Kashur The Kashmiri Speaking People

Kashur the Kashmiri Speaking People is the story of a small linguistic group of people who number around five to six million in all. India is a land of thousands of languages and dialects if we take into account, tribal, aboriginal and the modern well developed speech and writing. Amongst this plethora of languages and dialects, Kashmiri has been recognised as one of the fourteen languages in the eighth schedule of the Constitution of India. In this book, an effort has been made to study the history of this small linguistic group, now scattered all over the globe, with major concentration primarily in the valley part of the J&K state. This linguistic group originated in one of the most beautiful and the largest valley in the Himalayas; known by the name of Kasheer to the locals and Kashmir to the rest of the world. This book traces the history of the K.S.P’s. right from the earliest aboriginal settlers: the Ahi Naga tribes, to the advent of Pisachas from the dry cold deserts of Rajasthan and finally till the coming of Brahmans from the plains and southern parts of India. That was the time when the dwellers of the valley had no longer to leave the valley in winter and travel to warmer plains. That was the time when Nila Naga accepted the Pisachas as equals and in order to retain the identity of his people framed religious codes and laws-a constitution named Nilamata Purana and made it compulsory for every inhabitant of this land to abide by This book deals with these dwellers of Kashmir ,their failures and achievements, their moments of glory and downfall, religious compulsions, their adjustments and travails, and religious changes that have taken place in their lives down the ages; their habits, customs, festivals, character, culture and migrations. During their march over a period of six millennia’s of their history these people experienced many an ups and downs. In the moments of glory they achieved eminence in every field. This book is the story of these people known for their literary genius, in every field of literature, right from the days of antiquity; who have produced a huge list of literati and that list finds place in this book Many a religious currents and cross currents made inroads in to their spiritual and religious codes that helped them to evolve new philosophies. This book is a detailed account of the people who propounded the Tantra philosophy of Shaivism, the people who gave a very concrete and practical shape to Sufism and practiced it, in their daily lives, till very recent times. It is the story of the people who were known in far off lands like China and Tibet for their religious zeal, for their teaching institutes and collection of precious manuscripts dealing with Buddhism, besides being known as great strategists, administrators’ and linguists. This book enumerates the liberal social codes, enriched by their philosophies that created a social order based on equality of gender and cast. It narrates how from the days of antiquity they gave equal status to women, hand in hand, glove in glove. Even though, in between, the heinous practice of Sati was adopted when the Kshatriya kings opted for this Rajput tradition. That was, however, abolished during the reign of the Mogul king Aurangzeb. Similarly the stringent Islamic laws, enforced by the Muslim rulers, could not negate this social right granted to women and it has continued to this day. Yet the travails of time and circumstances thrust on them by the invaders forced them to adopt at times selfish and cowardly means to survive The book K.K.S.P. also deals with these moments of shame that were inflicted on them by the invaders and prosecutors of foreign lands. History has proved that the greatest undoing of these people is their tradition of hospitality and the habit of granting asylum to those who seek it, without assessing the real worth and intent of the seeker. This weakness of these people has, time and again, made them loose their independence; inflicted immense hardships and changed the very course of their destiny: be it political, religious or social as deliberated in this book. K.S.P is a small effort to record my version of these great people from times as old as 6000BC to the current 21st century.