CASHMERE: KASHIR THAT WAS YAAR-BAL -------Somnath Sapru------- Cashmere: Kashir That Was Yarbal CASHMERE: KASHIR THAT WAS YARBAL by Somnath Sapru PART III Publishing details Set and edited at COMPUTRON, Bangalore, INDIA. Copyright by the author 1 Cashmere: Kashir That Was Yarbal Author’s Note Why Yaar-Bal? There are three elements that effect us human beings and are vital to our survival---AIR, it is there all round us but invisible, WATER, it is there only in the form of rivers, streams and wells---without it we cannot survive and FOOD---that Mother Earth helps us to grow and harvest, so that we get the nourishment to work. Since times immemorial, most civilizations have developed and prospered on the banks of rivers. Whether it was Mohenjodaro or Harappa in India or the Egyptian civilization by the river Nile, or the Roman by the river Tiber, or the British by the river Thames, just to name a few, water had to be close by. It was the elixir of life. Only after that would prosperity follow. When wandering tribes searched for a place to set their roots, they always looked for water. Take the case of River Jhelum or Vyeth as we call it. On the river, banks were developed for use. Thus came up the waterfront or the ghat as we in India call it. If you look at the map you will see population spread not only in Srinagar city proper but other places too like Anantnag, Baramula, Sopore and other places where people have their homes either by the side of the water or near about. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How did this narrative get the name YAAR-BAL? Consulting an expert Colonal Makhan Lal Sapru on Kashmir and Kashmiri, the following emerged: “ Yaar-Bal is a compound of two words, yaar and Bal which means a place, occurs in Kashmiri words like Ahra-bal, Gandher-bal, Hazrat-bal. The possible origin of yaar and bal in the antique Kashmiri word yaar-bal are not Persian because bal does not occur in Persian and because the Persian word yaar could not hve gained currency in Kashmiri language before the 13th century AD. Before the 13th century, there had to be an old Kashmiri word for the river bank which was used as the pleasant place for strolling about. And the word used for the river bank was VIHAAR-BAL. VIHAAR is a Sanskrit word meaning to play or to roam about for amusement. With the passage of time, VIHAAR changed to VYEHAAR just as VISTAAR chaned to VYESTAAR. Later, it dropped ‘V’ sound to become YEHAAR which further rounded off into the form YAAR.” -Colonel M L Sapru ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 Cashmere: Kashir That Was Yarbal Thus, we the KASHMIRI PANDITS, THE ORIGINAL INHABITANTS OF THE KASHMIR VALLEY THAT KASHYP RISHI GAVE US, LIVED BY THE SIDE OF THE WATER FRONTS OR BY THE YAAR-BAL... KASHIR WITHOUT YAAR-BAL IS UNTHINKABLE, AND SO THE NARRATIVE ON CASHMERE OR KASHMIR OR KASHIR CANNOT BE TAKEN UP WITHOUT THE EVERPRESENT YAA-RBAL. HENCE THE NAME SOMNATH SAPRU 3 Cashmere: Kashir That Was Yarbal Contents 1. Kashyap Rishi’s Bhoomi 06 2. “Yemen Sattan Kadalan Munz”:Within These Seven Bridges 13 3. Of Things Native 21 4. The Way We Were 27 5. The Way Things Were 33 6. Lifelines 50 7. The Healing Touch 55 8. The Biscoe Age:“In All Things Be Men” 60 9. The English Era : Language Is The Key 84 10. Pandits & The Steel Frame 93 11. Limb Of Law 106 12. The maker of Shali Store 120 13. The Long And The Short Of The Story Is That Family Saga-I 125 14. Family Saga-2 :The Romance Of Durbar Move 138 15. Surnames And Nicknames 180 16. Our Icons 188 17. Our Icons In The Modern Days 196 18. Martial Pandits 213 19. What Others Say 239 20. The Bridges Of Srinagar 249 21. Gotra 264 22. Wedding Bells 269 23. Festivals 283 24. Fragrance & Nostalgia 290 25. Sikh-Pandit Ties 293 26. The Kabailies Are Coming 296 4 Cashmere: Kashir That Was Yarbal 27. Eviction Unabated 307 28. The Kashmiri Language 312 29. Urdu – Whose Mother Tongue? 316 30. Superstitions & Beliefs 322 31. Sites Of Pandit Heritage 325 32. Tomorrow Is Forever 336 Epilogue 350 APPENDICE I. SURNAMES and NICKNAMES 351 II. VOCABULARY 380 III. BATTE GUZATT: Proverbs and Sayings 388 IV. SOME BRITISH OFFICERS WHO SERVED IN KASHMIR 397 V. KARKUN – THE LONG GRAY LINE 399 VI. CHRONOLOGY 440 BIBLIOGRAPHY 444 5 Cashmere: Kashir That Was Yarbal 1 Kashyap Rishi’s Bhoomi The beautiful Valley of Kashmir, which is today witnessing blood-curdling events, caught the imagination of writers and poets as early as the 11th century, if not earlier. Kalhana, who wrote the history of Kashmir in verse around about the year 1149, has this to say: “Such is Kashmir, the country which may be conquered by the force