A wake-up call for policymakers and historians.
Grandmother whom we called Bobo in Dogri had a massive badi (open hillside) and from the edge of the hillside was visible the most beautiful valley surrounded by a panoramic view of forested hills and taller Shivalik peaks.
Every season the hills around our home in Bhaddu village would change color and the valley below would put different garbs too. They would become the most dramatic in winters when the peaks would become snowy, the hills violet and the valley would get decked with yellow carpets of mustard crop. In spring the forested hills would start picking colors–red, pink and crimson. Sometimes they would be greeted with orbs through which the far off peaks would look even more inviting.
Obviously as a child I always wanted to go to the higher peaks and I thought I could fly like a bird but it always remained a dream until last month when I finally crossed those layers of peaks forting Bhaddu-Billawar and reached Bani, my childhood’s fantasy–I was on a journalistic assignment.
My aunt was from a village called Panyalag which is 8 miles uphill from Bani town and we grew up in a joint family listening to her stories of Padh (pahad) which was a dogri analog for Bani. Three decades ago she would take a 12-14 hour bus ride from Billawar and then trek or hire ponies to reach home. It must have been arduous but it sounded more adventurous to the innocent me. The same journey is now shortened to four hours and the final trek is reduced to a kilometer.
My aunt’s father was an ayurvedic vaid (traditional ayurveda practitioner) and after every trip she would bring back some extremely effective home remedies–some of which her family still preserves. The most fascinating of those medicines locally called “Saprotri” was made from a herb found in the cracks in higher mountains for which the old man would hike into further heights. It was an amazing remedy for burn injuries. He also traveled to Amritsar for other herbs.
Aunt’s family owned a small retail business in Panyalag and her ancestors had migrated to the village 150 years ago for trade–a likely two decades after Maharaja Gulab Singh consolidated Jammu and Kashmir. They were originally from another village on the Jammu–Pathankot highway and were seasonal migrants–spending summers in Bani while their winters were spent in their more tolerable village in the plains.
Many families had business enterprises like this and followed seasonal migration patterns for trade which is very common in the entire Himalayan and trans-himalayan region. They were extremely resilient, skilled and industrious people and more importantly were the custodians of traditional routes and inheritors of a mountain economy which sadly hasn’t been as explored in Western himalayas as much as it’s explored in the central Himalayan region by historians and academicians.
The Great Game pushed India’s colonial government to generate harsh permit systems on mountain routes and the 1947 partition further cut through some of the most ancient civilization routes–these are the most notable reasons due to which these routes and their mountain economy was forgotten. Geography in the Western Himalayan theater of the Indian subcontinent is defined by the routes of the Indus river basin just like the central Himalayan routes followed the geographic construct of the Gangetic river basin. This is important to comprehend the historicity and the cultural connections between the communities in each of these basins.
There were specific communities in different regions of the Himalayas who controlled the trade in their respective regions and they were obviously some of the best trekkers as well. Like there were Botiyas in central himalayas trading with Tibet, there were Gujjars, Bakarwals and Gaddis traversing the high ranges of what’s today Himachal, Jammu, Kashmir and the northern regions of Pakistan and even eastern Afghanistan. Similarly there were several other communities trading in the Shivalik ranges linking Sialkot and Jammu–it’s not for naught that these two towns were called twin cities.
I feel awed when my aunt’s family talks about their grandfather traveling by foot with 100 kilograms of trade surplus between the markets in Jammu plains to the heights of Bani–they must be extremely strong people–obviously they were driven by economic opportunities and the latter is the catch! This implies these routes were inviting and people were daily moving on them in history.
Pilgrimage routes, War Treks and Temple Milestones
To understand historic connectivity in the Jammu Shivaliks which also mark the tri-junctional Shivalik corridor with Himachal Pradesh and Punjab, the most important thing to comprehend are the traditional routes through which humanity moved in history for basically two purposes–pilgrimage and war. Both these factors also describe their cognition of their world and its operations.
The milestones in these regions were obviously temples and springs(bowlis) and they were generally built by kings, knights or rich traders. Around these temples developed small markets and economies while on these routes were settled communities with histories of pilgrimage, war or trade.
Let’s take the example of Panyalag to understand how this worked–Panyalag was enroute Basoli to Bhaderwah. Basoli is a historic town–it’s an important entrance to Jammu hills from the trijunctional geography between Jammu, Himachal and Punjab. The river Ravi marks the outer boundary of the town of Basoli while on the other side is Pathankot and Chamba. Today at this tri-junction, Ravi river has been damed into the Ranjit Sagar hydro project.
Bhaderwah on the other hand is a subdivision in the Doda district of Jammu province and is home to the sacred Kailsah Kund–a lake considered the abode of Vasak (Vasuki) Nag. Both Basoli and Bhaderwah in history were ruled by the Pal Vanshis–the same clan also ruled Bhaddu and Kulu. Dogra historian Shiv Nirmohi considers Pal Vanshis to be the same as Hindu Shahis who were driven out of Gandhara-Taxila by the invading Gaznivites. Even historians, Sukhdev Singh Charak and Anita Charak Billawaria mention in the footnotes of chapter four of their English translation of Gulbanama that the four kingdoms of Pal Vanshis in these Shivaliks were related and were always at war with each other.
