1899.] 
THE PXR PANTSAL RANGE. 
71 
ment fell in the commencement of the winter, he could not have selected 
a more convenient route. The Ban a hal Pass is the only one across 
the Pir Pantsal Range on which communication is never entirely 
stopped by snowfall. Kalhana’s narrative shows that the political and 
ethnographic frontier of Kasmir ran here as elsewhere on the water¬ 
shed of the range. For the castle of Banasala, though so near as to be 
visible already from the top of the pass ( sanihata ), was already held by 
a Khasa chief. 1 
Proceeding westwards from Ban a hal we come to a group of three 
snowy peaks reaching above 15,000 feet. With their bold pyramidal 
summits they form conspicuous objects in the panorama of the range 
as seen from the Valley. 2 Kasmir tradition locates on them the seats 
from which Visnu, S'iva and Brahman, according to the legend already 
related, fought Jalodbhava and desiccated the Satisaras. The western¬ 
most and highest of these peaks (15,523 feet) forms the famous 
Naubandhana Tirtha. According to the legend related in the Nilamata 
and other texts and connected with the Indian deluge story, Visnu in 
his fish Avatara had bound to this peak the ship (nan) into which 
Durga had converted herself to save the seeds of the beings from des¬ 
truction. 3 At the foot of this peak and to the northwest of it, lies a 
mountain lake over two miles long known now as Kons a r Nag , the 
Kramasaras or Kramasara of the Nilamata and Mahatmyas. 4 * It is 
supposed to mark a footstep ('Jcrama ) of Visnu, and is the proper object 
of the Naubandhana pilgrimage. 
About 8 miles straight to the west of this lake, the range is crossed 
h J a pass, over 14,000 feet high, known now by the name of Sidau or 
Budil. It lies on a route which in an almost straight line connects 
Srinagar with Akhnur and Sialkot in the Panjab plain. Running up 
and down high ridges it is adapted only for foot traffic, but owing to 
its shortness was formerly a favourite route with Kasmlrls. 6 The name 
Sidau is given to the pass from the first village reached by it on the 
1 Rajat. viii. 1674, 1683. Savikata is the regular term for ‘pass.’ 
2 Marked on maps as ‘ Brama Sakai,’ perhaps a corruption for Brahmatsikhara 
* Brahman’s peak.’ 
8 See Nilamata, 33 sqq .; Haracar. iv. 27; S'riv. i. 474 sqq.; S'arvdvatdra iii. 4, 12; 
v. 43, etc. 
4 See S'riv. i. 482 sqq. where a visit of Sultan Zainu-l-‘ahidln to this lake is 
related at length; Nilamata, 121, 1272; Naubandhanamdhdtmya, passim ; S'arvavatdra 
iii. 10; v. 174, etc. 
6 According to Drew, Jummoo, p. 524, the distance from Jammu to S'rinagar by 
the Sidau route is reckoned at 129 miles while vid the Ban a hal it is 177 miles. 
The name Budil is given to the pass from the hill-district adjoiuing it on the 
south; compare my note Rajat. vi. 318. 
