Part 37

In the time of Asoka, about 245 B.C., one of the Indian Buddhist missions was sent to Kashmir and Gandhara. After his death Brahmanism revived. Then in the time of the three Kushan princes, Huvishka, Jushka and Kanishka, who ruled over Kashmir about the beginning of the Christian era, Buddhism was to a great extent restored, though for several centuries the two religions existed together in Kashmir, Hinduism predominating. Yet Kashmir, when Buddhism was gradually losing its hold, continued to send Buddhist teachers to other lands. In this Hindu-Buddhist period, and chiefly between the 5th and 10th centuries of the Christian era, were erected the Hindu temples in Kashmir. In the 6th and 7th centuries Kashmir was visited by some of the Chinese Buddhist pilgrims to India. The country is called _Shie-mi_ in the narrative of To Yeng and Sung Yun (578). One of the Chinese travellers of the next century was for a time an elephant-tamer to the king of Kashmir. Hsuan Tsang spent two years (631-633) in Kashmir (_Kia-chi-mi-lo_). He entered by Baramula and left by the Pir Panjal pass. He describes the hill-girt valley, and the abundance of flowers and fruits, and he mentions the tradition about the lake. He found in Kashmir many Buddhists as well as Hindus. In the following century the kings of Kashmir appear to have paid homage and tribute to China, though this is not alluded to in the Kashmir chronicle. Hindu kings continued to reign till about 1294, when Udiana Deva was put to death by his Mahommedan vizier, Amir Shah, who ascended the throne under the name of Shams-ud-din.

Of the Mahommedan rulers mentioned in the Sanskrit chronicles, one, who reigned about the close of the 14th century, has made his name prominent by his active opposition to the Hindu religion, and his destruction of temples. This was Sikandar, known as _But-shikan_, or the "idol-breaker." It was in his time that India was invaded by Timur, to whom Sikandar made submission and paid tribute. The country fell into the hands of the Moguls in 1588. In the time of Alamgir it passed to Ahmad Shah Durani, on his third invasion of India (1756); and from that time it remained in the hands of Afghans till it was wrested from them by Ranjit Singh, the Sikh monarch of the Punjab, in 1819. Eight Hindu and Sikh governors under Ranjit Singh and his successors were followed by two Mahommedans similarly appointed, the second of whom, Shekh Imam-ud-din, was in charge when the battles of the first Sikh war 1846 brought about new relations between the British Government and the Sikhs.

Gulab Singh, a Dogra Rajput, had from a humble position been raised to high office by Ranjit Singh, who conferred on him the small principality of Jammu. On the final defeat of the Sikhs at Sobraon (February 1846), Gulab Singh was called to take a leading part in arranging conditions of peace. The treaty of Lahore (March 9, 1846) sets forth that, the British Government having demanded, in addition to a certain assignment of territory, a payment of a crore and a half of rupees (1(1/2) millions sterling), and the Sikh government being unable to pay the whole, the maharaja (Dhulip Singh) cedes, as equivalent for one crore, the hill country belonging to the Punjab between the Beas and the Indus, including Kashmir and Hazara. The governor-general, Sir Henry Hardinge, considered it expedient to make over Kashmir to the Jammu chief, securing his friendship while the British government was administering the Punjab on behalf of the young maharaja. Gulab Singh was well prepared to make up the payment in default of which Kashmir was ceded to the British; and so, in consideration of his services in restoring peace, his independent sovereignty of the country made over to him was recognized, and he was admitted to a separate treaty. Gulab Singh had already, after several extensions of territory east and west of Jammu, conquered Ladakh (a Buddhist country, and till then subject to Lhasa), and had then annexed Skardo, which was under independent Mahommedan rulers. He had thus by degrees half encircled Kashmir, and by this last addition his possessions attained nearly their present form and extent. Gulab Singh died in 1857, and was succeeded by his son, Ranbir Singh, who died in 1885. The next ruler, Maharaja Partab Singh, G.C.S.I. (b. 1850), immediately on his accession inaugurated the settlement reforms already described. His rule was remarkable for the reassertion of the Kashmir sovereignty over Gilgit (q.v.). Kashmir imperial service troops participated in the Black Mountain expedition of 1891, the Hunza Nagar operations of 1891, and the Tirah campaign of 1897-1898. The total revenue of the state is about L666,000.

