Hinduism and Buddhism in Kashmir
During ancient and medieval period, Kashmir has been an
important centre for the development of a Hindu-Buddhist syncretism, in
which Madhyamaka and Yogachara were
blended with Shaivism and Advaita
Vedanta. The Buddhist Mauryanemperor Ashoka is
often credited with having founded the old capital of Kashmir, Shrinagari, now
ruins on the outskirts of modern Srinagar.
Kashmir was long to be a stronghold of Buddhism. As a Buddhist seat
of learning, the Sarvastivadaschool
strongly influenced Kashmir. East and Central Asian Buddhist monks are recorded as having visited the
kingdom. In the late 4th century CE, the famous Kuchanese monk Kumārajīva,
born to an Indian noble family, studied Dīrghāgama and
Madhyāgama in Kashmir under Bandhudatta. He later became a prolific translator
who helped take Buddhism to China. His mother Jīva is thought to have retired
to Kashmir. Vimalākṣa, a Sarvāstivādan Buddhist monk, travelled from Kashmir to
Kucha and there instructed Kumārajīva in the Vinayapiṭaka.
Karkoṭa
Empire (625 CE – 885 CE) was a powerful Hindu
empire, which originated in the region of Kashmir.[14] It
was founded by Durlabhvardhana during the lifetime of Harsha.
The dynasty marked the rise of Kashmir as a power in South Asia. Avanti
Varman ascended the throne of Kashmir on 855
CE, establishing the Utpala dynasty and
ending the rule of Karkoṭa dynasty.
According to tradition, Adi Shankara visited
the pre-existing Sarvajñapīṭha (Sharada
Peeth) in Kashmir in the late 8th century or early 9th century CE.
The Madhaviya Shankaravijayam states this temple had
four doors for scholars from the four cardinal directions. The southern door of
Sarvajna Pitha was opened by Adi
Shankara.According to tradition, Adi Shankara opened the southern
door by defeating in debate all the scholars there in all the various
scholastic disciplines such as Mīmāṃsā, Vedanta and
other branches of Hindu philosophy; he
ascended the throne of Transcendent wisdom of that temple.
Abhinavagupta (c.
950–1020 CE) was one of India's greatest philosophers, mystics and aestheticians. He
was also considered an important musician, poet, dramatist, exegete,
theologian, and logician –
a polymathic personality
who exercised strong influences on Indian culture.[23][24] He
was born in the Kashmir Valley[25] in
a family of scholars and mystics and studied all the schools of philosophy and
art of his time under the guidance of as many as fifteen (or more) teachers
and gurus. In his long life he completed over 35
works, the largest and most famous of which is Tantrāloka,
an encyclopaedic treatise on all the philosophical and practical aspects
of Trika and Kaula (known
today as Kashmir Shaivism).
Another one of his very important contributions was in the field of philosophy
of aesthetics with his famous Abhinavabhāratī commentary
of Nāṭyaśāstra of Bharata
Muni.
In the 10th century Mokshopaya or Moksopaya
Shastra, a philosophical text on salvation for non-ascetics (moksa-upaya:
'means to release'), was written on the Pradyumna hill in Srinagar.[28][29] It
has the form of a public sermon and claims human authorship and contains about
30,000 shloka's
(making it longer than the Ramayana).
The main part of the text forms a dialogue between Vashistha and Rama, interchanged with numerous short stories and anecdotes to
illustrate the content. This text was later (11th to the 14th century CE)
expanded and vedanticised, which
resulted in the Yoga Vasistha.
Queen Kota Rani was
medieval Hindu ruler of Kashmir, ruling until 1339. She was a notable ruler who
is often credited for saving Srinagar city from frequent floods by getting a
canal constructed, named after her "Kutte
Kol". This canal receives water from Jhelum River at
the entry point of city and again merges with Jhelum river beyond the city
limits.
Muslim rule
Shah Mir Dynasty
Shams-ud-Din Shah Mir (reigned 1339–42)
was the first Muslim ruler
of Kashmir and founder of the Shah
Mir dynasty. Kashmiri historian Jonaraja,
in his Dvitīyā Rājataraṅginī mentioned
Shah Mir was from Swat, and
his ancestors were Kshatriya, who
converted to Islam.
Shāh Mīr arrived in Kashmir in 1313, along with his
family, during the reign of Sūhadeva (1301–20), whose service he entered. In
subsequent years, through his tact and ability, Shāh Mīr rose to prominence and
became one of the important personalities of the time. Later, after the death
in 1338 of Udayanadeva, the brother of Sūhadeva, he was able to assume the
kingship himself and thus laid the foundation of permanent Muslim rule in
Kashmir. Dissensions among the ruling classes and foreign invasions were the
two main factors which contributed towards the establishment of Muslim rule in
Kashmir.
