1870.] 265 



Some Account of the Rishis or Hermits of Kashmir. — By Lieut. -Col. 

 D. J. F. Newall, E. A. 



I have already in a paper on the Hindu pilgrimages of Kash- 

 mir* alluded to the fact of many shrines being equally held in 

 reverence by the Hindu and Mnhammadan, and have stated as the 

 reason that the fragments of overthrown or ruined Hindu temples 

 had been used in the construction of the Moslem Zidrats or Mosques, 

 and also that the Kashmir Muhammadan in some degree still 

 clings to the superstitions of his Hindu ancestors. As an illustra- 

 tion of this assertion, I now proceed to give some account of an 

 order of recluses which in the earlier years of the Muhammadan 

 occupation of Kashmir attained considerable celebrity in the Mos- 

 lem world, I mean the order of " Bishis" or u Hermits," who 

 from about A. H. 782 [A. D. 1380], when the celebrated Say- 

 yid 'Ali Hamadani, and his son Mir Muhammad Hamadani, fugi- 

 tives from Persia, appeared in Kashmir, and began to attract pro- 

 selytes from amongst the various native religious sects existing at 

 the period in Kashmir. Abul Fazl records that in his time 45 

 places of worship existed to Siva, 64 to Vishnu, 3 to Brahma, 22 

 to Budha, together with nearly 700 figures of serpent gods, in Kash- 

 mir ; and these numbers may be taken approximately to represent 

 the religion of the country at the period of Muhammadan usurp- 

 ation. Note that the worship of the Tree and Serpent, that mystic and 

 primitive form of superstition, entered largely into the character of 

 the religion, and may have in its sylvan proclivities in some degree 

 influenced these Muhammadan Bishis or Hermits in the solitudes. 

 I would further add that the tendency to seclusion so characteristic 

 of Budhism may have also influenced these solitaires. We have 

 an instance of the cave of Bhima Devi (near Martund),f formerly 

 the residence and burying-place of the ascetic king Areer Rhyie, 

 who lived about A.D. 330, being adopted for a similar purpose by 

 Muhammadan faqfrs in modern times, and the tomb pointed 

 out as that of Areer Bhyie, who was probably a convert to the 



* Vide Journal, As. Soc. Bengal, July, 1866. 



t The small cave temple of Bhaumejo in the immediate vicinity is probably 

 aBudhist temple attributed to Bhauma-jyotis — the planet Mars — as its tutelary 

 " Rishi." Vide Cunningham's Essay on the Arian Order of Architecture, p 251, 

 and Journal, Asiatic Society, Bengal, 1848, p. 254. 



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