See Drew, _Jammu and Kashmir_ (1875); M. A. Stein, _Kalhana's Rajatarangini_ (1900); W. R. Lawrence, _The Valley of Kashmir_ (1895); Colonel A. Durand, _The Making of a Frontier_ (1899); R. Lydekker, "The Geology of the Kashmir and Chamba Territories," _Records of the Geological Survey of India_, vol. xxii. (1883); J. Duke, _Kashmir Handbook_ (1903). (T. H. H.*)

KASHMIRI (properly _Kasmiri_), the name of the vernacular language spoken in the valley of Kashmir (properly _Kasmir_) and in the hills adjoining. In the Indian census of 1901 the number of speakers was returned at 1,007,957. By origin it is the most southern member of the Dard group of the Pisaca languages (see INDO-ARYAN LANGUAGES). The other members of the group are Shina, spoken to its north in the country round Gilgit, and Kohistani, spoken in the hill country on both sides of the river Indus before it debouches on to the plains of India. The Pisaca languages also include Khowar, the vernacular of Chitral, and the Kafir group of speeches, of which the most important is the Bashgali of Kafiristan. Of all these forms of speech Kashmiri is the only one which possesses a literature, or indeed an alphabet. It is also the only one which has been dealt with in the census of India, and it is therefore impossible to give even approximate figures for the numbers of speakers of the others. The whole family occupies the three-sided tract of country between the Hindu-Kush and the north-western frontier of British India.

As explained in INDO-ARYAN LANGUAGES, the Pisaca languages are Aryan, but are neither Iranian nor Indo-Aryan. They represent the speech of an independent Aryan migration over the Hindu-Kush directly into their present inhospitable seats, where they have developed a phonetic system of their own, while they have retained unchanged forms of extreme antiquity which have long passed out of current use both in Persia and in India. Their speakers appear to have left the main Aryan body after the great fission which resulted in the Indo-Aryan migration, but before all the typical peculiarities of Iranian speech had fully developed. They are thus representatives of a stage of linguistic progress later than that of Sanskrit, and earlier than that which we find recorded in the Iranian Avesta.

The immigrants into Kashmir must have been Shins, speaking a language closely allied to the ancestor of the modern Shina. They appear to have dispossessed and absorbed an older non-Aryan people, whom local tradition now classes as Nagas, or Snake-gods, and, at an early period, to have come themselves under the influence of Indo-Aryan immigrants from the south, who entered the valley along the course of the river Jhelam. The language has therefore lost most of its original Pisaca character, and is now a mixed one. Sanskrit has been actively studied for many centuries, and the Kashmiri vocabulary, and even its grammar, are now largely Indian. So much is this the case that, for convenience' sake, it is now frequently classed (see INDO-ARYAN LANGUAGES) as belonging to the north-western group of languages, instead of as belonging to the Pisaca family as its origin demands. It cannot be said that either classification is wrong.

Kashmiri has few dialects. In the valley there are slight changes of idiom from place to place, but the only important variety is Kishtwari, spoken in the hills south-west of Kashmir. Smaller dialects, such as Pogul and Rambani of the hills south of the Banihal pass, may also be mentioned. The language itself is an old one. Pure Kashmiri words are preserved in the Sanskrit _Rajatarangini_ written by Kalhana in the 12th century A.D., and, judging from these specimens, the language does not appear to have changed materially since his time.

