By Dr. Abdul Ahad
The phony “historians have cast their spell on a sizeable chunk of young minds who are so overwhelmingly mesmerized by their half-truths that they seem reluctant to peep into past without Hindu, Muslim specs. They are so obsessed with these terms that they refuse to believe that these have no historical basis. They don’t even hesitate to rebuke those historians who contend that these terms were never in common usage in ancient and medieval Kashmir’s rich historical literatures.
Equally realistic is the fact that the terms like Turuska and Mleecha were used in their linguistic and identity senses, rather than religious sense, to refer to aliens who came to Kashmir at different periods of its history. These terms are not, therefore, at all intended to disparage or ridicule Muslims.
Also it is sheer oddity to divide Kashmir in Buddhist Kashmir, Hindu Kashmir and Muslim Kashmir. It is historically, conceptually and terminologically wrong to term any era of history of any country by the religious beliefs of its ruler. Why do the fake “historians” not call the British India the Christian India? They know this is a misleading phraseology which, unlike Hindu, Muslim terminology, is devoid of paying them the dividends they are so desperately aspiring for.
It is hardly mentioned that Kashmir Sultans uplifted Sanskrit language alongside Persian and encouraged Yoga Vashishta studies wholeheartedly and earnestly promoted all that can be labelled as Kufor or Sherek (anti-Islamic) in radical parlance. They showed exemplary and amazing flexibility, resilience and forbearance by patronizing Sanskrit/Sharda inscriptions on Muslim graves a; a medieval practice that we can’t even imagine of today in democratic, technological, digital and computer age, graves bearing inscriptions in Sanskrit / Sharda alongside Arabic script are still extant not only in the graveyard of Baba-ud-Din Sahib, Srinagar but also at those of Martand and Bijbehara towns. They provide living example, a stunning spectacle of unique phenomenon of irreconcilables not to be found elsewhere in the whole world. Could any Kashmiri Muslim today even think of using Hindi or Sanskrit scripts for inscription purpose on the tombs of their dear deceased ones? He can’t, I believe, dare to choose even local dialect Kashmiri for this purpose not to talk of Sanskrit or Hindi the languages of the Mushrik”
Similarly clashing with Hindu scriptures is a little talked about fact that unlike Indian Hindus Kashmiri Shaivites were habitual of relishing mutton, fish and garlicky diet so openly, since early times, that they didn’t stay away from it even on holy occasions. In the same way the Kashmiri Bikshus brutally defied Buddhist canons by owning property, marrying women, rearing children, consuming wine, fish, mutton and upholding vices like prostitution, gambling and robbery”. In his Rajtarangni, Kalhana has identified viharas with separate arrangements for those Biksbus having wives, children, cattle and property. He censures them for their life as householders.
Likewise the iconoclasm of Hindu Kings- Samkaravarman, Kalasa and Harsha-that manifested in barefaced debasement of temples and desecration of statues of gods by pouring over their faces excrements and urine, is downplayed considerably. And on the contrary it is blown up beyond proportions in open defiance of a very potent evidence, that as a leading protagonist of orthodox, radical Islamic movement in Kashmir Sultan Sikander demolished temples to use their stones for the construction of mosques and broke idols to uproot their worship and that his bigotry and fanaticism precipitated unprecedented religious crisis in the Sultanate, leading to exodus of the Pandits from the Valley, reducing their number, thus, to eleven families only. Archaeology and history don’t support this unauthenticated, roguish, unfair and wicked view. They reveal that the Sultan patronized temple construction and built Ganpatyar temple on the bank of Vitasta under his personal supervision.
To refute the myth of eleven families, we can refer to Baharitan-i-Shahi, the contemporary source of great authenticity, which identifies twelve hundred pandit families who were living here during that period as comfortably as their Muslim neighbours. A few Persian chroniclers subscribe to the myth of idol-breaking for purposes of piety and due to the lack of appreciating the circumstances surrounding historical events.
By the same token dangerous is the interpolation, additions, alterations and incorporation of false statements to Shrukhs of Shiekh Noor-ud-Din and Vaakhs of Lalla Ded for proving them the priests of their respective communities.
Dr. Abdul Ahad is a well-known historian of Kashmir. He presents a perspective on the Kashmir issue and talks about Kashmir’s history and individuality and personality.
