Pandit Marriage, 1922

The bridegroom, aged 14, stands in the centre, priests are sitting in front. Pictures of various gods and goddesses lie on the ground.

Photograph by Pandit Vishwanath.

There’s a good chance that the photo depicts the thread ceremony of Pandits or Yagnopavit. It’s the sahibaan, the tent, in the background that I found interesting.

Found it in: ‘Kashmir in Sunlight & Shade: a Description of the Beauties of the Country, the Life, Habits and Humour of its Inhabitants, and an Account of the Gradual but Steady Rebuilding of a Once Down-trodden People’  by Cecil Earle Tyndale-Biscoe (1922).

Pandit Woman by Pandit Vishwanath, 1922

Kashmir women do not have a working dress. This one has been squatting on a filthy bank cleaning her greasy pots with mud whilst wearing all her gold and silver and precious stones. She has no trinket box at home nor any place to store anything, so besides wearing all her clothes and valuables she has both pockets full, and tucked into her sash a handkerchief, knife, comb and snuff-box, and in the fold of her sleeves snuff and sugar in screws of paper, a needle and cotton and various other things.

The writer must have caught hold of her and given her a good shake and out must have tumbled all her possessions. A needle, a knife, a snuff-box. From the description, I have heard stories about snuff boxes; practice of cleaning pots with mud continued well into the 90s.  And then slowly mud was replaced by Nirma.

Photo by Pandit Vishwanath, a student of Biscoe and the first Kashmiri photographer.Found it in the book ‘Kashmir in Sunlight & Shade: a Description of the Beauties of the Country, the Life, Habits and Humour of its Inhabitants, and an Account of the Gradual but Steady Rebuilding of a Once Down-trodden People’ (1922) by Cecil Earle Tyndale-Biscoe.

The thing that really interested me in the photograph is her footware. Must be the famous Pulhor [ recent photo] woven from leaves of Iris ( Krishm in Kashmiri ).

(I suspected it) Turns out  she is wearing Krav or wooden sandals.
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Panditanis


With graceful steps, erect and slow
Adown the stone-built, broken stair
The panditanis daily go
And on their head help high they bear

Bright vessels, which they stoop fill
Beneath the bridge’s wooden pier:
In pools of clouded amber still
Which gurgle deep and glowing here.

Their movements of unconscious grace
Glint in the Jhelum’s flowing stream
Where rich hues shimmering interlace
And in the glancing ripples gleam,

Then with their slender rounded arms
They poise the shining lotas high,
Ot bashful, with half feigned alarms
Draw close their veils with gesture shy.

Bedecked by jewels quaint of form
In pherans robed, whose soft folds show
Tints dyed by rays of sunset warm
Flame, crimson, orange, rose aglow!

With you gay tulips they compare
Which on these grass-grown house-tops blow:
What types for artist’s brush more fair
Does all Srinagar’s city know?

~ Muriel A.E. Brown
Chenar Leaves: Poems of Kashmir (1921)
Muriel Agnes Eleanora Talbot Brown was the daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Adelbert Cecil Talbot, Resident, Kashmir 1896- 1900. And first wife of Percy Brown, art historian famous for his work on History of Indian Architecture ( Buddhist and Hindu, 1942 ).

 Another one of her poems. 

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Photographs of Kashmir, 1921

Here are some old photographs of Kashmir from the book ‘Topee and turban, or, Here and there in India’  (1921) by Newell, H. A. (Herbert Andrews, b. 1869). Photographs are by a Sialkot based photographer named R.E. Shorter.

Photograph of the Chenar Bagh on the Dal Canal at Srinagar
Third Bridge on Jehlum – Fateh Kadal. Can see Hari Parbat in the background.

Fishing in Dal
Kralyar Bank
View of Nanga Parbat from Rupla Nallah
Panjitarni on route to Amarnath
Shalimar Bagh

Old Photograph of Pandit Woman, 1921

Found this incredible rare old photograph of Kashmiri pandit woman in a travelogue ‘Topee and turban, or, Here and there in India’  (1921) by Newell, H. A. (Herbert Andrews, b. 1869 ). The photograph by R.E. Shorter was used as the frontispiece for this book.. 

