accused of appropriating the surplus in agriculture and growing rich on the
gifts given to them by others.

There is no doubt that Brahmins did hold a high position in the society, but
mainly as an intellectual and scholarly class, and not all of them adopted
priesthood as their profession. And those who did were not much respected as
they were recipients of donations and sacrificial fees and not donors. The
donor was the patron, the yajamana who hired a priest to have a religious
sacrifice or ritual performed. And anybody could be the patron under the
yajmani system - including a Brahmana.

But this we shall take up later. Suffice it to say here that the Brahmins
took up several occupations during the period under review, besides serving
as priests. They were katha-vachakas or narrators of Puranic stories,
astrologers, vaidyas or physicians, teachers, and even agriculturists. Some
of them joined the administrative service also and became councillors and
ministers. Some, like Kaihana’s own father Champaka. adopted the military
career.

What about the other castes? If Dr. S.C.Ray is to be believed, there were no
intermediate castes in Kashmir, not even Shudras. “Though the conception of
the population as consisting of the four traditional castes was not
altogether unknown”, he writes, “there was no such caste as Kshatriya,
Vaishya and Shudra in early Kashmir”. While he describes Brahmanas as
“definitely the more privileged and honoured caste” , he mentions Nishadas,
Kiratas, Dombas, Shvapakas and Chandalas as the lower castes. Dr. Ray’s view
appears to be only partiality true. The Nishadas the Kiratas, the Dombas
etc. were no doubt there, but the Kshatriyas and the Vaishyas were not
altogether absent, though they have not been mentioned in that detail. The
Nilamata describes the functions of all the four traditional castes and says
that representatives of all the four participated in the king’s coronation.
The Rajatarangini too makes specific references to Kshatriyas as well as
Vaishyas in the context of Kashmir’s ancient history. There is no reference
in it of any tension between the castes, nor anything like the priest - king
collusion to maintain hegemony over others. The Brahmanas, however, are
often shown as resorting to prayopavesha or hunger-strike to get their
demands accepted by the king. The confrontation between King Jayapida and
the Brahmanas of Tulamula is a well known example.

There may not be many direct references to Vaishyas as such in Rajatarangani
and other early works, but Kalhana does mention the emergence of a rich and
prosperous merchant class. With the opening of overland trade routes during
Kanishka’s

(From Page 16)

rule, and perhaps,, earlier, trade and commerce with foreign countries
appears to have received a boost. Commercial activity must have been
particularly brisk

during the rule of the Karkotas Extensive conquests by kings like
Lalitaditya must have opened vast markets for Kashmiri goods in neighbouring
territories. The Valley was full of wealthy merchants, says Kalahana, with
some of them living in palatial buildings excelling the king’s palace.
Damodargupta’s reference to shreshthin and vanikas also indicates the
existence of a rich and prosperous trading community during his time,
belonging probably to the Vaishya caste. Many among the upward mobile
artisan classes in the Valley too must have belonged to this community.

As for the Shudras, Nilamata counts the karmajivin (workers) and shilpis
(artisans) as Shudras - that is, the weavers, carpenters, goldsmiths,
silversmiths, blacksmiths, leather-tanners and potters. They were treated
with respect in the society and were among those who exchanged gifts with
the “higher varnas” during the Mahimana celebrations, says Dr. Ved Kumari.
The servants serving in the houses of the higher castes too belonged to the
caste. They were treated with sympathy and were included in the list of the
persons “in whose company the householder feasted and enjoyed”. The very
fact, writes Dr. Ved Kumari, that the Nilmata describes the Shudras as
taking part in the coronation ceremony of the king, shows that they were not
debased.

There were people belonging to mixed castes also like Suta, Magadha and
Vandi who lived by singing the paeans of heroes and other famous persons.

Dr. S.C.Ray counts the Nishadas, Kiratas, Dombas etc. among the low caste
people but stops short of calling them Shudras. The Nishadas, who lived by
hunting and fishing, are also described as boatsmen in the Rajatarangim. The
Kiratas, who were hunters and animal trappers, were a forest dwelling tribe
belonging to the Tibeto-Burman racial stock. The Dombas have been described
in the Rajatarangim in association with the Chandalas as huntsmen belonging
to the menial class. Kalhana calls them “Shvapakas” or “dog-eating people'.
But they have also been shown as good musicians who made quite a profession
of their singing and dancing. Kalhana mentions the story of a Domba singer
Ranga whose daughters gave a performance in the glittering royal assembly
hall of Chakravarman and were included in the king’s seraglio, one of them
becoming the chief queen much to the chagrin of others . Consequently,
Dombas became the favourites of the king and wielded much influence at his
court as councillors. Chandalas,- were bravos and fierce fighters. They
worked as executioners and were also employed as the king’s watchmen.

