HistoriCity: From Jambupura to Jammu, the layered history of the northern region

The first contemporary reference to Jammu as an important state was in the memoirs of Timur, in his invasion of India (1398 - 1399).

On the March 16, 1846, the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir came into existence in the north of the Indian subcontinent–birthed through the Treaty of Amritsar between the two fully consenting parties of the English East India Company, and Gulab Singh, the raja of Jammu and the first Dogra king, who had served under Maharaja Ranjit Singh. This treaty was the result of the defeat of the Sikh empire, and was given to Gulab Singh for ₹75 lakh Nanak Shahi rupees (the then currency of the ruling Sikh empire).

A view of the snowcapped Himalayan range from Poonch in Jammu.(AFP)

Jammu–a region currently consisting of ten districts, and the revenue and administrative division of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir–was ruled by the Dogra dynasty (1846 - 1947). The area, popularly known as Duggarland, had under Ranjit Singh, been a northern Punjab kingdom comprising 22 hill principalities. A majority of its inhabitants are the Hindu Rajput Dogras, speaking Dogri, with the rest of the population largely comprising Muslims and Sikhs.

The first contemporary reference to Jammu as an important state was in the memoirs of Timur, in his invasion of India (1398 - 1399). After this there was serious contestation between the tribe of Khokhars led by Jasrat and Bhim Dev, the king of Jammu. They flip-flopped between friendship and enmity, and defeated each other with the help of bigger allies like the Sultan of Delhi and that of Lahore. K S Lal wrote in his seminal work, Jasrat Khokhar: “Of the many troubleshooters who arose in the wake of Timur’s catastrophic invasion of Hindustan, Jasrat Khokhar proved to be an unmitigated menace to the Sultanate of Delhi throughout the reigns of Mubaraka Shah (1421-1434), and his successor Muhammad Shah (1434-1445). Jasrat bested Bhim Dev in 1423, took over Jammu and attempted unsuccessfully to conquer Delhi. But with his exertions he managed to subdue Jammu and the Punjab, a feat for which he remains a folk hero among Khokhars”.

In early history, as M L Kapur points out in the ‘History of Jammu and Kashmir State’, a local tradition claims that the city of Jammu was founded by Jambu Lochan, an ancient ruler from 14th century BCE. On one of his hunting expeditions, he saw a tiger and a goat drinking water from the same point; an idealistic existence the land elicited. He then decided to build his capital– Jambupura– on the right bank of the river Tawi. Over time, this came to be referred to as Jammu.

The Waqiat-i-Kashmir (Story of Kashmir) or Tarikh-i-Azami, by Muhammad Azam Didamari, a Sufi Kashmiri, said that Jammu came into existence around 900 CE. As Kapur pointed out, the earliest references to Durgara Desha (from where the terms Duggar and Dogra emerge) are made on copper plates in the 11th century CE; noting a victory of a Chamba ruler over the Lord of Durgara.

According to Shonaleeka Kaul in her work ‘The Making of Early Kashmir’, recent archaeological research has revealed similarities between the Neolithic culture in the region and that of Harappan culture seen in Punjab and Haryana. These take the form of ceramic products such as carnelian beads, semi-precious stone blades and even a horned deity motif inscribed on pottery. Positing the rich and long-standing contact between the two cultures from the 4th millennium BCE, she asserted that “a further look at the intervening settlement patterns of Jammu may even provide a clue as to how this could have come about: the co-existence of Early Harappan Manda in Jammu with Neolithic Malpur in Nawashehar district, Punjab, on either bank of the Chenab appears to provide connecting evidence of cultural interlinkage in the prehistoric period”.

The site of Semthan in Anantnag district, in the Kashmir valley, lies in the vicinity of the city of Vijbror (Bijbehara), highlighted in the Rājataraṅgiṇī, an 11th century Sanskrit poem by Kalhana running into 8,000 verses, narrating the genealogy of the region’s dynasties. Semthan displays evidence of Northern Black Polished Ware, indicative of the rise and spread of cities, coinage, commerce and the development of societies in the Indo-Gangetic plains and central India.

Rulers of Jammu

Over the centuries, Jammu and Kashmir experienced a succession of hegemonies: the Guptas, Harsh Vardhana, the Shahis, the Mughals, the Sikhs, and the British, as well as incursions by Scythians, Muslims and the Huns. It was to repel the invasion of the latter that the region first settled under the rule of native Hindus– the Karkotas (625 - 855 CE). Andre Wink wrote in ‘The Making of the Indo-Islamic World’ that it was particularly during the conquest of the most famous of Karkota rulers, Lalitaditya Muktapida (695 - 732 CE), that Brahmin ascendancy began. His grandson Jayapida, was said to have also “collected them from around the subcontinent”.

Kapur pointed out that the region was also a part of the Mauryan and Kushan empires of India, and it was under Emperor Asoka (268 to 232 BCE) that Srinagar was founded, and Buddhism introduced.

In 1320, it came under Muslim rule. Sadruddin Shah, who was the founder of the Sultanate of Kashmir, is said to have been a Buddhist prince from Ladakh named Rinchana who converted to Islam. According to historian Richard M. Eaton, in India in the Persianate Age, 1000–1765, Rinchana seized power and appointed Shahi Mir as his chief minister. Subsequent generations, as led by Shihab ud Din (1354-1373), Sikander (1389 - 1413), among others, established Islam, particularly in Kashmir. Eaton pointed out that Brahmins did not “view the sultans as threatening their own status, especially when Kashmir’s new rulers married into the families of neighbouring rajas and – more importantly – made Brahmins their partners in governance”.

The Rinchana dynasty was followed by the Chaks, who themselves held control till deposed by the Mughals in 1588. The Mughals, while favouring Kashmir, established Muslim settlements and ruled until 1747 when Ahmad Shah Abdali of Afghanistan annexed the territory from the weakened empire.

The Pathans controlled Kashmir until 1819, when Sikh leader Ranjit Singh conquered it. Meanwhile, Jammu was consolidated by Dogra Rajput, Maldev. The Dogra dynasty flourished under Ranjit Deva (1725-82) before falling to Ranjit Singh’s Punjab Raj in 1816. In 1822, Singh restored the kingdom under Ghulab Singh, a loyal Hindu Dogra prince who began asserting independence after Singh’s death in 1839, as the Sikh empire weakened under British pressure.

HistoriCity is a column by author Valay Singh that narrates the story of a city that is in the news, by going back to its documented history, mythology and archaeological digs. The views expressed are personal.