Rinchan,
from Ladakh,
and Lankar Chak, from Dard territory
near Gilgit,
came to Kashmir and played a notable role in the subsequent political history
of the Valley. All the three men were granted Jagirs (feudatory
estates) by the King. Rinchanbecame the ruler of
Kashmir for three years. Shah Mir was the first ruler of Shah Mir dynasty,
which had established in 1339 CE. Muslim ulama, such as Mir
Sayyid Ali Hamadani, arrived from Central Asia to proselytize in
Kashmir and their efforts converted thousands of Kashmiris to Islam and
Hamadani's son also convinced Sikander Butshikan to
enforce Islamic law. By the late 1400s most Kashmiris had accepted Islam.
Mughal rule
The Mughal padishah (emperor) Akbar conquered Kashmir, taking advantage of
Kashmir's internal Sunni-Shia divisions,[40] and
thus ended indigenous Kashmiri Muslim rule. Akbar added it in 1586
to Kabul
Subah, but Shah Jahan carved
it out as a separate subah (imperial top-level province) with seat at Srinagar.
Afghan rule
The Afghan Durrani
dynasty's Durrani Empire controlled
Kashmir from 1751, when weakling 15th Mughal padshah (emperor) Ahmad
Shah Bahadur's viceroy Muin-ul-Mulk was defeated and
reinstated by the Durrani founder Ahmad
Shah Durrani (who conquered, roughly, modern day
Afghanistan and Pakistan from the Mughals and local rulers), until the 1820
Sikh triumph. The Afghan rulers brutally repressed Kashmiris of all faiths
(according to Kashmiri historians).
Sikh rule
In 1819, the Kashmir
Valley passed from the control of the Durrani
Empire of Afghanistan to
the conquering armies of the Sikhs under Ranjit
Singh of the Punjab,
thus ending four centuries of Muslim rule
under the Mughals and
the Afghan regime.
As the Kashmiris had suffered under the Afghans, they initially welcomed the
new Sikh rulers.[43] However,
the Sikh governors turned out to be hard taskmasters, and Sikh rule was
generally considered oppressive, protected perhaps by the remoteness of
Kashmir from the capital of the Sikh Empire in Lahore. The Sikhs enacted a
number of anti-Muslim laws,[ which included handing out death
sentences for cow slaughter, closing down the Jamia Masjid in
Srinagar, and banning the adhan, the
public Muslim call to prayer. Kashmir had also now begun to attract European
visitors, several of whom wrote of the abject poverty of the vast Muslim
peasantry and of the exorbitant taxes under the Sikhs. High taxes, according to
some contemporary accounts, had depopulated large tracts of the countryside,
allowing only one-sixteenth of the cultivable land to be cultivated.Many
Kashmiri peasants migrated to the plains of the Punjab.[47] However,
after a famine in 1832, the Sikhs reduced the land tax to half the produce of
the land and also began to offer interest-free loans to farmers; Kashmir became
the second highest revenue earner for the Sikh Empire.[45] During
this time Kashmiri shawls became
known worldwide, attracting many buyers, especially in the West.
The state
of Jammu, which had been on the ascendant after the
decline of the Mughal Empire, came under the sway of the Sikhs in 1770. Further
in 1808, it was fully conquered by Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Gulab Singh, then a
youngster in the House of Jammu, enrolled in the Sikh troops and, by
distinguishing himself in campaigns, gradually rose in power and influence. In
1822, he was anointed as the Raja of Jammu. Along with his able
general Zorawar Singh Kahluria, he
conquered and subdued Rajouri (1821), Kishtwar (1821),
Suru valley and Kargil (1835), Ladakh (1834–1840),
and Baltistan (1840),
thereby surrounding the Kashmir
Valley. He became a wealthy and influential noble
in the Sikh court.
In the last days of 1948, a ceasefire was
agreed under UN auspices. However, since the referendum demanded by
the UN was never conducted, relations between India and Pakistan soured, and
eventually led to two more wars over Kashmir in 1965 and 1999.
India has control of about half the area of the former princely state of Jammu
and Kashmir, while Pakistan controls a third of the region, the Northern
Areas and Kashmir. According to Encyclopaedia Britannica,
"Although there was a clear Muslim majority in Kashmir before the 1947
partition and its economic, cultural, and geographic contiguity with the
Muslim-majority area of the Punjab (in Pakistan) could be convincingly
demonstrated, the political developments during and after the partition
resulted in a division of the region. Pakistan was left with territory that,
although basically Muslim in character, was thinly populated, relatively
inaccessible, and economically underdeveloped. The largest Muslim group,
situated in the Valley of Kashmir and estimated to number more than half the
population of the entire region, lay in Indian-administered territory, with its
former outlets via the Jhelum valley route blocked."