There was an ancient pilgrimage route from Basohli to Bhaderwah and also from Bhaddu-Billawar to Bhaderwah and the small village of Panyalag which today is home to thousand people was enroute this important trek. Panyalag has a five century old Vasak Nag temple built by a ruler of Basoli called Bhoopat Pal. This temple stands at the small junction where my aunt’s family owns a small business. Until a decade ago when the mule route to Panyalag was converted into a direct vehicular road to Bani town–the locals reported a daily footfall of 1000 people just through the small Panyalag market.
From the small Panlayag market there are two important foot routes–one goes uphill straight to Bhaderwah and another goes downhill to Bani town. From Bani one can take another detour to Bhaderwah. King Bhoopatpal existed between 1573 and 1642 and once while on a war journey to Bhaderwah a series of events at the holy Kailash Kund led him to establish a temple in Panyalag. The idol of Vasak nag was consecrated in Panyalag just because it was on a busy route.
An annual 3-day, arduous pilgrimage happens from the village of Duggan to Kailash Kund. Duggan is eight kilometers from Panyalag and is an important point enroute Bhaddu-Billawar to Dullangal to Duggan to Bani route. It has a very strong deployment of the Indian army today in the wake of recent terrorist attacks.
Basoli in history faced notable political rivalry with the adjoining kingdoms of Nurpur and Chamba and their intrigues were visible in the Mughal court of Shah Jahan where Bhoopat Pal was killed in a conspiracy hatched by the Raja of Nurpur, according to the Basoli based historian and author, Shiv Kumar Padha.
The Pal vanshis of Basoli had settled foot soldier communities who also doubled up as temple workers–for example the “Singhiya” community played the wind instrument called the “Ran-singhaya” in the temples–as the name suggests it was a war music instrument. The descendants of this community still play the instrument in the temples built by Basoli rulers and they also play it during the regular pilgrimages. In historic times they doubled up as soldiers in wars while also protecting the routes and providing the necessary information to the king.
There’s another community of those who play dhol (drum) in the temples and play devotional music during the pilgrimage and these are called “Bajeydar”. They are also called “Mujerey”and live in the outskirts of Bani town–they are another community connected with the pilgrimage history between Basoli and Bhaderwah. All these communities today are the descendants of people moving on the historic route between Basoli and Bhaderwah–they are in fact a hidden but living history in themselves.
Such communities on the Dogra Shivalik routes could also provide some explanation about why in the post-Mughal period these hills provided Dogra soldiers to the rajas of Jammu, Himachal and Punjab and were even hired by the British during their various Himalayan expeditions. They were acclimated and had an historic comprehension of this geography which can appear unfathomable and tough to people from the rest of the world even today.
Priests of Panyalag’s Historic Temple
Because of Panyalag temple’s connection with Kailash Kund in Bhaderwah, the priests of the temple mostly came from Bhaderwah. The last priest, Fakir Chand who passed away only seven years ago had come along with his father to Panyalag in childhood and was from Bhaderwah.
Because he passed away issueless, he adopted the eldest son from my aunt’s family and that’s how today my aunt’s brothers became the custodians of the temple. The family calls him Pujari Papa or the Priest Father.
Ironically I came to know of this whole history including my aunt’s family’s connection with the temple only last month while on a journalistic assignment in the region.
I trekked from Panyalag to another neighboring village called Maghani where I met the oracle of another temple. The oracle (Chela in vernacular), named Joginder Kumar traced his family’s history of three centuries across six generations on the historic route between Basoli and Bhaderwah. More importantly he shared that at the same place as the temple when his ancestors arrived, there lived a Sadhu or ascetic.
The Chela of another temple in Duggan whose name is Om Prakash and who was preparing for the annual pilgrimage to Bhaderwah when we met in early September told me that the schedule of the annual journeys to Kailash Kund is determined by a unique Jantri or Panchang (traditional calendar).
Since Panchang is a comprehension of time and space based on astrological charts–a unique panchang for Kailash kund yatra implies it followed its unique astrological comprehension of a cosmic construct which may imply that the Vasak Nag abode has a unique cosmic epithet or its own cosmic matrix and the lake of Kailash Kund is central to it. This can be important to understand the Naga culture in the larger Indus basin. Much food for thought indeed!
Understand Traditional Routes and Find New Meanings
While growing up in Jammu, we often heard that we have no history of our own. As we grew up and narratives started to evolve, the history of Jamwal Dogra rulers was portrayed as the only history of Jammu. The latter narrative is in fact very laden with political and geopolitical undertones.
I just can’t comprehend why there has been little focus on the history of this region. Dogra activists can say that it’s part of the deeper apathy Jammu regions have faced since 1947. I would say it all started in 1847 when after the Anglo-Sikh war the British first offered the Sikh territory of Kashmir and certain regions of Himachal to Gulab Singh in lieu of the one crore war indemnity that Sikhs owed to the British. But they eventually decided to retain regions South of Ravi and offered only Kashmir to Dogras for 75 lakhs.
While the impact of Anglo-Sikh war on Punjab and Kashmir is much discussed, imagine how it would have impacted the politics, boundaries and economy north of Ravi in the Shivaliks which includes the historic regions of Basoli and Bani. These were the regions of traditional routes connecting various worlds and they boasted of historic knowledge societies with their unique cognitive constructs or neurological diversity.
They were just forgotten and left to themselves and gradually they too believed they have no history except for very rare academicians like Nirmohi Or Padha who preserved some stories.
Now since there’s been a fresh focus on Jammu and Kashmir, particularly also on some of the remotest regions of Jammu, it’s dignified to expect that this world will attract research backed development initiatives, education economy, capacity building partnerships with rest of India and more importantly also an innovative revitalization of its historic traditional routes.