There were festivals galore that they celebrated  -  festivals that evoked devotion for the divine, festivals that celebrated the blooming of flowers in spring, festivals that expressed joy at the ploughing of the land and sowing of seeds, festivals related to the ripening of barely in the fields and harvesting the first crop of the paddy in autumn festivals, and even festivals evoking the Bacchanalian spirit on the ripening of grapes. But there was not one festival which did not have music and dancing as its essential feature. Any pretext was enough for people to celebrate with snatches of a song and jigs of a dance  - be it the birthday of a god or the new snowfall day ! What is interesting is that while their context was social, their setting was religious.

And what was the nature of this music and dancing ? Mostly folk, of course, but also classical, in accordance with the precepts of Bharata’s Natyashastra, as we learn from Nilamata and Kuttlanimata-Matakavya. Musical instruments of all the four types  -  tata (stringed), avanaddha (percussion), ghana (cymbals), and sushira (wind) were in vogue.

Veena or tantri, pataha (drum), muruj (tabor) mridanga (double drum), venu (lute), shankha (conch), ghanta (bell) and turya (trumpet) were among the more commonly used varieties. Harmony between vocal and instrumental music was highly appreciated. In an 11th century pen-portrait of Abhinavagupta, Madhuraja shows him with his fingers strumming the veena. Bilhana extolls the skill of Kashmiri women in dancing and theatrical performances. It is no wonder then that Kashmir produced one of the greatest Indian masters of music, Sharangadeva, the writer of Sangeet Ratnakara, which is perhaps the best treatise ever written on Indian music.

What Literary sources say about the popularity of music and dancing in early Kashmiri society is supported by archaeological evidence. Thus, in one of the tiles from Harwan, we see three musicians one playing a flute, another cymbals and the third a pair of drums.

Another tile shows a female musician playing on a drum which is hung over her shoulder. Yet another tile depicts a female dancer in an actual dancing posture. She is shown holding a long scarf in her hands and waving it. Kings of Kashmir patronized music, dancing and theatre. King Kalasha had a craze for dancing girls and so did Harsha who kept awake through the nights to personally instruct dancing girls in the art of acting in his own royal palace.

A unique thing about theatrical performances in Kashmir during the Nilamata age was the idea of “prekshadana” or “giving a dramatic show as a gift”. Professional theatre groups (rangapjin) would give such “gifts” to entertain people on certain occasions and they in turn were supposed to sustain these groups. In Damodaragupta’s time (9th century), big business magnates, the shreshthis and the vanikas patronised the dramatic art. According to him there were large theatre halls in his native land fitted with cushioned seats and back-rests. In an interesting reference, Kalhana, compares fleeing armies to theatre-goers caught in a down-pour, which suggests, however, that common people must have watched such performances in open-air theatres. Kshemendra too refers to the existence of theatre halls in Kashmir.

Puppet-plays also appear to have been popular in early Kashmir. Kuttanimata Kavya refers to wooden dolls which were manipulated by means of a mechanical thread (yantrasutra) and made to dance. There were many other games and amusements with which people in early Kashmir entertained themselves.

Among these, garden sports seem to have been extremely popular, and naturally so because nature has gifted Kashmir with plenty of gardens and beautiful parks. On festivals like Iramanjari Pujana or Ashokikashtami they would throng to these gardens and enjoy themselves with a variety of sports. Such sports have been described at length in the Kamasutra and several other works.

“Special meals taken in gardens in the company of friends and members of the family", writes Dr. Ved Kumari, “were a part of such garden sports”. Young maidens could have their fun and enjoy water sports on the Shravani festival, according to Nilamata.

Kuttanimata also refers to these sports as a favourite form of amusement for young men and women who would sprinkle water on one another with a karayantra or syringe.

Kanduka-krida or ball-playing, which is said to have been “one of the most favourite games of ancient India” was equally popular in Kashmir. Particularly among girls Damodaragupta’s Kuttanimata as well as Shyamilaka’s Padataditaka vouch for its popularity.

Chess and dice playing were among the favourite indoor-games of the people of Kashmir from very early times. Nilamata prescribes playing dice on the Sukha Suptihka or Deepavali night.

Rajatarangini offers ample evidence of their prevalence. Kuttanimata refers to it as a popular pastime. Women too played chess, it informs us.

Hunting was one of the favourite pastimes of men, and was particularly popular among princes. Some tiles from Harwan depict huntsmen on horseback chasing deer. Common people enjoyed watching wrestling bouts and animal fights. We find interesting depiction of ram fights and cock fights on some Harwan tiles.

Goshthis or social gatherings provided good entertainment to sophisticated and culturally refined people in ancient India. There is evidence in Kuttanimata Kavya that such gatherings were common in early Kashmir also. Kshemendra refers to asthanis or sitting rooms where friends would gather for conversation after having meals”. Respect was shown to gifted people known for their learning or their skill in the arts, at such gatherings.

It is indeed intriguing that we do not come across any evidence, literary or archaeological, of ancient inhabitants of Kashmir dressing or adorning themselves like its present day inhabitants.