The division of early Kashmiri society into four castes and their sub-castes
was only notional In actual fact, the caste-system was never rigid in
Kashmir, or of a tyrannical character. Intermarriages between various castes
were not uncommon, as we learn from works like the Katha-sarit-sagara. It is
not, therefore relevant to talk of social-organization in terms or caste so
far as at least Kashmir is concerned. The society in Kashmir was actually
divided along occupational or socio-economic lines. Writes Dr.  S.C.Ray  :
“Three distinct classes of people evolved, along with their several
sub-divisions,   on   the   basis   of  three   principle   methods   of
production (agriculture, industry and trade)”. While agriculturists
constituted the bulk of these occupational classes, artisans and merchants
too had important roles to play in the society.

Though agriculture formed the mainstay of the economy, it is not known
whether the cultivators in ancient Kashmir were the owners of the lands they
tilled or mere tenants of the actual landlords. In all probability, they had
a certain share in the crop harvested by them, but its distribution lay
mainly in the lands of the king and the feudal lords. The fact that
cultivators participated in the joyful festivals related to agriculture
during the Nilamata age shows that they were by and large owners of the
lands tilled by them.

But around the 8th century, a new class of feudal landlords known as the
Damaras appeared on the scene and started gaming control of agriculturist
economy. We do not hear of them in the Nilamata, nor in the first three
books of the Rajatarangini till we find Lalitaditya, Kashmir’s most powerful
king, warning his successors not to leave cultivators of the land with more
than what they require “for their bare sustenance and the tillage of the
land”. Otherwise, he says ‘they would become in a single year very
formidable Damaras and strong enough to neglect the commands of the commands
of the kings”. And then we learn that they -were agriculturists who, owned
large chunks of land. Lalitaditva’s warning appears to have had no effect,
for we see the Damaras becoming more and more wealthy and gaming more and
more strength   By the time” the Lohara dynasty ascended the throne,, they
had become so rich and powerful that they began to interfere in the affairs
of the State. Living in fortified residences, they raised large private
armies and established their strongholds all over Kashmir   Such was their
power and influence that they were able to extend their stranglehold over
the administration, becoming virtual king-makers, enthroning or dethroning
anyone according to their wish. In the wars of succession that became
endemic after the 10th century, we find them supporting one claimant to the
throne or the other, their support often proving to be the deciding factor.
This is what happened  in the internecine conflicts between Ananta and
Kalasha and Kalasha and Marsha, each of them vying for their help. Powerful
rulers like Didda, Ananta, Kalasha and Jayasimha used every stratagem to
curb them, including the use of military force, but the Damaras continued to
retain their nuisance value. Dr. S.C.Ray attributes the rise and growth of
the Damaras not only to the “weakness of the royal authority” and “the
constant wars of succession”, but also to “the economic structure of the
society”’’, which because of increasing dependence on agricultural lands for
revenue proved helpful to the rise of the landed aristocracy. As their
wealth and influence increased, the Damaras came to be looked upon with
respect in the society, with royal families establishing even matrimonial
relations with them.

Merchants formed another important and influential section of the society.
We have already referred to their rise while talking of the Vaishyas.
Kalhana shows them living in great affluence in palatial residences more
magnificent than even the king’s palace Kashmir’s trade and commercial ties
with the neighbouring regions appear to have been very strong right from the
Kushana period or even earlier and by the time the Karkotas rose to power,
an extensive export market became available for Kashmiri goods, which
presumably included raw wool and woollen fabrics, hides and skins and
leather articles, fruits, and most important of all, saffron. Among the
articles of imports salt seemed to be the most important Silk, which seems
to have been imported from the neighbouring China, vermilion, asfoetida and
several other spices, and coral, imported possibly from the western regions,
were possibly the other-important items. With this the wealthy merchant
class gained ascendance in the society We can see in Damodaragupta’s
kuttanimata Kavya. shresihm and vanikus living in great luxury and
patronising theatre-houses. However their importance began to decline when
the overland trade routes were closed and trade became more of an
internalized affair. They even began to resort to deceitful means for making
quick money, as Kalhana and Kshemendra seem to suggest.

While agricultural and trading communities were very important elements in
the society from the socio-economic point of view, the artisan classes also
witnessed a significant growth in early Kashmir. These included the weavers
and the jewellers, metal casters and image-makers, potters and carpenters,
blacksmiths and leather tanners etc. Although their sphere of activity was
quite wide, there were no corporate or traders guilds in Kashmir as in other
parts of India.

