Indian Antiquary Vol 26

SR No.: 032518
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 360
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 15 MB

Page 231

SEPTEMBER, 1897.]
THE CASTLE OF LOHARA.
225
THE CASTLE OF LOHARA.
BY M. A. STEIN, PH.D. The following notes on an ancient stronghold of the mountains enclosing Kasmir have been 1 prepared for my annotated translation of Kalhana's Rajatarangiņi now passing through the press.* Their publication in this place may be useful as supplying a specimen of the cominentary which accompanies that translation. They may also serve to illustrate the results which a closer study of the Chronicle and a series of antiquarian tours have furnished as regards the ancient topography of Kasmir and the adjacent territories.
The whole of these results has been embodied in the detailed maps of Ancient Kasmir which with the assistance of the Asiatic Society of Bengal I have been able to prepare, as a supplement to my work, at the Survey of India Offices. I hope soon to pablish these maps with a separato memoir in the Asiatic Society's Journal. Until then I must refer for any of the topographical details discussed below to the maps shewing the modern topography of the territory, as contained in the "Atlas of India " and other publications of the Survey of India.t
81. Lohara or Loharakotta, the Castle of Lohara,' has played an important part in Kaśnir history as the ancestral lome and stronghold of the dynasty whose narrative fills the last two cantos of Kalhana's Rajatarangini. In view of the very frequent references which Kalhana makes to this locality, its correct identification is essential for the full understanding of the events related in that portion of the Kaśmir Chronicle.
It may justly be doubted whether Wilson who first proposed to identify Lohara with Lahore (Essay on the Hindu History of Cashmir, p. 47), would have hazarded this suggestion if the text of Books vii. and viii. had then been accossible to him. Notwithstanding, however, the evident impossibility of making this assumed position of Lohara agree with the numerous passages in which Kalhana speaks of it as a hill-fortress and as situated in close proximity of Kašmír, Wilson's conjecture has been accepted with implicit faith by subseqnent interpreters. It has thus found its way too into numerous works not directly dealing with Kasmir. With some other topographical misunderstandings of this kind, it has helped to create greatly exaggerated notions as to the political power and territorial extent of the Kasmir kingdom at that late period.
2. The local indications furnished by the passages to be discussed below, had led me for some time back to look for Lohara in the mountain districts which adjoin Kasmir immediately to the south of the Pir Pantsål range. But it was only in the course of a tour specially undertaken in August, 1892, in search of this locality, that I was able to fix its position in the valley now called Lohrin, belonging to the territory of Prants (Parņotsa). A brief account of this identification has been given in the Anzeiger der philosophisch-historischen Klasse' of the Imperial Academy of Vienna, 14th December 1892, and in a paper read before the Royal Asiatic Society (see Academy, 1893, Nov. 24).
$ 3. Referring for some further topographical and ethnographical details to the remarks given below, it will be sufficient to note here that Lohrin, marked Loran on the mape, comprises the well-populated and fertile mountain district formed by the valleys of the streams which drain the southern slopes of the Pir Pantsil range betwben the Tatakuti Ponk and the Tosmaidan pass. The Loh'rin River which is formed by these streams, receives at Mandi the stream of the Gágri Valley which adjoins Loh'rin to the N.W. Some eight miles further down it flows into the Súran River with which together it forms the Tohi (Taushi) of Prûnts.
• To be published in 1898 by Messrs. Constable & Co., London, in two volumes quarto.
+ See Allar of India," Sheets 28 and 29, scale four miles to one inch; also Map of Kashmir rith part of adjacent mountains urneyed during 1855-57, scale two miles to one
1 Comp. e. g. Rajat. vii, 140, 703, 862, 939 viii. 203, 379, 567, 759, 881, 1927, 1630, 1791 8qq., 1975 199., 1997, etc.
* Comp. Troyer's note on iv. 177 and Vol. iii. p. 570: Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunds, iii. pp. 1042, 1119; also Dr. T. H. Thornton's excellent monograph " Lahore," 1976, p. 107.