We the Kashmiri Saraswat Hindus

By Prof. Kashinath Pandit

A – General

Antiquity is the hallmark of our history and civilization. Legends and myths abound. In modern times, myths and legends are getting unravelled with the help of scientific and technological tools. Recently, the Americans using their specially manufactured surveillance apparatus identified the mythical bridge that connected Rameshwaram the southernmost tip of the Indian Peninsula with Sri Lanka.

Rig Veda speaks of Saraswati a mighty river originating in the Himalayas and flowing through many regions of the sub-continent. The heart of the region was known as Saraswati Mandala. Owing to a geographical cataclysm, the Saraswati disappeared and the people, the ancient Saraswats moved away north and south. Some of their groups settled down in Kashmir.

Rishi Kashyapa, the worshipper of Vishnu supplicated for dry land and Vishnu sent Varahaavtara (one of the ten avatars of Vishnu) to pierce the mountains at a place in north Kashmir valley called Varahmulya now Baramulla. Water was desiccated and the Saraswat Brahmins who settled there gave it the name of Kashmira Mandala in the memory of Saraswati Mandala. That is the nomenclature Kalhana Pandit, the great historian of Kashmir uses in his celebrated chronicle Rajatarangini compiled in CE 1149. In the yearly nakshatra or astronomical table prevalent among us the Kashmiri Saraswat Brahmins even today uses the same nomenclature of the Kashmir Mandala.

Kashmiri Saraswat Brahmins, the purest Brahmins of the Vedic faith were Vaishnavites. King Avantivarman, (CE 855 to 883) ushered in another memorable era of architecture. He built a group of temples at Avantipur, a township eighteen miles from Srinagar, among which that of Avantiswami, dedicated to Vishnu, still survives in part. It has been said that whereas the Martand temple is the expression of a « sudden glory », the Avantiswami temple shows greater maturity of experience and has therefore more sophistication and elegance. Graceful colonnades of pillars from an arcaded portico around the shrine and a monolithic pillar before the entrance bear a metal figure of Garuda, the king of birds and vehicle the Lord Vishnu.

All the Vaishnav Saraswats are Kulavis (followers) of either Kashi Math or Gokarn Math. Interestingly, many families of Muslims in Kashmir have retained the sub-cast of Kulavi in the corrupted form of Kuluv along with other Saraswat Brahmin sub-casts like Lone from Lavanya, Magray from Margesha, Tantray from Tantrin and Dar/Dhar from Damara. Kulu has been retained from the original Kulavi.

The Brahmins of this region who are referred to as Saraswats in Mahabharata and the Puranas were learned in Vedic lore. They concentrated on studying various subjects like astronomy, metaphysics, medicine and allied subjects and disseminating knowledge, writes Jyotsna Kamat in The Saraswat Saga.

This is precisely what Abu Rayhan al-Biruni writes about Kashmiri Saraswat Brahmins in his famous work India (Malil Hind) written towards the beginning of the 11th century CE.

Before we move on to take note of the Saraswati legend as known to ancient Kashmiri Brahmins, it is apt to mention that the word Saraswati appears both as a reference to a river and as a significant deity in the Rig-Veda. In Book 2, Hymn 41 Rig-Veda calls Saraswati as the best of mothers, of rivers, of goddesses. The hymn runs like this:

“May the waters, the mothers, cleanse us, may they who purify with butter, arts, music purify us with butter
for these goddesses bear away defilement, I come up out of them pure and cleansed.”

In Vedic literature, Saraswati acquires the same significance for early Indians as that accredited to the river Ganges by their modern descendants. In the hymns of Book 10 of Rig-Veda, she is already declared to be the “possessor of knowledge.” In Hindu Brahmanic lore, Saraswati ultimately forms into a spiritual concept of a goddess that embodies knowledge, arts, music eloquence all meant to purify the essence and self of a person.