There were also occupational communities who served the society in various
other ways. Among these could be counted the wrestlers, the actors, the
dancers, the physicians, the shepherds, the gardeners and also the
courtesans who plied the world’s oldest trade These people were not directly
connected with the production of wealth, but nonetheless had their own place
in the society.

Yet another class, which distinguished itself from all the classes mentioned
above was that of the administrators. It consisted of the nobility and the
bureaucracy As Dr. S.C. Ray has pointed out, the highest civil and military
officials were drawn from the nobility, and these included the sarvadiikara
(also called dhi-sachiva) or prime minister, stiehiva or minister, the
mandalesha or governor and the kantpanes ha or commander-in-chief. Being
important officers of the State, the nobility drew lame salaries from the
royal treasury.

The bureaucracy assisted them in running the general administration of the
State It consisted of all kinds of officials, both high and low, all of them
being known by the general coveivterm “”Kayastha”, which did not denote any
particular caste. Members of and caste or class could be recruited as
Kayasthas, including the Brahmanas. Both Kalhana and Kshemendra have Hayed
them for their greed and for their cruel methods of exacting revenue and
taxes from the people. Kshemendra gives a long list of their designations in
his works Narmamala and Samaya Matrika . Describing them as an exploitative
and oppressive class, he exposes their fraudulent ways and bungling, and
accuses them of forgery, misappropriation and embezzlement.  Kalhana too
speaks about them in the same vein. The common man appears to have been
squeezed between the tyrannical Damaras and the oppressive and greedy
Kayasthas, though not all Kayasthas could have been like that.

One of the most significant, and surprising, features of the early Kashmiri
society was the freedom that women enjoyed. The picture one gets of their
life from various literary sources is not that of servitude or deprivation
but of happy participation in different spheres of human activity. There was
no attempt to marginalise them or decultunse their personality, as was being
done in other contemporary societies elsewhere in the world. Though under
the protective umbrella of the family, they occupied a pivotal place in
social life and moved about with unfettered freedom. Undoubtedly, the
society was patriarchal, but there was no restriction on the movement of
women, nor were any irrational curbs imposed on their activity In the age of
Nilamata and the centuries that followed, female seclusion was something
unknown in Kashmir till Islam made its advent. Participating joyfully in the
numerous festivals prescribed in the Nilamata, they would go to the gardens
in the company of their menfolk without any inhibition or tear oi
approbation. Poi instance, during the hamanjan utsava, the would freel)
sport with men under the flower-laden boughs of the Iramanjari shrubs,
exchanging garlands of flowers with men in a spirit of gay abandon ‘ Or go
to the fruit gardens on the Ashokikash.ta.ini clay to worship fruit-beanng
trees”’. Such was the spirit of the times that during the Shravani Utsava.
young maidens were enjoined to go and enjoy water sports V Yet another
seasonal-festival was Knshyarambha when peasant women would accompany their
menfolk to the “open fields of nature for ceremonial ploughing of the soil
and sowing of seeds”. It was a month long festival celebrated amidst much
singing cind dancing While these outdoor festivals showed that women in
these limes were in no way confined to the four walls of their homes, there
were numerous indoor festivals too. For instance, during the Kaumudi
Mahotsava or the festival of the Full Moon, women would sit beside the
sacred fire with their husbands and children, watching the beauty of the
moonlit night”.  Even servants were allowed to participate in such
festivals.

Source: Kashmir Sentinel


Dr. Shashishekhar Toshkhani

Dr. S.S. Toshkhani is a renowned scholar of India and belongs to a great
intellectual family of Kashmir. His father late Prof. S.K. Toshkhani was a
legendary scholar of Kashmir's literature, language and culture. Dr.
Toshkhani is a poet, linguist, writer and thinker. He has contributed
substantially to Kashmiri heritage and carried out modern research in
various fields of Kashmiri literature, history, religion, art and social
science in general. He is a member of the research committee of Kashmiri
Education, Culture and Science Society. He is conducting research on Bhakti
tradition in Kashmiri Poetry as a Senior Fellow (on a fellowship from the
Ministry of Culture) and on rituals and visual arts of Kashmir at the Indira
Gandhi National Centre for the Arts. He has been associated in many leading
seminars conducted by Kashmir Education, Culture and Science Society. Dr.
Toshkhani, therefore, represents a great tradition of scholarship of Kashmir
and Kashmiri Pandits.
URL: http://ikashmir.net/sstoshkhani/