_General Character of the Language._--Kashmiri is a language of great philological interest. The two principal features which at once strike the student are the numerous epenthetic changes of vowels and consonants and the employment of pronominal suffixes. In both cases the phenomena are perfectly plain, cause and effect being alike presented to the eye in the somewhat complicated systems of declension and conjugation. The Indo-Aryan languages proper have long ago passed through this stage, and many of the phenomena now presented by them are due to its influence, although all record of it has disappeared. In this way a study of Kashmiri explains a number of difficulties found by the student of Indo-Aryan vernaculars.[1]

In the following account the reader is presumed to be in possession of the facts recorded in the articles INDO-ARYAN LANGUAGES and PRAKRIT, and the following contractions will be employed: Ksh. = Kashmiri; Skr. = Sanskrit; P. = Pisaca; Sh. = Shina.

A. _Vocabulary._ The vocabulary of Kashmiri is, as has been explained, mixed. At its basis it has a large number of words which are also found in the neighbouring Shina, and these are such as connote the most familiar ideas and such as are in most frequent use. Thus, the personal pronouns, the earlier numerals, the words for "father," "mother," "fire," "the sun," are all closely connected with corresponding Shina words. There is also a large Indian element, consisting partly of words derived from Sanskrit vocables introduced in ancient times, and partly of words borrowed in later days from the vernaculars of the Punjab. Finally, there is a considerable Persian (including Arabic) element due to the long Mussulman domination of the Happy Valley. Many of these have been considerably altered in accordance with Kashmiri phonetic rules, so that they sometimes appear in strange forms. Thus the Persian _lagam_, a bridle, has become _lakam_, and the Arabic _babat_, concerning, appears as _bapat_. The population speaking Kashmiri is mainly Mussulman, there being, roughly speaking, nine Mahommedan Kashmiris to less than one Hindu. This difference of religion has strongly influenced the vocabulary. The Mussulmans use Persian and Arabic words with great freedom, while the Hindus, or "Pandits" as they are called, confine their borrowings almost entirely to words derived from Sanskrit. As the literary class is mostly Hindu, it follows that Kashmiri literature, taken as a whole, while affording most interesting and profitable study, hardly represents the actual language spoken by the mass of the people. There are, however, a few good Kashmiri works written by Mussulmans in their own dialect.

B. _Written Characters._ Mussulmans and Christian missionaries employ an adaptation of the Persian character for their writings. This alphabet is quite unsuited for representing the very complex Kashmiri vowel system. Hindus employ the Sarada alphabet, of Indian origin and akin to the well-known Nagari. Kashmiri vowel sounds can be recorded very successfully in this character, but there is, unfortunately, no fixed system of spelling. The Nagari alphabet is also coming into use in printed books, no Sarada types being yet in existence.

C. _Phonetics._ Comparing the Kashmiri with the Sanskrit alphabet (see SANSKRIT), we must first note a considerable extension of the vowel system. Not only does Ksh. possess the vowels _a_, _a_, _i_, _i_, _u_, _u_, _r_, _e_, _ai_, _o_, _au_, and the _anunasika_ or nasal symbol ~, but it has also a flat _a_ (like the _a_ in "hat") a flat _e_ (like the _e_ in "met"), a short _o_ (like the _o_ in "hot") and a broad _a_ (like the _a_ in "all"). It also has a series of what natives call "_matra_-vowels," which are represented in the Roman character by small letters above the line, viz. _^a_, _^i_, _^u_, _^u_. Of these, _^a_ is simply a very short indeterminate sound something like that of the Hebrew _sh^awa mobile_, except that it may sometimes be the only vowel in a word, as in _ts^ah_, thou. The _^i_ is a hardly audible _i_, while _^u_ and _^u_ are quite inaudible at the end of a syllable. When ^i or ^u is followed by a consonant in the same syllable _^i_ generally and _^u_ always becomes a full _i_ or _u_ respectively and is so pronounced. On the other hand, in similar circumstances, _^u_ remains unchanged in writing, but is pronounced like a short German _u_. It should be observed that this _^u_ always represents an older _i_, and is still considered to be a palatal, not, like _^u_, a labial vowel. Although these matra-vowels are so slightly heard, they exercise a great influence on the sound of a preceding syllable. We may compare the sound of _a_ in the English word "mar." If we add _e_ to the end of this word we get "mare," in which the sound of the _a_ is altogether changed, although the _e_ is not itself pronounced in its proper place. The back-action of these matra-vowels is technically known as _umlaut_ or "epenthesis," and is the most striking feature of the Kashmiri language, the structure of which is unintelligible without a thorough knowledge of the system. In the following pages when a vowel is epenthetically affected by a matra-vowel the fact will be denoted by a dot placed under it, thus _kar^u_. This is not the native system, according to which the change is indicated sometimes by a diacritical mark and sometimes by writing a different letter. The changes of pronunciation effected by each matra-vowel are shown in the following table. If natives employ a different letter to indicate the change the fact is mentioned. In other cases they content themselves with diacritical marks. When no entry is made, it should be understood that the sound of the vowel remains unaltered:--

