According to folk etymology, the name “Kashmir” means “wet land” (from Sanskrit: ka = water and shamira = desk). In Rajatarangi, a history of Kashmir written by Kalhana in the mid-12th century, it is stated that the valley of Kashmir was formerly a lake. According to Hindu mythology, this lake originated from the great Rishi or sage, Kashyapa, son of Murichi. Herodotus is also believed to refer to Kashmir by Ptolemy’s Casparia. Kashmir has an archaic spelling, and is still spelled that way in some countries.The history of Kashmir is intertwined with the history of the wider Indian subcontinent in South Asia with influences from the surrounding regions of Central and East Asia. Historically, Kashmir refers only to the Kashmir valley in the western Himalayas. Today, it refers to a larger area that includes the Indian-administered center region of Jammu and Kashmir (comprising the Jammu and Kashmir Valley) and the Pakistan-administered territories of Ladakh, Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, and China. Includes administered areas. Aksai Chin and Trans-Karakoram tract regions.In the first half of the 1st century, the Kashmir region became an important center of Hinduism and later—under the Mauryas and the Kushanas—of Buddhism. Later in the 9th century, during the Kurkota dynasty, a local tradition of Shaivism arose. It flourished through seven centuries of Hindu rule, continuing under the Utpal and Lohara dynasties, ending in the mid-14th century. Islamization in Kashmir began during the 13th century, accelerated under Muslim rule during the 14th and 15th centuries, and led to the decline of Kashmir Shaivism in Kashmir.In 1339, Shah Mir became the first Muslim ruler of Kashmir, inaugurating the Shah Mir dynasty. For the next five centuries, Muslim kings ruled Kashmir, including the Mughal Empire, which ruled from 1586 to 1751, and the Afghan Durrani Empire, which ruled from 1747 to 1819. In the same year, under Ranjit Singh, the Sikhs captured Kashmir. In 1846, after the defeat of the Sikhs in the First Anglo-Sikh War, the Treaty of Lahore was signed and the territory was purchased from the British under the Treaty of Amritsar, with Raja Gulab Singh of Jammu becoming the new ruler. Kashmir was ruled by its descendants, under the suzerainty (or guardianship) of the British Crown, until 1947, when the former royal state became a disputed territory, now administered by three countries: India, Pakistan, and People’s Republic of China.
**History writing**
The Nilamata Purana (compiled c. 500-600 CE) contains accounts of the early history of Kashmir. However, being a Puranic source, it has been argued that it is somewhat inconsistent and unreliable. Kalhana’s Rajatarangini (River of Kings), all 8000 Sanskrit verses of which were completed by 1150 CE, chronicles the dynasties of Kashmir from the 1st to the 12th century. It relies on traditional sources such as the Nalmata Purana, inscriptions, coins, monuments and Kalhana’s personal observations that arose from his family’s political experiences. The fictional descriptions at the end of the work give way to rational and critical analyzes of the dramatic events that took place between the 11th and 12th centuries, for which Kalhana is often called “India’s first historian”.
During the reign of Muslim kings in Kashmir, three appendices to the Rajatrangini were written by Junaraja (1411-1463 CE), Srivara, and Prajiabhat and Soka, ending with Akbar’s conquest of Kashmir in 1586 CE. This text was translated into Persian by Muslim scholars such as Nizamuddin, Farishta and Abul Fazl. Biharistan Shahi and Hyder Malik’s History of Kashmir (completed in 1621 CE) are the most important works on the history of Kashmir during the Sultanate period. Both texts were written in Persian and used Rajatrangini and Persian history as their sources.
Initial date
Buddha, Jammu and Kashmir, 7th-8th century.
Under Turmana, the Ulcho Huns crossed the Hindu Kush mountains and conquered large parts of western India, including Kashmir. His son Mehrakula (c. 502-530 CE) led a military campaign to conquer all of northern India. He was opposed by Baladitya in Magadha and finally defeated by Yesodharman in Malwa. After the defeat, Mihirakula returned to Kashmir where he led a revolt against the king. He then conquered Gandhara where he inflicted many atrocities on the Buddhists and destroyed their shrines. The influence of the Huns ended after the death of Mehrikula.
Hindu family
A succession of Hindu dynasties ruled the region from the 7th-14th centuries. After the 7th century, Kashmiri Hinduism made significant progress. In the centuries that followed, Kashmir produced many poets, philosophers, and artists who contributed to Sanskrit literature and Hinduism. Among the notable scholars of this period was Vasugupta (c. 875-925 CE) who wrote the Shiva Sutras that laid the foundations of the Shaiva system known as Kashmir Shaivism. The dualistic interpretation of the Shaivite scriptures was defeated by Abhinavagupta (c. 975-1025 CE) who wrote many philosophical works on Kashmir Shaivism. Kashmir Shaivism was adopted by the common people of Kashmir and strongly influenced Shaivism in South India.