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Bedecked by jewels quaint of form
In pherans robed, whose soft folds show
Tints dyed by rays of sunset warm
Flame, crimson, orange, rose aglow!

– lines from poem ‘Panditanis’ by Muriel A.E. Brown
(Chenar Leaves: Poems of Kashmir, 1921)

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I have previously posted old photographs of Kashmiri Pandit women Here and Here

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Update [Thanks to Avi Raina]

The tight bracelet around the neck was known as ‘Tulsi’ and long teethy necklace was known as ‘Chapkali’.

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Teenk’pour

Gulmarg

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Picked up: “Tankipora or Teenk’pour  near old Secretariat in Srinagar. A place where you could get coin currency in exchange of  cash. And it had been like that, a place to get smaller change, for generations. The place gets its name from ‘Teenk'” or ‘Tanki’ of  the kind issued by Emperor Akbar. Tanki were the copper coin  issued by Akbar from his Ahmadabad, Agra, Kabul, and Lahore mints. System: 10 Tanki (each one weighing 4.15 gram )  = 1 Tanka (230.45 gram)

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He got his first salary – Rs 10. But sadly for him they gave him a ten rupees note. He was absolutely embarrassed. ‘How can I hand just this single note to mother? It seems nothing. She would be dejected.’  So he hit upon an idea. He went to Teenk’pour and changed the ten rupee note for 10 paisa coins. Then he went back home and handed over a full jangling bag of coins to his mother. ‘Son, they pay you so much salary!  May you prosper more! May you be an afsar soon! Good bless! Urzu! Urzu!’ Mother was happy.

Illustrated Kashmir, 1870

Found these in ‘Letters from India and Kashmir’ by J. Duguid, 1870. [The illustrations are by MR. H. R. ROBERTSON, and engraved by MR. W. J. PALM KB, principally from the writer’s Sketches.]

View from Shankarachary . Can’t take camera up the hill these days.

If you take the road to Srinagar, a somewhat similar scene will greet you welcome.
Another familiar scene from Gulmarg. Godawalla and his Goda.
Familiar sound. Panic of Murgies.
Shawl-Wallas
Sheer Chai time.
Woman
Manasbal
On Sind river. Believed at once time to be the longest bridge ever in Kashmir having twelve arches.
Suspension bridge at Uri.

Martand as described by Sir Alexander Cunningham

 I  mentioned writings of Alexander Cunningham in a previous post about Pandav lar’rey (House of Pandas, as Martand temple was common known among Pandits).

British archaeologist Alexander Cunningham (1814-93), as a young British Army Engineer officer was stationed in Kashmir after the first Sikh War of 1845-1846. In November 1847, he measured and studied most of the ancient structures that existed in Kashmir. Because of his pioneering work he came to be known as the father of Indian Archaeology.

I recently came across some more extracts from his work ‘An Essay on the Arian Order of Architecture, as exhibited in the Temples of Kashmir (1848) ‘ while reading ‘Letters from India and Kashmir’ by J. Duguid, 1870. Here are the extracts describing Martand temple and its illustrations from the book:

From Shadipore by water, passing through Srinuggur, a three days’ journey brings you to Islamabad, near which are the ruins of Marttand. A series of steppes, called karayas, are a feature in the conformation of the valley, which is believed by competent judges to have once been a lake, and these table-lands its surrounding shores. The slow results of time, or a sudden convulsion of nature, forced a passage for the waters through the Baramula pass, and thus rapidly, or gradually, drained it of all but the eternal springs, sources of its existing lakes and rivers. In after periods of those remote ages when Kashmir flourished, these places became favourite sites for the erection of temples, the most celebrated of which, both in extent and splendour, was that of Marttand, dedicated to the sun. Instead of my incomplete description I now insert that of General (then Captain) Cunningham in his work on ” The Arian Order of Architecture”  :-

” The temple consists of one lofty central edifice with a small detached wing on each side of the entrance, the whole standing in a large quadrangle surrounded by a colonnade of fluted pillars, with intervening trefoil-headed recesses. The central building is 63 feet in length, by 36 feet in width at the eastern end, and only 27 feet at the western or entrance end.

