1899 .] 
THE KAS'MIR CHRONICLES. 
29 
which are mentioned along with them in the Puranas examined by me, 
indicate any more distinct location of the country. 1 2 
Varahamihira (circ. 500 a.d.) in his Brhatsamhita includes the 
Kasmiras curiously enough in the north-eastern division. Among the 
regions and peoples named under the same heading there are a number 
of purely legendary character like 4 the kingdom of the dead ’ ( nasta- 
rdjya), the 4 gold region,’ 4 * the one-footed people,’ etc. But besides 
these names and others of a different type which cannot be clearly 
identified, we recognize the names of tribes which undoubtedly must be 
located in the immediate neighbourhood of Kasmir. Thus we have the 
Abhisdras, Daradas , Darvas, Khas'as , Kiras , and somewhat more distant 
the country of Kuluta (Kulu) and the Kaunindas or Kaulindras 
(Ptolemy’s KvAirS/nV^). 8 
Perhaps the most specific piece of information regarding Kasmir 
that Sanskrit literature outside the Valley can convey to us, is con¬ 
tained in the term Kasmlra or Kdsmiraja which designates the saffron 
and according to the lexicographers also the root of the hustha or costus 
speciosus. Both the saffron and the Kustha have since early times 
been famous products of Kasmir. 3 
Section V.— The Kas'mir Chronicles. 
Abundance of 
Kasmlrian sources. 
16. The want of detailed and exact geographical information just 
noticed in old Indian literature generally stands 
in striking contrast to the abundance of data 
supplied for our knowledge of old Kasmir by 
the indigenous sources. The explanation is surely not to be found in 
the mere fact that Kasmlrian authors naturally knew more of their own 
country than others for whom that alpine territory was a distant, more or 
less inaccessible region. For were it so, we might reasonably expect to 
find ourselves equally well informed about the early topography of other 
1 Compare Vdyupur. xlv. 120; xlii. 45 ; Padmapur. I. vi. 48, 62 ; Bhdgavatapur. 
XII. i. 39; Visnupur. IY. xxiv. 18. 
2 See Brhatsamhita, xiv. 29 sqq., and Ind. Ant., 1893, pp. 172, 181 ; also Alberuni 
India, i. p. 303, 
s Regarding the saffron cultivation of Kasmir, compare Lawrence, Valley, 
p. 342, and below, § 78. 
The kustha, now known in Kasmir by the name of kuth, is the aromatic root of 
the Saussurea Lappa which grows in abundance on the mountains of Kasmir; see 
Lawrence, p. 77. The kuth is still largely exported to China and might be hence 
one of the medicinal plants which Hiuen Tsiang particularly notices among Kasmir 
products ; se& Si-yu-ki, i. p. 148. 