The typically ‘Kashmiri’ articles of maleand female costume, like the pheran, the turban, the.proofs, and taranga are totally absent from literary works or sculptural representations. Is is becausethese were imposed on the Kashmiri Hindus at some later time ? How close is their resemblance to the pairahan of the Middle East and the traditional headgear of Egypt and Sudan ? What we find instead is the early Kashmiris using a variety of costumes and adornments suited to the requirements of “time and clime”, as dictated by good taste. Hsuan Tsang, the Chinese traveller who visited Kashmir in 631 AD tells us in his account that people wore leather doublets and clothes of fine linen. Other sources inform that both male and female attire consisted of vasana yugala or an upper and lower garment. And these garments were made from a variety of fabrics - cotton, wool, china silk, patika (a course variety of silk) and hemp. As the climate was cold, they covered their bodies with woolen garments in winter. Kalhanauses the word ‘pravara' for the woolen cloaks he says they wore. Nilamata calls them 'pravarana' The poor used kambala or sthulambala (coarse blankets). “Garments interwoven with threads of gold, dazzling the eyes” were also worn, according to Kuttanimata.

Men wore a long-sleeved tunic called kanchuka as the upper garment. Women’s upper garment too was called kanchuka, but in their case it was both a long-sleeved and a half-sleeved one  - a kind of jacket not much different from the modern choli. As their lower garment men wore a kind of trousers called patnga or janghala, according to Kshemendra. He has used the terms karpari and samputi also for trousers, but perhaps these trousers were of a different kind or made from different fabrics. Dhoti or pa(i was also worn by men, but pati sometimes meant a kind of scarf. They wore angarakshaka also over the kanchuka and wrapped their bodies in tusti (perhaps a precursor of the present day shawl). Kshemendra also refers to kambala or woolen blanket they used to cover the body. The male headgear generally consisted of shirahshata, a kind of turban. Caps of different sizes and shapes called the tpika (Hindi topi) were also in vogue.

Kshemendra refers to mochot, a type ofsocks, or perhaps boots, reaching partway up to the knees, as being commonly in use According to Damodaragupta, men, rich and poor alike, used leathe shoes  -  a necessity in a cold place like Kashmir. The rich, he says, wore fashionable shoes having floral decorationsfrom outside and fitted with steel soles imported probably from Central Asia.

Bee-wax was placed inside these shoes to make them comfortable to wear. The more fashionable men. according to Kshemendra, wore mayuropanah or peacock shoes.

We do not get much informationabout female dress from Kshemendra, except that they wore kanchuka as the upper garment. According to Damodargupta, they also were varabana, which he describes as an item of dress similar to a kanchuka Men also wore varabana, but in their case it was a kind of short fur coat. Kalhana tells us that ladies generally attired themselves in a Sari and jacket {kanchuka) . For the upper garment they used uttariya or amshuka. They also wrapped themselves in wollen shawls.

Women were naturally more crazy than men for embellishing themselves with a variety of jewelleries. Kalhana mentions necklaces, ear-rings, armlets, wristlets, anklets etc among the ornaments that ladies would wear, Damodaragupta takes great delight in describing various kinds of necklaces hugging the bosoms of pretty women of his times. He speaks of pearl necklaces (mukta hara) having several strands of pearls. Kshemendra speaks of coral collars (kanthi) and conch-shell necklaces (shankhalatika).

They were fond of wearing earrings of various shapes. Both Damodargupta Kshemendra speak of palm-shaped ear-drop known as kanaka-tadi that came to Kashmir from the South. King Harsha introduced new types of jewelleries in the 10th century which too seem to have come from the South.

These included ketaka-leafed tiaras, pendants which rested on the forehead (tilaka, modern tikka) and golden strings at the end of the locks, perhaps something like the ornament called talaraz in Kashmiri. Ladies also loved to wear a number of bracelets known as valaya or kataka, on each of the wrists which would make sound on moving. They wore small finger-rings of gold known as balika in root of the finger. But jingling girdles adoring the hips and tinkling anklets on the feet were a great craze. Strangely enough there is no reference to dejiht the ear ornament which identifies married Kashmiri ladies. Perhaps it came later.

What is very interesting is that both men and women used unguents and cosmetics as beauty-aids. They applied various kinds of perfumed pastes known as angaraga and

vilepana on the face and the body to enhance their physical beauty. These were prepared from ingredients like saffron, sandalwood, camphor and andropogon. Men applied mustard on forehead and saffron pomade on beard. They painted their nails too, and perfumed their clothes with various kinds of powders.

Ladies of course were even more conscious about enhancing their bodily charms by using different cosmetics. They anointed their body with sandalwood and saffron pastes.

Using leaves soaked in musk to scent their cheeks, they applied collyrium in the eyes and reddened their feet and lips and, of course, nails, with lac dye (alaktaka). Women were also extremely fond of painting different designs and beauty Marks on their faces.

