HISTORY OF CASHMIR. $ 



jar as probability is regarded., has received the sanction of that able geogra- 

 pher Major Rennel.* 



The draining of the water from the valley is ascribed, by the Hindu His- 

 torians to the Saint Casyapa, the son of Marichi, the son of Brahma, the Ca- 

 shefov Kasheb of the Mohammedans, according to some of whom, he was 

 not the Hindu Seer, but a Deo or Genie, the servant of Suliman, by whose 

 orders he effected the desiccation of Cashmir. The method of doinc; this 

 was opening a passage through the mountain at Baramouleh,f by which 

 the water passed off; but the Hindu accounts do not specify the channel 

 by which Casyapa originally drained the Valley. As however it is not im- 

 probable that the Valley was really submerged, it is equally possible, as 

 Bernier supposes, % that some natural convulsion rent the confining moun- 

 tainous barrier, and opened to the waters, an outlet to the plains of the 

 Punjab. 



The district thus recovered by Casyapa, was also it is said peopled by him, 

 with the assistance of the superior deities, whom he brought from heaven 

 for that purpose, at the beginning of the seventh or present Manwantara. 

 We must of course subject Cashmir to the same periods of destruction and 

 renovation, as the other parts of the universe, if we wish \o reconcile this 

 date with the usual chronology, but as this is not very indispensible, it has 



* " So far am I from doubting the tradition respecting the existence of the Lake that co- 

 vered Cashmir, that appearances alone would serve to convince me without either the tradition 

 or the history." — Memoir of a Map of Hindoostan, 107. 



t The Wakiat-i- Cashmir has another legend relative to the opening on this occasion of the 

 Baramouleh pass, which is ascribed to Vishnu : the story is not worth quoting, except as a 

 curious specimen of a Mohammedan disposition to enlarge upon Hindu fable : not a syllable of 

 the legend is to be found in the Raja Taringini. See Appendix, No. 1. 



I " Pour moi Je ne voudrois nier que toute cette terre neut autrefois ete couverte d' eaux : on 

 le ditbien de la Thessalie, et de quelques autrespays,mais J' ai de la peine a croire que cette 

 ouverture soit 1' ouvraged'unhomme parceque la montagne est ties large et tres haute. Jecroi- 

 rois plutot que quelque grand ti emblement de terre, comme ceslieux y sontassezsujets, auroit fait 

 ouvrir quelque caverne souterraine, ou la montagne se seroit enfoncee." — Voyage de Kachemire. 

 The remark made by Bernier continues applicable to the neighbouring and analogous districts; 

 during the labours of Capt, Hodgson in Gerwhal, in 1817, he noticed forty shocks, 



B — 