Namaste sharade devi kashmira pura vasini

Tvamaham prarthaye nityam vidya danam cha dehi me

B – Kashmir legend

The crucial point in linking Kashmir Saraswat Brahmins to the great story of the Saraswats of Bharata is the river Saraswati around which an enchanting legend has been woven. The Saraswats derive their lineage from their founding father, the great sage Saraswat Muni who lived on the banks of the now disappeared river Saraswati in North India six thousand years ago. Let us see the version of the story of Saraswati as recorded by Kashmir historians, most importantly by Kalhan Pandit in his celebrated chronicle Rajatarangini compiled in

Opening the chronicle with verses in praise of the divine character of Kashmir Mandala, Kalhan writes: “There when visiting (the shrine of the) Goddess of Sharada, one reaches at once the river Madhumati and (the river of) Saraswati worshipped by poets 1. The shrine (tirtha) referred to is the ancient shrine of Sharada close to the village named Shardi in the upper Kishenganga valley now in Pakistan occupied Kashmir.

We focus attention on the river Madhumati that figures along with Kishanganga and Saraswati in the precious chronicle. Rajatarangini makes mention of the Madhumati stream no fewer than seven times, albeit in varying contexts. In his first notice, after mentioning this stream along with Saraswati, Kalhan Pandit hastens to add that “poets worship it 2.”

The next occasion when Madhumati is mentioned is in the context of River Muktashri. Now Muktashri is the name of a stream that flows into Kishenganga at Tehjan (Sanskrit Tejavana) is also held sacred by the pilgrims to the Sarada temple, and Sharadamahatmya 3 prescribes ablutions etc. at its confluence (sangama).

The third notice of the River Madhumati in the chronicle is to be found during the pilgrimage of sage (Muni) Shandilya to Sharada tirtha.

I would like my audience to be patient with me while I try to trace this story. At the same time, the legend of Muni Saraswat praying on the bank of disappeared Saraswati somewhere in the historic region of Mangalore in Karnataka (according to our Saraswat scholars) should remain juxtaposed to the legend now under description.

Citing the Sharada Mahatmya, Stein, the translator and commentator of Rajatarangini, introduces Muni Shandilya by describing his pilgrimage to Sharada tirtha as this:

“The Muni Shandilya, son of Matanga was practising great austerities to obtain the sight of the goddess Sharada who is a
Shakti 4 embodying three separate manifestations 5. Divine advice prompts him to proceed to Shyamala, Maharashtra.”

The confusing terms in this sentence are Shyamala and Maharashtra. Kashmirian Saraswat Brahmins have not been able to identify the two place names. Nevertheless, the astute and profound scholar Aural Stein has solved the riddle and concluded that Shaymala is the present-day Hamala district (pargana) of North Kashmir frequently mentioned in the last Taranga 6 of Rajatarangini.

This being so, the unresolved question is the use of the term Maharashtra by Kalhan Pandit. We do not have any region in Kashmir by that name. The legend of Shandilya Muni worshipping Sharada-Saraswati on the banks of the hidden Saraswati in Shardi at the confluence of Kishenganga and Madhumati is somewhat akin to the legend of Saraswat Muni worshipping on the bank of the lost Saraswati somewhere in today’s Mangalore I leave it to you, most distinguished Saraswat scholars of South India to throw more light on the subject.

Returning to the description of River Madhumati, a small passage in the Sharada Mahatmaya we are told that Muni Shandilya arrived at Sharada tirtha as a pilgrim on the bank of Kishenganga. Then there follows this small passage from the Mahatmaya:

After a hymn in praise of Sharada in her triple form of Sharada, Narda/Saraswati and Vagdevi, an account is given how the goddess at that sacred spot revealed herself o the Muni and rewarded his long austerities by inviting him to her residence on Srishaila. Pitras also approached Shandilya and asked him to perform their shraddhas at the confluence (sanghama) of the Sindhu and Madhumati. On his taking water from the Mahasindhu for the tarpana rite, half of its water turned into honey and formed the stream hence known as Madhumati. Ever since baths and shraddhas at the sanghama of the Sindhu and Madhumati assure the pious of complete remission of sins. The hymn comes down to us the Saraswat Brahmins of Kashmir as this:

Sharada, Narda devi mokhsh data Saraswati

Namastesye namastesaye namasasye namo nama.

Much before Rajatarangini, the well-known geographical history of Kashmir by the name Nilamata Purana also mentions Madhumati as a sacred river. It’s one stream that flows from Dughdaghata to Wular lake in the valley while its other stream flows westward to join Kishenganga at a place close to Sharada tirtha. This stream is of interest to us as we are following the story of Saraswati the legendary hidden river.