Ladies' coiffures were amazingly beautiful and elaborate. Three kinds of hairstyles were particularly popular among them, we learn from Damoadaragupta. These were veni, dhamilla and alkaavali. Veni was a long dangling braid decked with flowers. Dhamilla, explains Ajay Mitra Shastri, was a form of coiffure in which the hair was tied into a single big knot over the head and adorned with flowers.

Bilhana's refernce to it in 'Chaurapanchashika' shows that it was quite popular in Kashmir. Alaka-avali according to Shashri, "consisted of arrangements of hair in rows of spiral locks on the forehead".

Several splendid terracotta figurines from Ushkur show women in beautiful coiffureswith their hair fixed with hairpins. Several busts show them wearing kanchukas and necklaces. Terracotta fragments showing girdles and finger rings have also been found from Ushkur.

Kshemdndra mentions walnuts also., which appeal to have been grown in Kashmir from early times. In a place abounding with fruit, fish andfowl, people are bound to develop a taste for rich food.

Drinking of wine appears tohave been prevalent in early Kashmir, despite restrictions of the religious texts. Nilmata Purana, in fact, allows it on certain festivals as, for instance, the new snowfall day, Mahimana and iramanjaripujana.

Another fallacious notion, for which Alberuni was responsible, is that Kashmiris did not have any riding animals or carriages. "The Kashmiris are pedestrians.

maternal uncle who had come with horse and carriage to escort him to the capital.

King Ananta, as Kalhana tell us, was so fond of horses that he was exploited by his horse trainers during the early years of his reign. And then, of course, there are several references to mounted troops in his chronicle and a reference to the stables of elephants too which indicates that the elephant was used as aristocratic conveyance in Kashmir.

Having discussed how society was structured in early Kashmir and what were the mores and manners that characterized social life, let us have a glance at the belief systems that prevailed during the period and inspired and guided the people. As we have indicated already, the early Kashmir society derived its attitude to life and approach to reality from a sense of harmony with nature. This gave rise to a spiritual and cultural climate in which different religious faiths flourished side by side without any antagonism. Thus, even before history was recorded, we find the religious fabric of Kashmiri life woven out of mature strands of Buddhist, Shaiva and Vaishnava traditions with patterns of other heterogeneous modes of worship like that of the Naga cult revealing themselves on the margins. Not only did these different forms of worship co-exists peacefully, they also influenced each other through a process of osmosis of concepts and ideas. In the age of Nilamata, for instance, we notice popular Naga deities like Nila, Ananta (Shesha), Takshaka, Sushruvas etc. entering the Hindu pantheon.

In the same manner, the Shaiva concept of universal consciousness provided the basis for the concept of reality in the Buddhsit school of Yogachara.

Buddhism itself changed its entire complexion in Kashmir when Kanishka chose it as the venue for his Fourth Buddhist Cuoncil to "revise, review and reinterpret" the Buddhist texts so that the purity of its canon could be preserved. It was a monumental event at which 18 different sects accepted the conclusion of the Council, leading to the emergence of the Mahayana school. It was an altruistic doctrine with its emphasis on idealism, disinterested love, relief of the suffering of others and salvation for every living being.

Mahayana deified Buddha and the concept of the divine Bodhisattvas came into being together with an entirely new pantheon of gods and goddesses. This had a tremendous appeal for the common people. Soon Kashmir became and important centre of the school, providing intellectual inputs to sustain it and sending missionaries and scholars from its soil to different lands for its propagation. Kashmir had its married Bhikshus long before other places in the country.

However, it was in the 9th century that Buddhism started loosing ground to Shaivism and Vaishnavism, yet it continued to occupy an important position right up to the advent of Islam.

Despite their reverence for Buddha, Karkota rulers of Kashmir were worshippers of Shiva and Vishnu. So were the rulers of the Utpala dynasty, who were ardent followers of Vaishnavism. With Buddhism receding to the background, Shaivism and Vaishnavism gained dominant position along with the worship of other Hindu gods. Festivals and rituals connected with them gained more popularity, impacting social life in many ways including a renaissance in art and architecture. Shiva, however, was a popular deity from a very remote period.

According to Kalhana, Ashoka worshipped Shiva at an existing ancient temple Shiva Vijayesha, when he came to Kashmir. He built two temples Shiva Ashokeshwara and Shiva Bhutesha dedicated to Shiva. Ashoka's son Jalauka is said to have been a staunch Shaiva by faith. The Pashupata system of dualistic Shaivism was most popular in early Kashmir, but soon numerous Shaiva sects, having their basis in Agamic Shaivism, came to flourish.

Among these the Kaula, Krama and Trika schools integrated themselves into Kashmir Shaivism, acquiring monistic undertones, eventually leading to a new non-dualistic school founded by the sage Vasugupta.

The new school interiorised the Agamic rituals and interpreted non-dualistic doctrines in accordance with its own monistic framework. The core concept of Kashmir Shaivism is that the Supreme Reality is one pure and indivisible consciouness which manifests itself as the world and the phenomena. It is all-inclusive as nothing exists apart from it.