Kashmiri kinship and descent is one of the major concepts of Kashmiri cultural anthropology. Hindu and Muslim Kashmiri people living in the state of Jammu and Kashmir in India and other parts of the world are very similar, which helps trace Kashmiri kinship and descent.
A significant section of the Kashmiri community form a social group whose members claim common ancestry. Both the Kashmiri Hindus and Muslim society reckons descent patrilineally. Certain property and titles may be inherited through the male line, but certain inheritances may accrue through the female line.
Kashmiri lineage as a descent group demonstrate a common descent from an apical ancestor. The prevalence of common clan, family, and surnames among contemporary Hindu and Muslim Kashmiri groups is indicative of a common descent group. Examples of other such clans are Scottish, Irish, Tlingit, Chechen, Chinese and Japanese clans.
Kashmiri Hindu and Muslim phratry are a descent group containing at least two clans which have a supposed common ancestor. Kashmiri society is divided into two descent groups, or a moiety, after the French word for half.
The name "Kashmir" means "desiccated land" (from the Sanskrit: Ka = water and shimeera = desiccate). According to Hindu mythology, the sage Kashyapa drained a lake to produce the land now known as Kashmir.
| “ | It is generally accepted fact that up to about the beginning of the fourteenth century the population of the valley was Hindu and Buddhist, and that about the middle and the end of the century the mass of the people were converted to Islam through the efforts of Shah i Hamdan."[1] | ” |
kashimri Pandit in general and Misri clan are trditional secular in their out and have participated in national movement fpr freedom from aristocact right from eary 1940s at movemenent most of them have found refeuge in other parts of country but have stucked their principal of oneness of humanity.
For a better understanding of the common kinship of Muslim and Hindu Kashmiris a brief introduction to the history of the region is important. According to Mahabharata,[2] the Kambojas ruled over Kashmir during epic times and it was a Republican government under the Kamboj.[3] The capital city of Kashmir during these times was Rajapura, also known as Karna-Rajapuram-gatva-Kambojah-nirjitastava.[4] Rajapura has been identified with modern Rajauri.[5]
The Mauryan emperor Ashoka is credited with having founded the city of Srinagar. Kashmir was once a Buddhist seat of learning, with the Sarvāstivādan school dominating. East and Central Asian Buddhist monks are recorded as having visited the kingdom. In the late 4th century AD, the famous Kuchanese monk Kumārajīva, born to an Indian noble family, studied Dīrghāgama and Madhyāgama in Kashmir under Bandhudatta. He become a prolific translator who helped take Buddhism to China. His mother, Jīva, retired to Kashmir. Vimalākṣa, a Sarvāstivādan Buddhist monk, travelled from Kashmir to Kucha and there instructed Kumārajīva in the Vinayapiṭaka.
In the 13th century, Islam started spreading in Kashmir, with many people converting to Islam. The Muslims and Hindus of Kashmir lived in harmony, since the Sufi-Islamic way of life that ordinary Muslims followed in Kashmir complemented the Rishi tradition of Kashmiri Pandits. This led to a syncretic culture where Hindus and Muslims revered the same local saints and prayed at the same shrines. The Sufi saint Bulbul Shah persuaded King Rinchan Shah, ruler of Kashgar Ladakh, to adopt the Islamic way of life.
Some Kashmiri rulers, such as Sultan Zain-ul-Abidin, tolerated all religions in a manner comparable to Akbar. Several Muslim rulers of Kashmir were intolerant to other religions.
The metrical chronicle of the kings of Kashmir, called Rajatarangini, has been pronounced by Professor H. I. Wilson to be the only Sanskrit composition yet discovered to which the appellation "history" can be applied. It first became known to the Muslims when, on Akbar's invasion of Kashmir in 1588, a copy was presented to the emperor. A translation into Persian was made at his order. A summary of its contents, taken from this Persian translation, is given by Abul Fazl in the Ain-i-Akbari. The Rajatarangini was written by Kalhana about the middle of the 12th century. His work, in six books, makes use of earlier writings that are now lost.
