1899.] 
LOCAL TRADITION. 
57 
materials in the various parts of the country. The large work which 
was to he prepared on the basis of these materials, was never completed, 
and of the latter themselves I was able to recover only small portions. 1 
But some time before his death Pandit Sahibram had drawn up 
abstracts of the information he had collected under the title of 
Kasmlratirthasamgraha , and of these I have been also able to obtain 
copies. The most detailed and apparently latest recension of this 
Tirthasaihgraha is the one contained in No. 61 of Prof. Biihler’s col¬ 
lection of MSS. now at Poona. 
This little work gives a list of numerous Tirthas with brief indica¬ 
tions of their special features and position, arranged in the topographi¬ 
cal order of Parganas. It is useful enough as a comprehensive synopsis 
of such sacred sites as were known at the time to local worship. The 
references to many obscure little shrines, Nagas, etc., show that the 
enquiries of Pandit Saliibram’s assistants had been extensive. But the 
work proves at the same time how little help traditional learning in Kasmir 
could offer in our days for the serious study of the old topography of the 
Valley. 
Pandit Sahibram’s plan is to indicate each Tirtha’s position by 
mentioning the territorial division in which it is situated, as well as the 
nearest village or other well-known locality. It was undoubtedly the 
learned author’s desire to give all local names in their old Sanskrit forms 
as far as they were known to him. Accordingly we find a number of 
localities correctly mentioned by their genuine old designations. But 
unfortunately the number of the latter is truly insignificant when 
compared with those local names which are plainly recognizable as new 
fabrications, as worthless as those already mentioned in connections 
with the topography of the modern Mahatmyas. 
In consideration of the fact that P. Sahibram deserves to be looked 
upon as the best representative of modern Kasmirian scholarship, 2 it is 
only just to illustrate the above remarks by a few examples. I take 
them only from among those local names the genuine forms of which 
can be easily ascertained from the Bajatarangini. The lake of the 
Naga Susravas , 3 the present Susram Nag, is named Susramanaga in one 
1 The papers acquired by me refer to some of the north-eastern Parganas 
and contain descriptions (in Sanskrit) of the various Nagas, Lingas, etc., the 
miraculous stories relating to them, together with the devotional texts which are 
supposed to be used at their worship. Quaint illustrations and maps accompany 
the text. The whole forms a large-sized folio. The critical value of these records 
is very slight. 
2 See Prof. Buhler’s Report, pp. 4, 38. 
S See Rajat. i. 267 note, and below, § 59. 
J. I. 8 
