A cross-disciplinary anthology on contemporary Kashmir by academics from Jammu and Kashmir, the first such volume to appear. The book offers a panorama of key cultural concerns of Jammu and Kashmir today, incorporating analysis of military, cultural, religious, and social aspects of the society and polity.

"Charmed by the generous people and exquisite beauty of Kashmir, celebrated photographer John Isaac set out to honor this enchanting land that is unknown to so many. The 160 photographs in The Vale of Kashmir present the people and landscape of this remote and exotic region and the unique way of life that has developed on Dal Lake." "Nestled in the lush area where India, China, and Pakistan meet, the Vale of Kashmir is a vast garden dotted with lakes, marshes, orchards, and terraced fields, surrounded by the snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas. Isaac's spectacular photographs show us canals crowded with houseboats, floating gardens on Dal Lake, and the ancient city of Srinagar. The varied details of daily life-the harvesting of saffron, Hindu pilgrimages through the mountains, shepherds on the Himalayan slopes, and prayers at the mosque-come alive in these pages." "In addition to capturing the breathtaking natural beauty of the Vale, Isaac also honors the private realm of family life in Kashmir, with images of the merchants, farmers, weavers, and fishermen who live on the lake. Though renowned for its abundance of superb handicrafts, including carpets, shawls, silks, woodwork, and papier-mache boxes, Kashmir and its people are largely uncelebrated; Isaac's tender portraits honor these hard-working families. This arresting view of the land and Kashmiri people is put into a historical and geographical context by author Art Davidson's insightful and sensitive introduction."--BOOK JACKET.

Kashmir with its hoary past and bewitching beauty, philosophical intellectualism and mystic spiritualism is a paradise on earth. Not only geographically, Kashmir excels in its cultural heritage too. The lovely people of this lovely land have been known for their arts and crafts throughout the world. Walled off by high mountains and endowed with an unequalled natural beauty, Kashmir remained an inviolate with unequalled natural beauty; Kashmir remained an inviolate sanctuary of Indian culture, till at least the fourteenth century. Buddhism, Shivism and Sanskrit learning flourished in valley and produced a remarkably rich culture till the Muslim conquest over turned the social structure of Kashmir. The integration of Kashmir life was so complete that one of his most remarkable books that Ksemendra, who was himself a Shivite, produced was on the avadanas of the Buddha, a classic later Buddhist literature. Despite its geographical isolation, Kashmir has from ancient times, been a melting pot of nations and cultures. Its magnificent woods, enchanting lakes, rivers, meadows, glorious snow-clad mountains and above all fertile valleys attracted the foreigners to come and settle over here. Trade, religion and other cultural currents followed the ancient routes resulting in the migration of nomads of pre historic periods, and later Mauryan, Sakas, Kushanas, Huns, Syyids, Mughals, Sikhs and Dogras found place in Kashmir. The period covered in this book extends from the earliest times to A.D 1339, when the valley passed into the hands of a Muslim adventurer, Shahmir. The book opens with the account about the geographical features of Kashmir, that is followed by the political background of ancient Kashmir and that thoroughly covers the period of the three indigenous and independent dynasties of Kashmir i.e., Karkotas, Utpalas and Loharas respectively. The work has been written with the objective of giving a comprehensive story of Kashmir involving the common mans social, economic and political life during the times gone by. The work is based on the literary, epigraphic and archaeological sources. we tried to make this study of ancient Kashmir through and systematic. We feel immense pleasure in expressing profound gratitude to our esteemed supervisor Professor Susmita Pande, head of the Department, Vikram University Ujjain, for her scholarly help and advices. We wish to express our grateful thanks to Dr. Dhirendra Solanki and Dr. Ram Kumar Ahirwar and Dr. V.S. Parmar for their kind help, guidance, encouragement, untiring supervision and cooperation and their valuable suggestions, which kept us always on the right track with infinite patience.

What is history? How does a land become a homeland? How are cultural identities formed? The Making of Early Kashmir explores these questions in relation to the birth of Kashmir and the discursive and material practices that shaped it up to the 12th century CE. Reinterpreting the first work of Kashmiri history, Kalhana’s Rajatarangini, this book argues that the text was history not despite being traditional Sanskrit poetry but because of it. It elaborated a poetics of place, implicating Kashmir’s sacred geography, a stringent critique of local politics, and a regional selfhood that transcended the limits of vernacularism.Combined with longue durée testimonies from art, material culture, script, and linguistics, this book jettisons the image of an isolated and insular Kashmir. It proposes a cultural formation that straddled the Western Himalayas and the Indic plains with Kashmir as the pivot. This is the story of the connected histories of the region and the rest of India.

Rahul Pandita was fourteen years old when he was forced to leave his home in Srinagar along with his family. They were Kashmiri Pandits-the Hindu minority within a Muslim-majority Kashmir that was by 1990 becoming increasingly agitated with the cries of 'Azaadi' from India. Our Moon Has Blood Clots is the story of Kashmir, in which hundreds of thousands of Pandits were tortured, killed and forced to leave their homes by Islamist militants, and forced to spend the rest of their lives in exile in their own country. Pandita has written a deeply personal, powerful and unforgettable story of history, home and loss.