Foundations of Composite Culture in Kashmir

Kalhana’s Rajatarangani, written in the twelfth century AD, contains a quasi-history of Kashmir which provides a valuable and accurate picture of the socio-cultural life of the region from the eighth century onwards. Prior to the eighth century, we know that Kashmir was a centre of Buddhist learning. Already in the reign of Asoka in the third century AD some Buddhist traditions had spread in the Kashmir region. Moreover, from the first few centuries AD beginning with the reign of Kanishka and thereafter, Kashmir became an important centre of northern Buddhist developments including traditions of Sarvastivada, the Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara and early Mahayana, both in its popular manifestations and in its more intellectual formulations of Madhyamika and Yogacara. Running parallel through these Buddhist centuries in Kashmir there were also traditions of an archaic Naga cult taking shape together with the emergence of the early texts of Shaivagama, although very little is known about these latter traditions prior to the eighth century AD.