The boat of Manu, when it
was floundering in the floods of the Khand-Pralaya
had found its final resting ground at a place
called Manoravsarpan, which is situated in the
Pakistan occupied Kashmir. Manu was the Adi Purush
from whom sprang the modern human race and Kashmir
was the place where the first human of the present
civilisation originated.
The seals of the Sindh-Valley
Civilisation have been deciphered and it has now
been proved that they contain the picture of the
Aryan God Shiv in Makhanasan Mudra. Foreign
scholars have been trying to squeeze the Vedic,
Ramayan and Mahabharat periods between 1500 B.C.,
(when Sindh Valley Civilisation was destroyed) to
600 B. C., to prove that the movement of Aryans
had been from the west to the east, the time of
Buddha ( 600 B. C. ) a historically confirmed
fact. If the Sindh Valley civilisation is a vedic
civilisation and/or it was destroyed earlier than
1500 B. C. then the movement of Aryans will be
proved to have been from the East (from India ) to
the west ( to Iran and other parts of Europe ).
The creation of Vedas, their reduction into
writing and the spread of their oral tradition,
the spread of Aryan Culture to the eastern parts
of India, the time-lag between the Vedic and
Ramayana period, the Ramayan and Mahabharat
periods, the Mahabharat and Buddha periods and the
gradual evolution (or degeneration) of the Vedic
language into Sanskrit, and of Sanskrit into Pali
could not have taken place during only 900 years (
between 1500 B. C. to 600 B. C. ). Thus, when it
has been proved that the Sindh Valley Civilisation
is post Vedic ( not pre-vedic as some foreign
scholars have been trying to project ), the
movement of the Aryans had surely been from the
east to the west and their original home was
Kashmir. It is a different matter that more than
80% of the people of the Aryan stock in Asia are
now muslims and they inhabit the areas of Kashmir,
Pakistan, Afganistan and Iran.
There is another point of
importance. The Jews who migrated from the city of
Or to their present country of Israel in about
4000 B. C. have a mention of this movement in
their scriptures but nowhere in the Vedas is a
mention that the Aryan had come from anywhere
outside India.
The Kashmiri language
which is the only Apabhransha ( degenerate form )
of the Vedic language ( not of Sanskrit ) also
proves that the original home of the Aryans was
this sacred valley of Kashmir of noble traditions.
This is a very big
subject to discuss, hence I am only listing below
the other factors which prove that Kashmir has
contributed to Indian culture more than any other
' Pradesh ' of the Country:
1) There is a tradition
that Bhagwan Ramchandra had come to Kashmir in
search of Devi Sita.
2) Lord Krishna
himself had come to Kashmir to put on throne the
widow ( Yashomati ) of the Kashmiri King defeated
by him. There are hints in the Mahabharata that
the forces of the King of Kashmir had taken part
in great Indian war though they were on the side
of the Kauravas, and that Takshak (Nag), who
belonged to Kashmir later killed Raja Parikshit.
3 ) During the Buddhist
period, Kashmir was a great centre of Buddhism and
it was from Kashmir that this faith spread (
through Khotan) to China, Mangolia, Japan and
Turkey (from where it was eliminated later). The
last Buddhist Congress during the times of
Kanishka was held in Kashmir.
4 ) Pantni the great
grammarian of Sanskrit was also from Kashmir.
Gandharadesh ( present Afganistan) and Kashmir
were part of the same region in olden times.
5 ) It is a well known
fact that even today the old Vedic rituals of
marriages and Yajnas are followed only by the
Brahmans of Kerala, Kashmir and Karnatak.
6) When Jagatguru
Shankaracharya eliminated the impossible religion
of Buddhism from India he came to Kashmir also.
The Shankaracharya temple still stands as a
monument of his visit.
7) After Takshila and
Nalanda, the Centre of Sanskrit studies shifted to
the Sanskrit University Brajbihara in Kashmir,
which was, along with its huge library, later
destroyed by Sikander Butshikhan.
8 ) A majority of the
major poets and scholars of Sanskrit of India were
Kashmiris: - Kalidas, Kshirswamin, Kalhan, Bilhan,
Mammat, Anand Vardhan, Vaman, Kshemendra, Abhinav
Gupta, Rojanak Shitianth and others. The first
historically viable book of history in Sanskrit is
Rajtarangini.
9) The Kashmiri Shaivism
and Tantra Schools are also distinct contributions
to the ethos of India. Even Vamachar is sort of a
contribution of Kashmir to Indian rituals.
Thus Kashmir has been the
home of Vedic Culture and religion, Buddhist
faith, Sanskrit scholarship, Shaivism, Islam,
Sufism ( Kashmiri Sufism is a little different
from the Sufism which developed in other parts of
the country ) and Sikhism.
Strategically also the
contribution and importance of Kashmir after
partition of the country has been of a notable
nature. It seems certain that this importance of
Kashmir in its modern political context will
remain alive as long as India and Pakistan survive
as separate nations.
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