What do a Hindu king and a Muslim sultan have in common? Both looted Kashmir’s temples

Kashmiri Brahmins employed by the Sultans presented their temple attacks as the natural progression of the activities of Shaivite kings.

According to Jonaraja, the Martand Sun Temple was destroyed by Sultan Sikandar | Representational image | Commons

How did Kashmir, once a dazzling bastion of Shaivism and Vaishnavism, become one of South Asia’s few Muslim-majority regions? Throughout the 20th century, fundamentalists provided many simplistic answers to this question, using medieval texts for their own political ends. But just like today, medieval writers had their own politics, intrigues, and perhaps survival instincts and opportunism. Kashmir, as we will see, is a great case in point. Its conversion is a story of Sanskrit-speaking Turk Sultans who claimed to be avatars of Vishnu; fanatical Brahmin converts to Islam; and idol-destroying Sufi saints. 

What was Kashmir like before Islam?

Islam emerged as a major political force in Kashmir relatively late in its history—only in the 14th century CE, well after the Delhi Sultanate was established in the Gangetic Plains. Before this point, Kashmir is often imagined as a utopia. After all, some of the medieval period’s most influential aestheticians and litterateurs lived in Kashmir, and it was a vibrant centre of Shaivism, Vaishnavism and Buddhism. But there was more going on—and we can’t understand the rise of Islam without it.

One of our main historical sources is a text called the Rajatarangini, the River of Kings, by the 12th century chronicler Kalhana. The Rajatarangini is often seen as an objective historical source, but Kalhana often injected it with his own moral meditations on the ills of his time.

The picture Kalhana paints is of a state in frequent crisis, suffering famine and injustice due to (according to him) the greed and impiety of kings, ministers and nobles. The worst example of this impiety? Unabashed temple-looting, especially by king Harsha (r. 1069–1101, Book VII). Since Kalhana was a Brahmin, Harsha’s temple-sacking directly attacked his kin networks, so he angrily accused the king of incest (VII.1148) and even of having an officer for looting temples (VII. 1091). 

But there was more going on. Kalhana also writes that the Dammara, Lavanya and Tantrin aristocrat clans refused to pay taxes, installed puppet rulers, and raided villages. Harsha’s temple loot was used to equip and maintain a powerful army, which he used to crush these unruly aristocrats. Even Kalhana grudgingly calls him “an Indra among kings”. The fall of great temples and mathas was a symptom of elite political breakdown—not the cause, as Kalhana thought.

All this allows us to get at some crucial historical points. First, medieval chroniclers lied, and had their own biases which led them to misdiagnose problems. Second, Kashmiri royals didn’t care about looting temples that they had not personally set up—it was wealth for the taking, which they needed for their own projects. (Compare this to the situation in South India). And finally, vicious court politics led to serious consequences for commoners: famines, loss of harvest, raiding and kidnapping.

How did Islam arrive in Kashmir?

Kashmir was always a globally-connected place. Muslim and Buddhist Central Asians and Turks were part of its politics for centuries, both in its imperial heyday and in its difficult 12th century. Turk craftsmen were present in Srinagar, and were part of Kashmiri military labour markets. There’s even evidence that king Harsha copied Turk courtly fashions, which Kalhana describes as “dress fit for a king” (VII.921–4). 

Unlike in North India, though, Muslim kingship in Kashmir didn’t arrive with Turk conquerors. At least, that’s the version presented by the Zain Rajatarangini, a sequel to Kalhana’s Rajatarangini commissioned by Sultan Zain-ul-abdin (r. 1420–1470). The text was written by Jonaraja, a prominent Kashmiri Brahmin in the Sultan’s court. According to Jonaraja, after Kalhana’s time, the political situation in Kashmir continued to worsen. Mongols probed both the Delhi Sultanate and its neighbours.

Finding Kashmir ripe for the taking, they devastated it. In the aftermath, a Turkicised Ladakhi Buddhist called Rinchana seized power in 1320, and attempted to get the support of a Shaivite priest. (Jonaraja’s Rajatarangini, translated by JC Dutt, page 30). Refused on grounds of his low birth, he converted to Islam instead. This was only natural in this multi-religious environment: if even Harsha had adopted Turk fashion, it was only a matter of time before Turk religions and titles were adopted.

Temple desecration surged under Sultan Sikandar (r. 1389–1413), who encouraged the immigration of Persian Sufis. While blaming these Sufis for instigating attacks on Brahmins and temples, Jonaraja, rather interestingly, claims that “of the tree of misgovernment which was Harsha, the Turk was the seedling” (Dutt, page 54), and that the executor of the persecution was Suhabhatta—a Kashmiri Brahmin who converted to Islam to maintain his position as Sikandar’s chief minister. A few decades later, Jonaraja’s patron, Zain-ul-abidin, had a different policy: he was a great patron of Brahmins and Sanskrit. Jonaraja and his disciples practically fell over themselves  to declare him an avatar of Vishnu and boast of how he listened to them explain Sanskrit epics such as the Gita Govinda (Dutt, 130) and the Yogavasishtha (Dutt, 146). 

What are we to make of all this? A popular claim nowadays is that Hindu kings destroyed temples differently from Muslim kings. But here the desecrations of the Kashmiri Hindu king Harsha are explicitly compared to those of the Kashmiri Muslim king Sikandar. And just a few verses down, when a Kashmiri Muslim king patronises Brahmins, he is declared an avatar of Vishnu. What we are seeing is not a uniform policy, where Sultans woke up in the morning and ordered temple destruction for breakfast. Instead, we’re seeing the struggle of court factions across centuries, as interpreted by Brahmin chroniclers. 

How historical sources are twisted

In his book The State in Medieval Kashmir, which inspired this article, Kashmiri historian Rattan Lal Hangloo excoriates the misinterpretation of the region’s conversion to Islam. “The historical memory of this phenomenon did not base itself on empirical evidence, but was largely shaped by popular expectation, the mediator’s perception, emotion and prejudice… it has resulted in historical memory gaining legitimacy over the actual historical reality.” (Emphasis my own).

Kashmiris have suffered unspeakably in the 20th century and after, and I do not claim that the medieval past offers any sort of justification for it. It’s the opposite: medieval sources are always biased, and we always misinterpret them to suit us. The fact is that Kashmir’s Rajataranginis were not written for us, but for medieval audiences familiar with their author’s politics. Jonaraja was a Brahmin employed by a Sanskrit-speaking Sultan. He had every reason to exaggerate previous Sultans’ persecutions of Brahmins, to make his employer seem better in comparison. He had every reason to compare this persecution to Harsha, who had clearly made a negative impression on the Brahmin community in the 12th century. 

Fundamentalists today have convinced us, by and large, that Hinduism and Islam were always at loggerheads. And so when we read medieval texts, we focus only on the temple desecration because that is what our warped historical memory has led us to expect. The idea that historical reality was complicated is practically heresy.

In king Harsha’s 11th century struggles with his nobles, rich temples were a casualty. In the 21st century, as we struggle with majority and minority fundamentalism, rich history is the casualty.

Anirudh Kanisetti is a public historian. He is the author of Lords of the Deccan, a new history of medieval South India, and hosts the Echoes of India and Yuddha podcasts. He tweets @AKanisetti. Views are personal.

This article is a part of the ‘Thinking Medieval‘ series that takes a deep dive into India’s medieval culture, politics, and history.

(Edited by Theres Sudeep)