” It contains three distinct chambers, of which the outermost one, named Arddha Mandapa, or the half-temple, answering to the front porch of the classical fanes, is 18 feet square. The middle one, called Antarala, or mid-temple, corresponding to the pronaos of the Greek, is 18 feet by 4 1/2 ; and the innermost one, named Oorbha Griho, or ” womb of the edifice,” the naos of the Greeks, and the cella of the Romans, is 18 feet by 3 1/2.

” The first and middle chambers are decorated, bat the inner is perfectly plain and closed on three sides. The walls are 9 feet thick, and its entrance-chamber only 4 1/2 feet thick, being respectively one-half and one-fourth of the interior width of the building.

” On each side of the porch, flush with the entrance wall to the westward, and with the outer walls, the northward and southward, is a detached building or wing, 18 feet long by 13 1/2 broad, with a passage 4 1/2 feet wide, between it and the wall of the entrance chamber.

” The width of the passage between these wings being exactly one-third of that of the wing itself, the roof which covered the two would have been an exact square, the form required as the basis of the pyramidal roof of the Kashmerian architecture.

” Within, the chamber had a doorway at each side, covered by a pediment with a trefoil-headed niche, containing a bust of the Hindu triad.

” This representation was itself only another symbol of the Sun, who was Brahma, or the Creator, at morn, Vishnu, or the Preserver, at noon, Siva, or the Destroyer, at even.

” The chamber was lighted during the day by semicircular openings over the closed doorways on the three sides, but in the evening, as the entrance was to the westward, the image of the
glorious sun was illumined by his own setting beams.

” The temple is enclosed by a pillared quadrangle 220 feet in length by 142 feet in breadth, containing 84 fluted columns. This number the Chourasi (84) of the Hindus is especially emblematic of the sun, as it is the multiple of the twelve mansions of the ecliptic (typified by 12 spokes in his chariot -wheel) through which he is carried by his seven steeds in one year ; or it is the product of his seven rays multiplied by the twelve signs of the Zodiac. The 84 pillars are therefore most probably intended for that number of solar rays. Thus, even the colonnade is made typical of the deity to whom the temple is consecrated.

” It overlooks the finest view in Kashmir, and perhaps in the known world. Beneath it lies the Paradise of the East, with its sacred streams and cedarn glens, its brown orchards and green fields, surrounded on all sides by vast snowy mountains, whose lofty peaks seem to smile upon the beautiful valley below. The vast extent of the scene makes it sublime, for this magnificent view of Kashmir is no pretty peep into a half-mile glen ; but the full display of a valley 60 miles in breadth, and upwards of 100 miles in length, the whole of which lies beneath the ken of the wonderful Marttand.”

A stream of water passed through the quadrangle, and is supposed to have been filled on ceremonial occasions. From General Cunningham’s description, Mr. Sulmann, an artist who has given much attention to the study of Indian architecture, produced the accompanying drawing, which may very closely represent the temple in its former glory.

Martand, as it must have been

From Marttand a short walk leads to the sacred springs and grove of Barwun on the plain at the base of the karaya. Seated near the tank a group of Hindoos surrounded a calf, which a priest, grasping the tail, poured water over, and prayed. He was consecrating it, to become a sacred bull in after-life. This operation completed, the calf walked off, and the priest with the devotees knelt beside the water. Before them was a tin platter of roasted maize, and continuing to drone in a loud voice not unlike a presbyterian preacher, they threw handfuls of the corn into the water, at which the fish rose on all sides. But when the prayer was ended and the remainder of the corn was thrown in at once, a hill of fish rushed at it, many supported above the water by the shoal of their companions below.

” Angler, wouldst thou be guiltless ? then forbear, For these are sacred fishes that swim here.”

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Read complete An Essay on the Arian Order of Architecture, as exhibited in the Temples of Kashmir (1848) here:

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