+------+--------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Pre- | _Pronunciation when followed by_ | |ceding+----------------+----------------+-----------------+----------------+ |Vowel.| _a-matra_ | _i-matra_ | _u-matra_ | _u-matra_ | +------+----------------+----------------+-----------------+----------------+ | a. | a (ad^ar, | a^i (kar^i, pr.| u (as in German:| o (like first | | | be moist) (some| ka^ir^i, made, | kar^u, pr. kur, | o in "promote";| | | thing like a | plural masc.) | made, fem. | kar^u, pr. kor,| | | short German o)| | sing.) | made, masc. | | | | | | sing.) | | | | | | | | /a. | o (kan^ar, | o^i (German o; | o (mar^u, pr. | a (mar^u, pr. | | | pr. kon^ar, | mar^i, pr. | mor, killed, | mar, written, | | | make one-eyed) | mo^ir^i, | fem. sing.) | mor^u, killed, | | | (like a long | killed, masc. | | masc. sing.) | | | German o) | plur.) | | | | | | | | | | i. | -- | -- | yu (liv^u, pr. | yu (liv^u, pr. | | | | | lyuv, plastered,| lyuv, written | | | | | fem. sing.) | lyuv^u, plas- | | | | | | tered, masc. | | | | | | sing.) | | | | | | | | /i. | -- | -- | -- | yu (nil^u, pr. | | | | | | nyul, written | | | | | | nyul^u, blue, | | | | | | masc. sing.) | | | | | | | | u. | -- | u^i (gur^i, pr.| -- | -- | | | | gu^ir^i, | | | | | | horses) | | | | | | | | | | /u. | -- | u^i (gur^i, pr.| -- | -- | | | | gu^ir^i, | | | | | | cowherds) | | | | | | | | | | )e. | i (led^ar, | -- | yu (tsel^u, pr. | yu (tsel^u, pr.| | | pr. lid^ar, | | tsyul, squeezed,| tsyul, written | | | be yellow) | | fem. sing.) | tsyul^u, | | | | | | squeezed, | | | | | | masc. sing.) | | | | | | | | /e. | -- | i (pher^i, pr. | i (pher^u, pr. | yu (pher^u pr. | | | | and written | phir, written, | phyur, written | | | | phir^i, turned,| phir^u, turned, | phyur^u, | | | | masc. plur.) | fem. sing.) | turned, masc. | | | | | | sing.) | | | | | | | | )o. | u (hokh^ar, | o^i (woth^i, | u (woth^u, pr. | o (woth^u pr. | | | pr. hukh^ar, | pr. (woth^u, | wuth, arisen, | woth, arisen, | | | make dry) | arisen, masc. | fem. sing.) | masc. sing.) | | | | plur.) | | | | | | | | | | /o. | -- | u^i (bu^iz^i, | u (boz^u, pr. | u (boz^u, pr. | | | | pr. bu^iz^i, | buz, written, | buz, written | | | | written buz^i, | buz^u, heard, | buz^u, heard, | | | | heard. masc. | fem. sing.) | masc. sing.) | | | | plur.) | | | +------+----------------+----------------+-----------------+----------------+