The Rajatarangini is the first of a series of four histories that record the annals of Kashmir. Commencing with a rendition of traditional history of very early times, the Rajatarangini comes down to the reign of Sangrama Deva, (c.1006 AD). The second work, by Jonaraja, continues the history from where Kalhana left off, and, entering the Muslim period, gives an account of the reigns down to that of Zain-ul-ab-ad-din (1412). P. Srivara carried on the record to the accession of Fah Shah in 1486. The fourth work, called Rajavalipataka, by Prajnia Bhatta, completes the history to the time of the incorporation of Kashmir in the dominions of the Mogul emperor Akbar in 1588.
The Settlement commissioner for Kashmir and Jammu State Walter R. Lawrence recorded the Gotras and Kram system of the Kashmiri Pandits in 1895. Owing to Kashmiri Pandits converting from Hinduism to Islam in Kashmir many of the names from the Hindu gotras and krams are common to Kashmiri Muslims.
| “ | The pandits are broken into numerous gotras, or tribal divisions, and though the name of the gotra is repeated seven times by the pandit as he performs his daily ablutions, the outside world rarely hears it mentioned, and the Pandits are known by their kram or family appellation. There are eighteen known gotras among Lenite Brahmans and 103 among the other Brahmans in Kashmir. In one gotra there may be many krams as the following instances will show. Among the Malmas gotra is one known as Paldeo Wasgarge, and this gotra embraces Families belonging to the following krams, or tribal subdivisions: Sopuri-Pandit, Mala Poot, Mirakhur, Kadalabaju, Kokru, Bangru, Bakaya, Khashu, Kichlu, Misri, Khar and Mam.... Among the Banamas Pandits there is a gotra known as Dattatrye and from this gotra have sprung the great families of Kol, and others less known, such as the Nagari, Jinse, Jalali, Watal, Nek, Sultan, Ogra, Amin, Moja, Bamjai, Dont, Tota, SabinKissu, Manslal, Singari Rafij, Balu and Darabi. As will be afterwards shown when discussing the tribes of the Musalmans, the kram is often the relic of a nickname applied to the ancestor of the subdivision."[6] | ” |
The advent of Islam into Kashmir, traditionally a Buddhist and Hindu region, resulted in many Kashmiri Muslims being descendants of Hindus. The prevalence of common Kashmiri Pandit family names among contemporary Kashmiri Muslims is indicative of Hindu lineage.
Common family names among Kashmiri Pandits include: Handoo, Aga, Atal, Bandhu, Bhan, Bagati, Bhat/Butt/Bhatt, Budki (Burki), Bindroo, Chowdhury, Dhar (Dar), Dass (Das), Dassi, Dulloo, Ganju (Ganjoo), Kaw, Gurtu, Hak, Haksar, Hangal, Hangoo, Hoon, Jaju, Jalali, Kachru (Kachroo), Kak, Kar, Kappu, Katju, Kaul(Koul), Kaw, Kemmu, Khar, Kasid Kher, Khosa, Kitchlu (Kitchlew), Kunzru, Langoo, Madan, Mahaldar, Malla, Mantoo, Mattoo, Mukoo,Muthoo, Mir, Misri, Natu, Nehru, Ogra, Pandit, Pandita, Parimoo, Qasba, Raina, Rayu, Razdan, Reu, Sadhu, Sapru, Shivpuri, Shrunglu, Shunglu, Tangnu, Thusoo, Tikoo,Wakhlu, Wanchoo/Wanchu, Wantoo/Wantu, Warikoo, Wattal, Wattoo, Zalpuri, Zaroo and Zutshi.
Many of these names are also shared by Kashmiri Muslims.
| “ | Conversions from Hindus in Kashmir also happened among the Khatris. There are still Khatris in Srinagar known as Bohras and engaged in trade, who are cut off from communion with the Khatris of the Punjab, and there are certain Muslim tribes who trace their origins to Khatri ancestors."[7] | ” |
| “ | The census of 1891 does not show the divisions into which the Musalmans of the valley fall, but it may be stated that the greatest mass of the village people come under the head Shekh, and are descendants of the original Hindus. The Shekh Musalmans of the valley may have retained, for some time after their conversion to Islam, some of the Hindu customs of endogamy within the caste and exogamy outside the gotra."[8] | ” |
| “ | Among the Shekhs must be mentioned the following classes who are more or less connected with the religion of Islam. The Pirzadas who are descendents of zealous converts to Islam consider themselves equal to the Saiyads and intermarry with them."[9] | ” |