In the Rajatarangini it is stated that the valley of Kashmir was formerly a lake, and that it was drained by the great rishi or sage, Kasyapa, son of Marichi, son of Brahma, by cutting the gap in the hills at Baramulla (Varaha-mula). When Kashmir had been drained, he brought in the Brahmans to occupy it. In the 7th century Kashmir is said by the Chinese traveller Hsuan Tsang to have included Kabul and the Punjab, and the hill region of Gand hara, the country of the Gandarae of classical geography.
At an early date the Sanskrit name of the country became Kdsmir. The earliest inhabitants, according to the Rajatarangini, were the people called Naga, a word which signifies "snake." The other races mentioned as inhabiting this country and the neigh bouring hills are Gandhari, Khasa and Daradae. The Khasa people are supposed to have given the name Kasmir. In the Mahabharata the Kasmira and Daradae are named together among the Kshattriya races of northern India.
In the time of Asoka, about 245 B.C., one of the Indian Buddhist missions was sent to Kashmir and Gandhara. After his death Brahmanism revived. Then in the time of the three Kushan princes, Huvishka, Jushka and Kanishka, who ruled over Kashmir about the beginning of the Christian era, Buddhism was to a great extent restored, though for several centuries the two religions existed together in Kashmir, Hinduism predominating. In this Hindu-Buddhist period, and chiefly between the 5th and loth cen turies of the Christian era, were erected the Hindu temples in Kashmir. In the 6th and 7th centuries Kashmir was visited by some of the Chinese Buddhist pilgrims to India. The country is called Shie-mi in the narrative of To Yeng and Sung Yun (578).
One of the Chinese travellers of the next century was for a time an elephant-tamer to the king of Kashmir. Hsuan Tsang spent two years (631-633) in Kashmir (Kia-chi-mi-lo). He entered by Baramula and left by the Pir Panjal pass. In the following cen tury the kings of Kashmir appear to have paid homage and tribute to China, though this is not alluded to in the Kashmir chronicle. Hindu kings continued to reign till about 1294, when Udiana Deva was put to death by his Mohammedan vizier, Amir Shah, who ascended the throne under the name of Shams-ud-din.
Of the Mohammedan rulers mentioned in the Sanskrit chroni cles, one, who reigned about the close of the 14th century, has made his name prominent by his active opposition to the Hindu religion, and his destruction of temples. This was Sikandar, known as But-shikan, or the "idol-breaker." It was in his time that India was invaded by Timur, to whom Sikandar made sub mission and paid tribute. The country fell into the hands of
the Moguls in 1588. In the time of Alamgir it passed to Ahmad Shah Durani, on his third invasion of India (1756) and from that time it remained in the hands of Afghans till it was wrested from them by Ranjit Singh, the Sikh monarch of the Punjab, in 1819. Eight Hindu and Sikh governors under Ranjit Singh and his successors were followed by two Mohammedans similarly appointed, the second of whom, Shekh Imam-ud-din, was in charge when the battles of the first Sikh war (1846) brought about new relations between the British Government and the Sikhs.
Gulab Singh, a Dogra Rajput, had from a humble position been raised to high office by Ranjit Singh, who conferred on him the small principality of Jammu. On the final defeat of the Sikhs at Sobraon (Feb. 1846), Gulab Singh was called to take a leading part in arranging conditions of peace. The treaty of Lahore (March 9, 1846) sets forth that, the British Government having demanded, in addition to a certain assignment of territory, a pay ment of a crore and a half of rupees (II- millions sterling), and the Sikh government being unable to pay the whole, the maha raja (Dhulip Singh) cedes, as equivalent for one crore, the hill country belonging to the Punjab between the Beas and the Indus, including Kashmir and Hazara. The governor-general, Sir Henry Hardinge, considered it expedient to make over Kashmir to the Jammu chief, securing his friendship while the British Govern ment was administering the Punjab on behalf of the young maharajah. Gulab Singh was well prepared to make up the pay ment in default of which Kashmir was ceded to the British ; and so, in consideration of his services in restoring peace, his inde pendent sovereignty of the country made over to him was recog nized, and he was admitted to a separate treaty. Gulab Singh had already, after several extensions of territory east and west of Jammu, conquered Ladakh (a Buddhist country, and till then sub ject to Lhasa), and had then annexed Skardo, which was under independent Mohammedan rulers. He had thus by degrees half en circled Kashmir, and by this last addition his possessions attained nearly their present form and extent. Gulab Singh died in 1857, and was succeeded by his son, Ranbir Singh, who died in i885. The next ruler, Maharaja Partab Singh, G.C.S.I. (b. 185o), im mediately on his accession inaugurated the settlement reforms al ready described. His rule was remarkable for the reassertion of the Kashmir sovereignty over Gilgit (q.v.). In 1925 Colonel H. H. Maharajah Sir Hari Singh, K.C.I.E., K.C.V.O., born 1895, succeeded to the title of Maharajah of Jammu and Kashmir.