124 
ANCIENT GEOGRAPHY OF KAS'MIR. [Extra No. 2, 
the Muhammadan rural population ( Lun 1 and Tdntr *)d But whatever 
distinctions of race or caste may have originally been indicated by these 
‘ Krams,’ they have long ago disappeared. 
It is equally certain from an examination of the Chronicle that 
these sections were never confined to particular territorial divisions, but 
spread all over the Valley. The humblest of these sections is probably 
the one which has least changed its character during the course of cen¬ 
turies. The modern Dumbs, the descendants of the old Dombas , 2 are 
still the low-caste watchmen and village-menials as which they figure 
in Kalhana’s narrative. They, like the still more despised Vatals or 
scavengers, cannot intermarry with other Kasim ids. They have thus 
retained in their appearance a distinctive type of their own which 
points to relationship with the gipsy-tribes of India and Europe. 
It is difficult to come to any definite conclusion as regards the 
Ki-li-to whom Hiuen Tsiang mentions as a low-born race settled in 
Kasmir from early times and opposed to the Bauddhas. 3 Their name, 
usually transcribed Kritiya , cannot be traced in indigenous records. 
There is nothing to support their identification with the Kiras, as 
suggested by General Cunningham. 4 The latter seems to have been a 
tribe settled somewhere in the vicinity of Kasmir. 5 
80 . The ethnography of the territories immediately adjoining 
Baees on Kasmir Kasmir can be traced quite clearly from the 
borders. notices of the Rajataraiiginl. 
In the south and west the adjacent hill-regions were occupied by 
Khasas. Their settlements extended, as shown by numerous passages 
of the Chronicle, in a wide semi-circle from Kcist a vdr in the south-east 
to the Vitasta Valley in the west. 6 The hill-states of Rajapuri and 
Lohara were held by Khasa families ; the dynasty of the latter territory 
succeeded to the rule of Kasmir in the 11th century. I have shown 
elsewhere that the Khasas are identical with the present Khakha tribe 
to which most of the petty chiefs in the Vitasta Valley below Kasmir 
and in the neighbouring hills belong. We have already seen that the 
1 Compare notes v. 248; vii. 1171. 
2 See Raj at. note iv. 475; also v. 353 sqq., vi. 84, 182; vii. 964, 1133, viii. 94. 
These passages show that the Dombas also earned their bread as hunters, fishermen, 
buffoons, quacks, etc,, and their daughters as singers and dancers. Their occupa¬ 
tions thus closely resembled those of the gipsies whose name, Rom , is undoubtedly 
derived from Skr. domba ; see P. W. s. v. 
8 See Si-yu-ki, transl. Beal, i. pp. 150, 156 sqq. 
4 See Anc. Geogr., p. 93. 
6 Compare my note viii. 2767. 
6 See Iidjat, i. 317 note. 
