Kashmir, Sir Younghusband Francis Edward [the best novels to read .TXT] 📗

rivals to the throne, started on a round of foreign expedition, in the historian's words, "to revive the tradition of the conquest of the world." The practical result does not appear to have been much more than an invasion of Hazara, an attack on Kangra and the subjugation of what is now the town of Gujrat in the Punjab, since remarkable as the spot where we finally overthrew the power of the Sikhs. But the record is of interest, as showing that the conquering tendency was still from Kashmir outwards, and not from the Punjab into Kashmir.

But this was the last outward effort, and from this reign onward the record is one long succession of struggles between the rulers and usurping uncles, cousins, brothers, ministers, nobles, and soldiers. The immediate successor was a child whose regent mother was under the influence of her paramour the Minister. After two years he was murdered by the Minister. Another boy succeeded who only lived ten days. Then the regent mother herself ruled for a couple of years, but a military faction overruled her councils, and by open rebellion obtained the throne for a nominee of their own, and the land became oppressed by exactions of the soldiery backed by unscrupulous ministers. The Queen was captured and executed, and a disastrous flood and terrible famine increased the general misery. After two years' reign the soldiers' nominee was deposed and a child put in his place. Then there was a fresh revolution and still another nominee, who, as he could not pay a sufficient bribe to the soldiery, was deposed and the crown sold to the Minister.

And now another power makes itself felt, the influence of the feudal landholders, whose interests had suffered from the prolonged predominance of the military party. They marched upon Srinagar, defeated the soldiers, threw out the usurping minister, and restored the legitimate king, who, however, showed little gratitude, but abandoned himself to vile cruelties and excesses, till the feudal landholders became so exasperated that they treacherously murdered him at night within the arms of one of his low-caste queens. The successor was no better. He surpassed his predecessor in acts of senseless cruelty and wanton licence, and was encouraged by his ambitious minister (who was scheming to secure the throne for himself) to destroy his own relatives. Some were murdered, and others captured and allowed to starve to death. He himself died after a reign of only two years, and his successor had to flee after occupying the throne for a few days. The commander-in-chief tried to seize it, but on placing the election in the hands of an assembly of Brahmins, they chose one of their own number, who for nine years, by a wise and mild rule, gained a respite from the constant troubles of previous reigns. Only a short respite, however, for on his death the aforementioned scheming minister, after first putting his rivals out of the way, forced an entrance to the palace, killed the successor of the Brahmin, and threw him into the Jhelum. He grossly oppressed the land for a year and a half, and then died of dropsy, to be succeeded by a youth grossly sensual and addicted to many vices, who married a princess of the house of Punch. This lady happened to have considerable force of character, and when her son succeeded as a child, exercised as his guardian full royal power. She ruthlessly put down all rival parties, executing captured rebels, exterminating their families. She even, on her son's death, murdered two of her own grandsons that she might herself retain power. Finally, she fell in love with a letter-carrier who had begun life as a herdsman; she appointed him her Minister, and he retained undisputed predominance over her for her reign of twenty-three years, his valour supplementing her cunning diplomacy and bribes in overcoming all opposition.

The following reign, which was prudent, but weak, is noticeable from the fact that the famous Mahmud of Ghazni, who forced Mohamedanism upon upper India, made an attempt, a.d. 1015, to invade Kashmir. It was unsuccessful, but it marks the first sign of the returning flood of invasion from the Punjab inwards to Kashmir. The outward flow had ceased. The inward was now to begin.

In the meanwhile, until the Moghals, five hundred years later, finally established themselves in Kashmir, the ceaseless round of intrigue, treachery, and strife continued. The powerful herdsman minister and his son were foully murdered, and a succession of low favourites rose to power and plundered the people. A reign of twenty-two days which follows was terminated by the licentious mother killing her own son. Then comes a dangerous rising of the feudal landholders and more short reigns, murders, suicides, till we arrive at the reign of Harsa, 1089-1101, who is said to have been "the most striking figure among the later Hindu rulers of Kashmir." He was courageous and fond of display, and well versed in various sciences, and a lover of music and the arts, but "cruelty and kindheartedness, liberality and greed, violent self-willedness and reckless supineness, cunning and want of thought, in turn displayed themselves in his chequered life." He kept up a splendid Court and was munificent to men of learning and poets. He also succeeded in asserting his authority in the hilly country outside Kashmir on the south. But he eventually became the object of conspiracies, and to put them down resorted to the cruellest measures. He had his half-brother, as well as his nephews, and some other relatives, who had given no cause for suspicion, heartlessly murdered. Extravagant expenditure on the troops and senseless indulgence in costly pleasures gradually involved Harsa in grave financial trouble, from which he endeavoured to free himself by ruthless spoliation of sacred shrines, and even by confiscating divine images made of any valuable metal. He was further reduced to the necessity of imposing new and oppressive imposts. All this misgovernment spread discontent and misery among the people; and while the plague was raging, and robbers everywhere infesting the land, there occurred a disastrous flood which brought on a famine. A rising against Harsa was the result. He was slain in the fighting; his head was cut off and burned, while his body, naked like that of a pauper, was cremated by a compassionate wood-dealer.

