A Century of Ahdoos
Every destination acquires its own tourist treadmill and Kashmir is no different. Touristic clichés are a wonderful thing in most cases: when you are pressed for time, a quick drive through all of them, and you can safely tick the boxes. While it would be rather eccentric to miss out on quintessential Kashmir via Mughal gardens, Shankaracharya Temple, shopping in Lal Chowk/Polo View/Regal Chowk, it does add another dimension to go off into the wild yonder and discover your secret spaces. Here are some of mine.
Burzahama is just outside Srinagar city limits, to the east. The best (or worst, depending on your point of view) part is that there is no habitation around, certainly no shopping and entertainment. It is the hallowed precincts of the most ancient site in the Valley, dating back to 2,375 BC. All you will see are man-sized stones jutting out of the earth at an angle, surrounded by pits. Burzahama is slated to remain an eternal mystery. Who were the Nagas or snake worshippers who inhabited this place? Are they the same people who have been mentioned in the Nilamata Purana (the ancient written recorded history of Kashmir)? What, if any, is the significance of similar tools as those excavated in Burzahama, found in Tibet and parts of Northern China? Was there trade between the two countries at that time in the distant past? Were there indeed two geographical countries as there are now? You won’t get any answers, but you will get plenty of questions in that still silence.
The first religion in Kashmir was Buddhism. When Hiuen Tsang visited Kashmir in AD 631, he was astonished at the number of stupas and viharas in the region. Sadly, none of them exist, because according to historian Robert E Fisher, “the later Hindu kings reportedly plundered those sites and carried off limestone blocks to build their own temples”. What does remain out of all of Kashmir’s Buddhist past are the ruins of Parihaspora. In this case too, they are no more than impressive plinths with enormous staircases and mounds of rubble. This site is important as it shows how Kashmir has always been a crucible of different faiths.
There are many Hindu temples all over Kashmir, all being constructed in the style that has come to be known as “lantern”. The best maintained, in Pandrethan, near the Army controlled area in Srinagar, is out of bounds to the aimless wanderer. However, there are lots more. One, built in the 7th century, is Mamleshwar in Pahalgam. It has been “maintained” by the ASI, which is to say, the ancient, rough-hewn blocks of limestone have been covered by a brand new roof. The garden, however, is pretty enough, the view is wonderful and the two (Muslim) ASI employees who officiate as pujaris imbue this ancient with the syncretism for which Kashmir was famed.
The temple with the finest view in the entire Valley has to be the Sun Temple at Martand. Situated atop a low hill, it overlooks miles and miles of countryside, so whichever time of the year you visit, there will be a different set of colours to bewitch you. While all of Kashmir’s other temples are said to be a continuation of its Buddhist style of architecture, the Sun Temple looks remarkably Greek because of the columns and Cambodian in the combination of strength with grace. In a dramatic departure from the squat, compact lantern style, this one, built by the same King Lalitaditya Mukhtapida (AD 724-760) in whose reign Parihaspora was built.
By 1320, the first Muslim king ruled Kashmir, and a century later was the golden period of Kashmiri history. In a relatively short span of time, limestone architecture was completely overtaken by brick and wood. All those centuries later, traces of both remain stubbornly, even in private houses: the plinth is always made of limestone blocks to a height of two or three feet, and the rest is made with brick. The wealthy favour wooden artistry on their ceilings that is called khatamband and is seen in no other part of the country besides Kashmir. You can see khatamband in many houseboats and shrines.
A few centuries of wooden architecture (sadly, the best have caught fire and are not in existence any more) and the Mughal emperors annexed Kashmir as part of their empire. It really does require the perspective of an outsider to bring out the best in a destination. Each of the Mughal emperors contributed to the architecture and landscape of the Valley. Emperor Akbar planted 1,200 chinar trees on the banks of the Dal and promptly named it Naseem Bagh or the Garden of Breezes. It is the most unique of all Kashmir’s gardens, all the others being planned in the char-bagh fashion. Now part of the Regional Engineering College complex, it is like others of Kashmir’s lesser known attractions: the germ of an idea or a concept that needs your imagination to fill in the rest.
While the vast majority of the supposedly 777 Mughal gardens that existed in the hey-day of the Mughals long gone, there are only two that survive outside Srinagar. Nur Jehan planned the one at Achabal, recently restored (and extremely professionally too) by INTACH. The other is on the far side of Manasbal Lake and is called Jharoka Bagh. Forlorn and hardly visited, even the surroundings are quiet and seldom visited. Should you decide to visit it, you will be rewarded by some of the finest chinar trees on the drive from Srinagar to Ganderbal.
The last two spots on our list are both devoted to Akhoon Mulla Shah, the Sufi teacher of Prince Dara Shikoh. The better known is Pari Mahal or Garden of Fairies. More a stepped garden with fabulous of the Dal far below and pavilions where students gathered for teachings. Akhoon Mulla Shah lies buried across the Dal, on the hill where Makhdoom Sahib’s famous shrine is. Just below it, in a forgotten corner, is the gently decaying shrine, visited by pigeons, squirrels and young lads who play cricket in the overgrown garden.
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