The letters _u_ and _i_, even when not _u_-matra or _i_-matra, often change a preceding long _a_ to _a_, which is usually written _o_, and _a_ respectively. Thus _rawukh_, they have lost, is pronounced _rawukh_, and, in the native character, is written _rowukh_. Similarly _malis_ becomes _malis_ (_molis_). The diphthong _ai_ is pronounced _o_ when it commences a word; thus, _aith_, eight, is pronounced _oth_. When _i_ and _u_ commence a word they are pronounced _yi_ and _wu_ respectively. With one important exception, common to all Pisaca languages, Kashmiri employs every consonant found in the Sanskrit alphabet. The exception is the series of aspirated consonants, _gh_, _jh_, _dh_, _dh_ and _bh_, which are wanting in Ksh., the corresponding unaspirated consonants being substituted for them. Thus, Skr. _ghotakas_, but Ksh. _gur^u_, a horse; Skr. _bhavati_, Ksh. _bovi_, he will be. There is a tendency to use dental letters where Hindi employs cerebrals, as in Hindi _uth_, Ksh. _woth_, arise. Cerebral letters are, however, owing to Sanskrit influence, on the whole better preserved in Ksh. than in the other Pisaca languages. The cerebral _s_ has almost disappeared, _s_ being employed instead. The only common word in which it is found is the numeral _sah_, six, which is merely a learned spelling for _sah_, due to the influence of the Skr. _sat_. From the palatals _c_, _ch_, _j_, a new series of consonants has been formed, viz. _ts_, _tsh_ (aspirate of _ts_--i.e. _ts_ + _h_, not _t_ + _sh_), and _z_ (as in English, not _dz_). Thus, Skr. _coras_, Ksh. _tsur_, a thief; Skr. _chalayati_, Ksh. _tshali_, he will deceive; Skr. _jalam_, Ksh. _zal_, water. The sibilant _s_, and occasionally _s_, are frequently represented by _h_. Thus, Skr. _dasa_, Ksh. _dah_, ten; Skr. _siras_, Ksh. _hir_, a head. We may compare with this the Persian word _Hind_, India (compare the Greek [Greek: Indos], an Indian), derived from the Skr. _Sindhus_, the river Indus. When such an _h_ is followed by a palatal letter the _s_ returns; thus, from the base _his-_, like this, we have the nominative masculine _hih^u_, but the feminine _his^u_, and the abstract noun _hisyar_, because _^u_ and _y_ are palatal letters.

The palatal letters _i_, _e_, _u-matra_ and _y_ often change a preceding consonant. The modifications will be seen from the following examples: _rat-_, night; nom. plur. _rats^u_; _woth_, arise; _wotsh^u_, she arose: _lad_, build; _laz^u_, she was built: _ran_, cook; _ran^u_, she was cooked; _pat^u_, a tablet; Ag. sing. _paci_: _kath-_, a stalk; nom. plur. _kache: bad-_, great; nom. plur. fem. _baje_: _batuk^u_, a duck; fem. _bat^ac^u_: _hokh^u_, dry; fem. _hoch^u; srog^u_, cheap; _srojyar_, cheapness: _wal^u_, a ring; fem. _waj^u_, a small ring; _los_, be weary; _los^u_ or _lots^u_, she was weary. These changes are each subject to certain rules. Cerebral letters (_t_, _th_, _d_) change only before _i_, _e_ or _y_, and not before _u-matra_. The others, on the contrary, do not change _i_, but do change before _e_, _y_ or _u-matra_.

No word can end in an unaspirated surd consonant. If such a consonant falls at the end of a word it is aspirated. Thus, _ak_, one, becomes _akh_ (but acc. _akis_); _kat_, a ram, becomes _kath_; and hat, a hundred, _hath_.

D. _Declension_. If the above phonetic rules are borne in mind, declension in Kashmiri is a fairly simple process. If attention is not paid to them, the whole system at once becomes a field of inextricable confusion. In the following pages it will be assumed that the reader is familiar with them.