Sino-Indian War
In 1962,
troops from the People's Republic of China and India
clashed in territory claimed by both. China won a swift victory in the war,
resulting in Chinese annexation of the region they call Aksai Chin and
which has continued since then. Another smaller area, the Trans-Karakoram,
was demarcated as the Line of
Control (LOC) between China and Pakistan, although some of the
territory on the Chinese side is claimed by India to be part of Kashmir. The
line that separates India from China in this region is known as the "Line of Actual Control".
Tourism trouble in Kashmir
Tourists were
targeted during the early days and the peak of militancy in Kashmir. In 1995,
six Western tourists were kidnapped out of whom one was beheaded and four shot
dead. Several other tourists were killed in various grenade attacks. But no
tourist has been attacked by stone-pelting mobs, since street violence became a
cult in the late 2000s.Before the five-month long violence began last year in July, following the killing of Burhan Wani, 38 incoming and outgoing flights were running daily. "Even though flights are full, half of the passengers are Kashmiris because they have been traveling a lot back and forth. Fatigue due to frequent disruptions and protests in Kashmir after a while becomes unbearable.
Kashmir Dispute
Born from the partition of India in 1947,
the conflict in Kashmir continues today, involving three
nuclear powers - China, India and Pakistan - who are in dispute over the
territory.
In
modern world the peace of the world is hijacked by some issues including
Kashmir Issue. The word community has tried to resolve many such issues but the
fate of Kashmir is left to be resolved mutually by India and Pakistan. Kashmir
is located in the north and north east of Pakistan sharing its borders with
Afghanistan, China and India.
In 18th century Kashmir was rolled by Pashtoon empire,
In 1819 by Ranjit Singh. In 1846 Kashmir was seeded by east India Company and
was solved to Gulab Singh.
Kashmir
was ruled by Hindu Mahrajas from 1846to 1947. in 1947 British India was divided
on the principle. At
Muslim majority regions go to the Pakistan and rest to India. The district
Gurdaspur was given to India which was a Muslim majority region and was the
only road link from India to Kashmir Valley. This produced and armed conflict
between Kashmiri Muslims and Maharaja Forces. Pakistani tribal’s men from Dir
entered to Kashmir to support. Mahraja asked the Indian forces for help. The
Maharaja fled to Jammu Kashmir on 25th October
1947. Maharaja signed a commitment of military accession with Indian Government
for the exchange of military support which was accepted by Mount Batten on the
behalf of British Crown.
The
Indian Government and Mountbatten announced that after to restoration of law
and order the issue sho0uld be resolved on the wished of peoples. Jawaharlal
Nehru decided that a referendum will be held under the supervision of U.N, and
we want it to be a fair and just reference to the people. But since till that
promise has not fulfilled by Indian Government. War between Indian and Pakistan
over Kashmir started in 1947-48. India brought the Kashmir Issue to the U.N
secretary council. The U.N council passed resolution on 21st April, 1948. The resolution imposed an
immediate seize fire and called on Pakistan to withdraw all the military forces
and would have no say in Kashmir politics and India would retain a minimum
military presence and the issue should be resolved through a democratic method
conducted by U.N.
Both
Pakistan and India did not follow the resolution, four other resolutions were
passed by U N revising the term of the resolution of 1948, then proposals was
given by UN, which was accepted by Pakistan but refused by India. Under the
term of Simla agreement the ceasefire line was renamed as line of control in
1972.India claimed the conquered area as apart of its state and line of control
as border, but Pakistan consistently refused to accept line of control as
border.
The
Kashmiri are fighting for their independence since 1989 against Indian forces
.the Indian government blaming Pakistan involved in Kashmir supporting armed
forces against India.
The
Kashmir is divided into the hands of Pakistan and India. The people of
Indian-Kashmir are fighting to get their self representation as an independent
state, while the part with Pakistan is enjoying its separate state position.
The
Pakistan administrated part has the position of a free state as they have their
own president and administration, but highly influenced by Pakistan. Gilgit
Baltistan got the position of 5th province
on the wishes of the people of Gilgit.
The Controversy regarding
Gilgit baltistan 5th Province
During the whole
process, Azad Kashmir and Jammu Kashmir’s leaderships have been kept out of the
loop. Kashmiri activists aren’t too happy with the decision and want the
government to avoid taking a step which could hurt the Kashmir cause.
The Pakistani
government needs to consult all stakeholders, including the representatives of
the Azad and Jammu Kashmir. Perhaps a middle ground can be achieved by thinking
out of the box and giving the people of Gilgit-Baltistan the rights they demand
without damaging the Kashmir cause or going against what Pakistan has stood for
during the past seven decades.