The Martin Sun Temple is dedicated to the main shrine, the god Surya. The temple complex was built by the third ruler of the Karkota dynasty, Lalithaditya Muktapada, in the 8th century AD. It is one of the largest temples in the Indian subcontinent.
In the 8th century, the Kurkota Empire established itself as the ruler of Kashmir. Kashmir flourished as an imperial power under the Karkotas. Chandra Peda of this family was recognized as the king of Kashmir by an imperial order of the Chinese emperor. His successor Lalitaditya Muktapada led a successful military campaign against the Tibetans. He then defeated Yeshvarman of Kanyakubja and subsequently conquered the eastern kingdoms of Magadha, Kamrup, Gauda and Kalinga. Lalitaditya extended his influence over Malwa and Gujarat and defeated the Arabs in Sindh. After his death, Kashmir’s influence on other kingdoms declined and the dynasty came to an end in 1000 AD. 855-856 AD.
The Utpal dynasty founded by Avantivarman followed the Karkotas. His successor Shankaravarman (885-902 CE) led a successful military campaign against the Gurjars in the Punjab. Political instability in the 10th century made the royal bodyguards (tantrins) very powerful in Kashmir. Under the Tantris, the civil administration collapsed and chaos reigned in Kashmir until they were defeated by Chakravarman. Queen Deda, who belonged to the Hindu royal family of Udabhandpura on her mother’s side, took over as ruler in the second half of the 10th century. After his death in AD, the throne passed to the Lohara family. The last king of the Lohara dynasty, Sahadeva, fled Kashmir after leading a brutal invasion of Kashmir by the Turko-Mongol chieftain Zuljo (Dlacha). He is often credited with the construction of a canal, named “Kate Kool” after him, which diverted the waters of the Jhelum to prevent the frequent flooding of Srinagar.
During the 11th century, Mahmud of Ghazni made two attempts to conquer Kashmir. However, both his campaigns failed as they could not take the fort of Lohkot under siege.
Muslim rulers
Mughals (1580s–1750s) Kashmir did not witness direct Mughal rule till the reign of Mughal badshah (emperor) Akbar the Great, who took control of Kashmir and added it to his Kabul Subah in 1586. Shah Jahan carved it out as a separate subah (imperial top-level province), with seat at Srinagar. During successive Mughal emperors many celebrated gardens, mosques and palaces were constructed. Religious intolerance and discriminatory taxation reappeared when Mughal emperor Aurangzeb ascended to the throne in 1658 CE. After his death, the influence of the Mughal Empire declined.
Shalimar Bagh in Srinagar; The Mughals built many Charbagh-style gardens throughout the Kashmir Valley
In 1700 AD, a servant of a wealthy Kashmir merchant brought the Mu-maqdis (hair of the Prophet), a statue of Muhammad, to the valley. This relic was kept in Hazrat Bil’s shrine on the banks of Dal Lake. Nadir Shah’s invasion of India in 1738 CE further weakened Mughal control over Kashmir.
Durrani Empire (1752-1819)
Taking advantage of the decline of the Mughal Empire, the Afghan Durrani Empire under Ahmad Shah Durrani captured Kashmir in 1752. In the mid-1750s, the Afghan-appointed governor of Kashmir, Sikh Jeon Mil, led a rebellion against the Durrani Empire before being defeated in 1762. After Mal’s defeat, the Durrani oppressed the remaining Hindu population through forced conversions, murders, and forced labor. The scope of oppression by the Durrani extended to all classes irrespective of religion and a heavy burden of taxes was imposed on the Kashmiri people.
Several Afghan governors administered the region on behalf of the Durrani Empire. During the Durrani rule in Kashmir, revenue from the region formed a major part of the Durrani Empire’s revenue. The Sultanate controlled Kashmir until 1819, after which the region was annexed by the Sikh Empire.