of spiritual merit but not by armed force….where there are not baths in winter: comfortable landing places on the river banks, where the rivers being free from aquatic animals are without peril; where realizing that the land created by his father is unable to bear heat the hot-rayed sun honours it by bearing himself with softness even in summer. Learning, high dwelling- houses, saffron, iced water, grapes and the like—what is commonplace there, is difficult to secure in paradise…” Kashmir is a paradise on earth; this is how Kashmir has been described by renowned writers, both Indian and those from outside. One version has it that the name Kashmir is derived from Sanskrit meaning water and shimira meaning to drain. Geologists have confirmed that the valley was once a lake and when it dried up it became habitable. It is said that Buddhism came to Kashmir in the wake of Ashoka’s conquest in 250 B.C and it is well known that Ladakh is still Buddhist by faith. The Jammu and Kashmir state, to give it its full name, is the northern most part of India and has an area of 84,471 sq. miles. Much of the sufferings of its people are due to its extremely strategic location. The Kashmir valley is surrounded by hilly and mountainous terrain. The areas of Jammu, Poonch, Muzaffarabad, Gilgit, Baltistan and Ladakh constitute the ring of highlands that stand sentinel over the Valley and border on Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Sinkiang and Tibet parts of China. Only a few miles separate it from the territory of the USSR, the Central Asian Republics of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan being the nearest. ************************* From our folklore “In the earliest available version, the sixth or seventh century Sanskrit work, the Nilmatpurana, the floor of the Kashmir Valley, the original home of all Kashmiri Pandits, was formerly a hollow filled with the waters of a lake called Satisaras. At some remote period in pre-historic times, Jalodbhava (literally,”Water-born”), a sea-monster who lived in the lake, began to trouble the inhabitants of the surrounding area. When the sage Rishi Kashyap heard of the monster, he decided to punish him, and implored Brahma and the other Gods to help him. The Gods answered Rishi Kashyap’s prayer and came down to the lake to deal with Jalodbhava. When he refused to emerge from the lake, Lord Vishnu is said to have asked his brother, Balabhadra, to pierce the surrounding mountains and drain the lake. When the lake dried up, Jalodbhava was exposed and finally killed by Vishnu. Rishi Kashyap then peopled the land created by 6 Cashmere: Kashir That Was Yarbal the draining of the lake, the Kashmir Valley, with people of his own choice—the Kashmiris. ************************ Modern interpretation I suspect,” says Sir William Jones, “the whole fable of Kasyap and his progeny to be astronomical, and cannot but imagine that the Greek name Cassiopeia has a relation to it”. Mr. Maurice, in his “Indian Antiquities,” would identify Kasyapa with the Seth of Moses, and thinks that he was doubtless a Brahmin who flourished in the earliest ages of the world, invented the Indian system of astronomy, and formed its zodiac, himself being immortalized, though in a female form, and in a different mythology, in the Cassiopeia of our present sphere, one of the oldest of the constellations. “He also thinks him to have been one of the divine sages who, according to the Hindu fable, went with Manu (Noah) into the ark fabricated by the command of Vishnu; and adds, moreover, his opinion, that whether antediluvian or postdiluvian, he was also probably the genuine Atlas of antiquity. Referring, however, my readers for the reasons of these surmises to the work itself, I would venture to give another and not improbable origin of the name, if it came from the West at all. Kush was the son of Ham, and grandson of Noah: Gen.x.8, “Cush begat Nimrod, he began to be mighty upon the earth.” Nimrod is supposed to be identical with Belus, the beginning of whose kingdom was Babel, i.e. Babylon, whence his name and power, and probably his descendants, must have spread over different countries to the eastward. Kashmir is called Kha-che-Yul by the Bultis, or Little Tibetians, and the natives are designed by them as Kha-chhe-pa by the Gilgitis. The word Kashmir is used both for the people and the country. ***************************** Historical writing The isolation of the Kashmir Valley from the rest of India also contributed towards making Kashmir the only region of India where a tradition of historical writing is known to have existed in pre-Muslim times.