The position of his successor, Vecula, was no less precarious than that of the generality of Kashmir rulers. His younger brother was ready to rise against him, and the leaders of feudal landholders, to whose rebellion he owed his throne, behaved as the true rulers of the land. He protected himself by fomenting jealousy and mutual suspicion, and murdered or exiled their most influential leaders, and then openly turned upon the remainder and forced them to disarm and submit. He also systematically persecuted the officials. On the other hand he showed considerate regard for the common people, and was on the whole a liberal, capable, and fairly energetic ruler. Nevertheless he, too, met with a violent end. The city-prefect and his brothers attacked him at night in the palace as, unarmed and attended only by a few followers, he was proceeding to the seraglio. He fought with desperate bravery, but was soon overpowered by his numerous assailants and cruelly murdered, December 1111.

His immediate successor reigned only a few hours; his half-brother only four months. He was then made prisoner by his brother, whose reign of eight years was one succession of internal troubles caused by rebellious and powerful landholders whom he in vain tried to subdue. He imprisoned his Minister and the Minister's three sons, and finally had them all strangled. He executed with revolting cruelty some hostages of the landholders; and, finally, in face of a rebellion caused by his cruelty and by his oppressive imposts, he had to fly from Srinagar to Punch. A pretender occupied the throne for a year, during which the people were at the mercy of bands of rebels, while rival ministers contended for what was left of regal power. Trade was at a standstill and money scarce. The rightful ruler returned and again occupied the throne, and, owing to the want of union among the feudal landholders, was able to retain it for another five years. But eventually he also met the usual fate of Kashmir kings, and was murdered.

Jayashima, the successor, reigned for twenty-one years, though he had found his country in a pitiable state. The feudal landholders were like kings, while the resources of the King and people alike were well-nigh exhausted by the preceding struggles. His predecessor had been unable by force to permanently reduce the power and pretensions of these petty nobles, and Jayashima tried to effect the same object by cunning diplomacy and unscrupulous intrigue. But he was no more successful, and they continued to preserve a rebellious, independent attitude for centuries later, far into the Mohamedan period.

The accounts of this and the immediately preceding reigns are of particular interest, because Kalhana, the historian to whom the facts are due, lived at this period. We get then a first-hand account of the state of Kashmir eight hundred years ago. It is a petty, melancholy, and sordid history, but it is the record of a contemporary, and I have no hesitation in adopting it as giving a true impression of the state of the country, because I have myself seen a precise counterpart of it in independent states on this very frontier. When I visited Hunza in 1889 the then chief—now in exile—had murdered his father, poisoned his mother, and thrown his two brothers over a precipice. The chief of Chitral, when I was there in 1893, was one of only four survivors of seventeen brothers who were living when their father died, and he himself was subsequently murdered by one of his three surviving brothers—a brother whom he had frequently asked my permission to murder, on the ground that if he did not murder the brother, the brother would murder him. In Chitral there was also the same struggle with "nobles" as is recorded of Kashmir, and murders of "nobles" were horribly frequent.

We may accept, then, as authentic that the normal state of Kashmir for many centuries, except in the intervals when a strong, firm ruler came to the front, was a state of perpetual intrigue and assassination, of struggles with brothers, cousins, uncles, before a chief even came to the throne; of fights for power with ministers, with the military, with the "nobles" when he was on it; of constant fear; of poisoning and assassination; of wearying, petty internecine "wars," and of general discomfort, uncertainty, and unrest.

For two centuries more Hindu rule maintained itself, but it was steadily decaying. In the meanwhile Mohamedanism had, especially in consequence of the invasion of Mahmud of Ghazni in 1000 a.d., made great advances in the adjoining kingdoms of the Punjab; and, in 1339, a Mohamedan ruler, Shah Mir, deposed the widow of the last Hindu ruler and founded a Mohamedan dynasty. The influx of foreign adventurers from Central Asia as well as from India had prepared the ground for Mohamedan rule, and when Shah Mir appeared there was little change in the system of administration, which remained as before in the hands of the traditional official class, the Brahmins.

From this time till the Moghal emperors finally conquered Kashmir in 1586, there was, with one exception, the usual succession of weak rulers and constant struggles between rival factions of territorial magnates. But this one exception is worthy of notice, as his reign is even now quoted by Kashmiris as the happiest of their history. Zain-ul-ab-ul-din (1420-70) was virtuous in his private life and liberal. He was the staunch friend of the cultivators, and