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| 0051 |
Innermost Asia : vol.1 |
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OCR Text
was as general in ancient Kashmīr as it has from necessity remained to the present day in many
parts of the mountains right up to the Hindukush watershed.¹⁶
It only remains to point out that supplies reaching Chilās from the south could have been Gilgit
carried thence without serious difficulty, as they are to-day, to the central portion of what is now easily
Gilgit, by the route leading up the Indus valley to Būnji and thence up the Gilgit river. As this reached
route throughout runs over low ground in the valleys, between about 3,600 and 4,400 feet above from Chilās.
sea-level, it is, of course, open to traffic throughout the year. But in view of the great summer
heat experienced in the confined valleys, it is probable that, in the days when human transport
alone was practicable, the far shorter line was preferred that leads straight to the north of Chilās
by the Kinar-gāh valley and after crossing two high but easy passes strikes the cultivated central
tract of Gilgit a few miles below the present fort and station.¹⁷
SECTION II.—CHILĀS AND ITS PAST
Apart from the Chinese notice relating to a route through Chilās which has just been discussed Albērūnī's
I am able to trace only one early reference to the territory. It is to be found in Albērūnī's India and notice of
offers some interest, cursory as the passage is. In his account of Kashmīr, the importance and value Chilās.
of which I have had occasion fully to explain elsewhere,¹ the great Muhammadan scholar tells
us that passing into the open plain of the Kashmīr valley from the entrance gorge of Bārāmūla,
'you have for a march of two more days on your left the mountains of Bolor and Shamīlān, Turkish
tribes who are called Bhattavaryān. Their king has the title of Bhatta-Shāh. Their towns are
Gilgit, Aswira and Shiltās, and their language is the Turkish. Kashmīr suffers much from
their inroads.'² In the three localities mentioned as the chief seats of these tribes it is impossible
to mistake the present Gilgit, Hasōra (Astōr) and Chilās. Nor can it reasonably be doubted that
whatever caused Albērūnī to describe their inhabitants as 'Turks', he means by them the same
Dard tribes whom we know from plentiful evidence to have held this region ever since classical
times.³ Considering that Kashmīr was wholly inaccessible to Albērūnī and the regions beyond,
if possible, even more so, we may well feel surprise at his information about those distant mountain
tracts being as exact as it proves to be. I have indicated elsewhere that the explanation of this
detailed knowledge lies probably in the fact that Albērūnī employed Kashmirian Paṇḍits for
the Indian studies he carried on during his long stay at Ghazna and in the Panjāb (A. D. 1017–30).¹
Local knowledge derived from such Kashmirian informants obviously accounts for the 'The moun-
perfectly correct statement that the traveller entering the open Kashmīr valley from the gorge of tains of
Bolor and
Shamīlān.'
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