About The Book
The Sikhs of Punjab and Kashmir represent a vital community bound by faith, culture, and history. Punjab is the heartland of Sikhism, where Guru Nanak (1469-1539) founded the religion, and the successive Gurus nurtured its spiritual, social, and martial traditions. Sikhs in Punjab form a significant majority, shaping the region's identity through agriculture, industry, and vibrant cultural expressions such as Bhangra, Gidda, and Punjabi literature. The Golden Temple at Amritsar stands as the spiritual and cultural center of Sikh life. In contrast, the Sikhs of Kashmir are a smaller minority, yet they hold an important place in the Valley's social fabric. They mostly settled there during the Sikh rule of Maharaja Ranjit Singh in the early 19th century. Known for their resilience, the Kashmiri Sikhs have maintained their religious traditions, community institutions, and distinct identity despite political turmoil. Together, Sikhs of Punjab and Kashmir embody courage, service, and unity.
Introduction
The great mystery of language, which by one sound can bring before us not a single image only, but multitude of objects and events, and fill the imagination according to its capacity, in no case exercises its influence more strongly than in words which express the names of different lands. To the ear of a European, the word England, for example, instantly recals to mind the wealth of that island, and her maritime power; France, is ever associated with the turmoils of ambition and faction; Italy, with sunny climes and poetry and Germany, with our ideas of a staid conscientious people. True, the images conjured up in the fancy of every individual, will lose much of their truth and charms when experience has shewn him how sorely he has deceived himself in many things; but when the land of which he dreams, is situated far off, his ideas, though equally vague, are less likely to be disappointed. We have no remembrances attached to the name of a New Zealander; we revert only to his character with horror, as a cannibal, while the New Hollanders excite our compassion for the scanty gifts which Providence has vouchsafed them. Compared, however, with these countries, Kashmir is an object of especial interest. We behold, in imagination, a delightful valley sheltered on every side by lofty mountains, with streams of the purest water issuing forth from their declivities, which flow gently on till they fall into the mighty rivers which bend their way majestically through the vale. From their summits, crowned with Alpine vegetation, down to the depths beneath, where the luxuriant products of India pre-dominate, there is a succession of plants, which gradually assume as they descend, the lighter and more graceful forms of tropical vege-tation. The same fancy peoples the land with noble human forms, adorns it with the palaces and gardens of the Moghul Emperors, and recals the tales of fairy islets, with their magic lakes and floating gardens. There, exclaims the youthful enthusiast, who is never likely to realize these visions, there, must be happiness, there, thinks the philosopher, might our first parents have been summoned into being. Indians, no less than Europeans feel the charm of this name. The Mohammedan believes Kashmir to have been the earthly paradise; the Hindu has the same tale in his legends of the last Mahá-Yág, descriptive of the revival of the human race. Fiction, in every case, points to Kashmir, as the land of promise. Even the apathetic eye of the Brahmin, and the cold-fixed thoughtfulness of the Mullah, are known to brighten up at the mention of its sweet retreats. The last travellers, Jacquemont and Wolff, men of very opposite minds and opinions, have somewhat lessened our favourable ideas on this subject; but the first avows himself nearly blind, and it certainly was not the design of the latter to descant on the loveliness of nature. To examine whether Kashmir would bear the uplifting of the veil which has so gracefully and immemorially hung over her, and see whether the first or the last travellers have drawn the truest portrait, to reach the very limit of Indian civilization, were my chief persuasives to pass several months in this celebrated region; and, why should I deny it? the anticipation of beholding the loveliest spot on earth, had power enough to allure one no longer young, to undertake another tedious and toilsome journey. Our authorities on Kashmir are very defective before the time of the Mohammedans, though, in fact, there is yet one native chronicle extant, entitled, the Raja Taringini, which has been translated by Professor Wilson, and published in the Asiatic Researches; to this we shall allude further in speaking of the History of Kashmir. The Raja Taringini has always been considered in our times as a complete work; far otherwise: it is a collection of four separate treatises, by as many authors. The first begins with the creation of the valley of Kashmir, and concludes with the year A.D. 1027 (Saka 949). The author of this portion was Kalhana Pandit. The second, or Rajavali, by Jona Raja, carries the history down to A.D. 1412. The third, or Sri Jaina Raja Taringini, was written by Sri Vara Pandit, who brought it down to the year of the Hejira 882 (A.D. 1477). The fourth and last part, called Rajavali Pataka, by Punya Bhatta, concludes with the conquest of Kashmir by Akbar the Great, Emperor of Delhi, A.H. 995 (A.D. 1586).
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