Description Kashmir is the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term Kashmir geographically denoted only the valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal mountain range. Today Kashmir denotes a larger area that includes the Indian-administ ered state of Jammu and Kashmir (the Kashmir valley, Jammu and Ladakh), the Pakistani-admin istered Gilgit-Baltista n and the Azad Kashmir provinces, and the Chinese-adminis tered regions of Aksai Chin and Trans-Karakoram Tract. In the first half of the first millennium, the Kashmir region became an important center of Hinduism and later of Buddhism; later still, in the ninth century, Kashmir Shaivism arose. In 1349, Shah Mir became the first Muslim ruler of Kashmir and inaugurated the Salatin-i-Kashm ir or Swati dynasty. For the next five centuries, Muslim monarchs ruled Kashmir, including the Mughals, who ruled from 1526 until 1751, then the Afghan Durrani Empire that ruled from 1747 until 1820. That year, the Sikhs under Ranjit Singh, annexed Kashmir. In 1846, upon the purchase of the region from the British under the Treaty of Amritsar, the Dogras—under Gulab Singh—became the new rulers. Dogra Rule, under the paramountcy (or tutelage) of the British Crown, lasted until 1947, when the former princely state became a disputed territory, now administered by three countries: India, Pakistan, and the Peoples Republic of China. Buddhism and Hinduism in Kashmir Further information: Buddhism in Kashmir Hindu temple of Jyeshteswara (Shankaracharya ), on the Takht-i-Suleima n Hill, near Srinagar. This general view of the unexcavated Buddhist stupa near Baramulla, with two figures standing on the summit, and another at the base with measuring scales, was taken by John Burke in 1868. The stupa, which was later excavated, dates to 500 AD. According to theNilmat Puran,the oldest book on Kashmir, in the Satisar, a former lake in the Kashmir Valley meaninglake of the Goddess Sati,lived a demon called Jalodbhava (meaningborn of water), who tortured and devoured the people, who lived near mountain slopes. Hearing the suffering of the people, Kashyap, an Indian rishi, came to the rescue of the people that lived there. After performing penance for a long time, the saint was blessed, and therefore Lord Vishnu assumed the form of a boar and struck the mountain at Varahamula, boring an opening in it for the water to flow out into the plains below. The lake was drained, the land appeared, and the demon was killed. The saint encouraged people from India to settle in the valley. As a result of the heros actions, the people named the valley asKashyap-Mar, meaning abode of Kashyap, andKashyap-Pura, meaning city of Kashyap, in Sanskrit. The nameKashmir,in Sanskrit, implies land desiccated from water:ka(the water) and shimeera (to desiccate). The ancient Greeks began referring to the region asKasperiaand the Chinese pilgrim Hien-Tsang who visited the valley around 631 AD. called itKaShi-Mi-Lo. In modern times the people of Kashmir have shortened the full Sanskrit name intoKasheer,which is the colloquial Koshur name of the valley, as noted in Aurel Steins introduction to the Rajatarangini metrical chronicle. The Buddhist Mauryan emperor 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 Sarvāstivādan school strongly influenced Kashmir. East and Central Asian Buddhist monks are recorded as having visited the kingdom. In the late 4th century AD, 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. Adi Shankara visited the pre-existing Sarvajñapīṭha (Sharada Peeth) in Kashmir in late 8th century or early 9th century AD. The Madhaviya Shankaravijayam states this temple had four doors for scholars from the four cardinal directions. The southern door (representing South India) had never been opened, indicating that no scholar from South India had entered the Sarvajna Pitha. Adi Shankara opened the southern door by defeating in debate all the scholars there in all the various scholastic disciplines such as Mimamsa, Vedanta and other branches of Hindu philosophy; he ascended the throne of Transcendent wisdom of that temple. Abhinavagupta (approx. 950 - 1020 AD) was one of Indias greatest philosophers, mystics and aestheticians. He was also considered an important musician, poet, dramatist, exeget, theologian, and logician - a polymathic personality who exercised strong influences on Indian culture. He was born in the Valley of Kashmir 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 encyclopedic 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 AD Moksopaya or Moksopaya Shastra, a philosophical text on salvation for non-ascetics (moksa-upaya:means to release), was written on the Pradyumna hill in Śrīnagar. It has the form of a public sermon and claims human authorship and contains about 30,000 shlokas (making it longer than the Ramayana). The main part of the text forms a dialogue between Vasistha and Rama, interchanged with numerous short stories and anecdotes to illustrate the content. This text was later (11th to the 14th century AD) expanded and vedanticized, which resulted in the Yoga Vasistha.
Posted on: Thu, 21 Nov 2013 23:29:01 +0000
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