Sikh rule (1820–1846)
After four centuries of Muslim rule, Kashmir fell to the conquering armies of the Sikhs under Ranjit Singh of Punjab after the Battle of Shopian in 1819. As the Kashmiris had suffered under the Afghans, they initially welcomed the new Sikh rulers. However, the Sikh governors turned out to be hard taskmasters, and Sikh rule was generally considered oppressive, protected perhaps by the remoteness of Kashmir from the capital of the Sikh Empire in Lahore. The Sikhs enacted a number of anti-Muslim laws, which included handing out death sentences for cow slaughter, closing down the Jamia Masjid in Srinagar, and banning the azaan, the public Muslim call to prayer. Kashmir had also now begun to attract European visitors, several of whom wrote of the abject poverty of the vast Muslim peasantry and of the exorbitant taxes under the Sikhs. High taxes, according to some contemporary accounts, had depopulated large tracts of the countryside, allowing only one-sixteenth of the cultivable land to be cultivated. However, after a famine in 1832, the Sikhs reduced the land tax to half the produce of the land and also began to offer interest-free loans to farmers; Kashmir became the second highest revenue earner for the Sikh empire. During this time Kashmiri shawls became known worldwide, attracting many buyers especially in the west.
Earlier, in 1780, after the death of Ranjit Deo, the kingdom of Jammu (to the south of the Kashmir valley) was also captured by the Sikhs and made a tributary.[61] Ranjit Deo’s grandnephew, Gulab Singh, subsequently sought service at the court of Ranjit Singh, distinguished himself in later campaigns and got appointed as the Raja of Jammu in 1820. With the help of his officer, Zorawar Singh, Gulab Singh soon captured for the Sikhs the lands of Ladakh and Baltistan.
Princely State of Kashmir and Jammu (Dogra Rule, 1846–1947)
In 1845, the First Anglo-Sikh War broke out, and Gulab Singh “contrived to hold himself aloof till the battle of Sobraon (1846), when he appeared as a useful mediator and the trusted advisor of Sir Henry Lawrence. Two treaties were concluded. By the first the State of Lahore (i.e. West Punjab) handed over to the British, as equivalent for (rupees) ten million of indemnity, the hill countries between Beas and Indus the British made over to Gulab Singh for (Rupees) 7.5 million all the hilly or mountainous area situated to the east of Indus and west of Ravi” (i.e. the Vale of Kashmir). The Treaty of Amritsar freed Gulab Singh from obligations towards the Sikhs and made him the Maharajah of Jammu and Kashmir. The Dogras’ loyalty came in handy to the British during the revolt of 1857 which challenged British rule in India. Dogras refused to provide sanctuary to mutineers, allowed English women and children to seek asylum in Kashmir and sent Kashmiri troops to fight on behalf of the British. British in return rewarded them by securing the succession of Dogra rule in Kashmir. Soon after Gulab Singh’s death in 1857, his son, Ranbir Singh, added the emirates of Hunza, Gilgit and SiriNagar to the kingdom.
Partition of subcontinent 1947
Ranbir Singh’s grandson Hari Singh, who had ascended the throne of Kashmir in 1925, was the reigning monarch in 1947 at the conclusion of British rule of the subcontinent and the subsequent partition of the British Indian Empire into the newly independent Dominion of India and Dominion of Pakistan. An internal revolt began in the Poonch region against oppressive taxation by the Maharaja.In August, Maharaja’s forces fired upon demonstrations in favour of Kashmir joining Pakistan, burned whole villages and massacred innocent people. The people of Poonch declared an independent government of “Azad” Kashmir on 24 October. Rulers of Princely States were encouraged to accede their States to either Dominion – India or Pakistan, taking into account factors such as geographical contiguity and the wishes of their people. In 1947, Kashmir’s population was “77% Muslim and 20% Hindu”. To postpone making a hurried decision, the Maharaja signed a standstill agreement with Pakistan, which ensured continuity of trade, travel, communication, and similar services between the two. Such an agreement was pending with India. Following huge riots in Jammu, in October 1947, Pashtuns from Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province recruited by the people of Poonch, invaded Kashmir, along with the people of Poonch, allegedly incensed by the atrocities against fellow Muslims in Poonch and Jammu. The tribesmen engaged in looting and killing along the way. The ostensible aim of the guerilla campaign was to frighten Hari Singh into submission. Instead the Maharaja appealed to the Government of India for assistance, and the Governor-General Lord Mountbatten agreed on the condition that the ruler accede to India. When the Maharaja signed the Instrument of Accession, at the same time Indian soldiers entered Kashmir and occupied all but a small section of the state. India accepted the accession, regarding it provisional until such time as the will of the people can be ascertained. Kashmir leader Sheikh Abdullah endorsed the accession as ad hoc which would be ultimately decided by the people of the State. He was appointed the head of the emergency administration by the Maharaja. The Pakistani government immediately contested the accession, suggesting that it was fraudulent, that the Maharaja acted under duress and that he had no right to sign an agreement with India when the standstill agreement with Pakistan was still in force.