Introducing his celebrated work Rajatarangini with the description of the divine attributes of Kashmir Mandala, Kalhan writes:

There (Kashmir) the goddess Saraswati herself is seen in the form of a swan in the lake (situated) on the summit of the Bheda hill (Bhedagiri), which is sanctified by the Ganga-source (Gangodhbheda). Stein has dealt at length with the legend of Bhedagiri (Bheda-brari in Kashmir) as the place about 7500 feet above sea level in the heights of Shupiyan in South Kashmir where Saraswati took her abode on a swan in a pond the traces of which Stein personally examined and recorded with great accuracy. Kalhan Pandit reiterates, “There even to this day drops of sandal ointment offered by the gods are to be seen at Nandikshetra, the permanent residence of Shiva 7.”

To sum up this section, we will say that the river Saraswati, according to Kashmirian legend takes its name from goddess Saraswati, the other name of Sharada. The shrine of Sharada-Saraswati has been the object of pilgrimage and veneration of the Saraswat Brahmins of ancient Kashmir. The story of pilgrimage and the practice of worshipping Sharada-Saraswati is preserved in the concerned mahatmayas by the Saraswat Pandits of ancient Kashmir.

I use the epithet ‘Saraswat Pandits of Kashmir’ to highlight the fact that Sharada-Saraswati is the most popular shrine of the Pandits of ancient Kashmir, and Sharada being outside Kashmir Valley, actually in Urasa (modern Hazara) 8 Therefore identification of Saraswat Pandits of Kashmir has historical as well as social legitimacy.

C – The quirk of destiny

The nearly four-thousand-year-old Hindu Kingdom of Kashmir declined and fell to the Muslim adventurers around CE 1339. The Sultans replaced the Rajas and ruled over Kashmir from 1339 to 1819 CE which is 480 years. The only task which the Kashmir Muslim Sultans (including the Mughal/Uighur rule 1586 – 1751 CE) did for five centuries of their rule was to destroy all traces of the ancient Hindu civilization of Kashmir and decimate the Saraswat Hindu community.

The tail end of genocide and complete ethnic cleansing of the Saraswats of Kashmir was brought about in 1990 CE when Jammu and Kashmir remained an « integral part » of secular democratic India according to the political pundits of New Delhi. Four hundred thousand Kashmiri Saraswat Hindus are living as refugees in their own country for the last thirty-two years. No regional or national mainstream political party has an agenda of mitigating their suffering and taking them back to their six thousand-year-old homelands in Kashmir. eir

The task before the entire Saraswat community of India today is to understand the plight of their Kashmir fraternity expelled from its homes and hearths at the point of the sword of Islam in a secular India. My humble appeal to His Holiness the Mathadipati of Shree Kashimatha Samasthan, Varanasi is to constitute a committee of five members to examine and analyse the case of genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Kashmir Saraswat Hindu community from its homeland in 1990, and also suggest on the community level the remedial measures of alleviating their suffering and facilitating their restitution in the Valley of Kashmir.
(The author is the former Director of the Centre of Central Asian studies, Kashmir University. Email: knp627@gmail.com).

1 Rajatarangini, vol. II, Bk vii, p. 314, verse 586
2 A specific mention of poets as worshippers is conspicuous. I am disposed to infer that considerable praise of the tirtha (shrine) of Sharada and the rivers that flowed past it must have filled the pages of poetic compilations made by the devoted scholars and poets of the day.
3 Sharadamahatmya, vv, 52, 129
4 Stein defines Shakti as the energy of Vishnu embodied in Lakshmi. See Rajatarangini, Bk iii, verse 391n
5 Sharadamahatmaya, vv 2 sqq
6 Rajatarangini, Bk viii,1003
7 Ibid, vol. II, Note A, pp 274-275l
8 Urasa is probably meant also by Uraga of the Mahabharata, a country mentioned between Abhisari and Simhapura (Salt Range). The king f this region figures under the name of Arsakes in the account of Alexander’s Punjab campaign. Regarding the extent of Urasa and its capital in Hiuen-Tsang’s time, compare Cunningham’s Ancient Geography, p. 103 seq.