Kashmir has had 2 ancient capitals Shrinagari and Pravarapura-1

 

The modern summer capital of Kashmir Srinagar, is the conjoined form of the two ancient capitals of Kashmir the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka's Shrinagari and Kashmir's own King Pravarasena-It's Pravarapura. Though these were built in two different eras, separated in the time. of their establishment by about seven centuries, yet the two ancient cities existed side by side for a few centuries. In course of time, Shrinagari was identified with Puranadhishthana (old capital), now modern Pandrethan, situated on the right bank of Vitasta, three miles above Pravarapura (modem Srinagar), which, also, was then situated, on the right bank of Vitasta and called new capital. In the present article, I will deal with the Shrinagari of Ashoka.

Ashoka, who ruled a vast empire in India, including Kashmir, with his capital in Magadh, built Shnnagan in his long reign of about 38 years, between B.C. 268 and B.C. 231, the dates which are now firmly established by modern historians Ashoka had visited Kashmir sometime during this period and built its capital city of Shrinagar/Puranadhishthana/Old Capital.

In Rajatarangini (1-104), Kalhana writes This illustrious king built the town of Srinagar which was resplendent with wealth" In another verse (-124), he writes that Ashoka's son, King Jalauka, had then erected a shrine of Jyeshtha in this town, ostensibly to leave a clue for the future generations to identify its location. Jalauka's Jyeshtha Rudra evoked great enthusiasm among the modern scholars to identify it. Gen Cunningham recognised it in the temple that existed on the top of Gopadari (Takht-i- Sulaiman Shankaracharya hill), but this was refuted by both Buhler and Fergusson for different reasons Cunningham, however, proposed to locate Ashoka's Shrinagari at the site of the present village of Pandarethan (Kalhana's Puranadhishthana) on the right bank of Vitasta situated about three miles above the modern Srinagar Many scholars, including the reputed indigenous archaeologist of Kashmir, Pt. RC Kak, largely agrees with him.

In Rajatarangini, Puranadhishthana (the ancient capital) appears for the first time in the reign of King Pravarasena-1 (grandfather of Pravarasena-II), who had constructed a Shiva shrine of Pravareshvara and other minor shrines at that place but these cannot be traced now there, even as the slopes rising immediately to the north of Pandrethan are littered with the remains of 'ancient buildings/temples) in the form of carved stones and architectural fragments. These can be traced along the foot of the hill-side for a mile and a half Among them Cunningham found several pieces of broken lingo’s, including some of very large size .

RC Kak wrote in his book Ancient Monuments of Kashmir "The only remains that now exist of the ancient Pandrethan are the ruins of level terraces, long lines of loose rubble walls, and innumerable mounds of stone debris, which thickly dot the mountain slopes from Pantachhok to the Shankaracharya hill an extent of about two miles None of the scholars, however, refer to the remains of taluka’s Jyeshtharudra which he had built in Shrinagari.

Puranadhishthana is again mentioned in the reign of the ill-fated King Partha (A D 905-923), when his minister Meruvaradhana had built there a Shiva temple called Meruvaradhanasvamin It measures 17' 6' square externally and is open on all the four sides. There is a 7 square depression inside the temple which was most probably the base of the bhadrapitha, the seat of the Linga. The temple still exists there behind the willow grove on the left side of the cart road but the village has since vanished. Notwithstanding Gen Cunningham's identification of Ashoka's Shrinagari with Puranadhishthana or Pandarethan, which Aurel Stein calls a sort of anachronism, Stein still hopes to locate King Jaleesa’s Jyeshtharudra and, in lieu of that, the ancient capital of Shrinagari Referring again to verse 1-124 of Rajatarangini, Kalhana gives some important information, though in a very concise manner, about the religious proclivity of King Jaleesa, which is relevant to our subject. In that shiokara, Kalhana says. "While engaged in constructing (a shrine of) Jyeshtharudra at Shrinagari, he recognised that without the Sodara (spring) it could not rival Nandisha'' whose permanent abode was Kalodaka (Nand-kol), in the area of Nandiksetra. Reference to Sodara in Kalhana's shioka, given above, needs some elaboration, which is given below Kol), seat of Nandisha. So, when Jalauka built the shrine of Jyeshthrudra at Shrinagan, he lamented that it could not rival Nandisha in its sanctity without a Sodara spring. Then, while the king was lamenting thus, a spring suddenly emerged from the dry land nearby, whose water Jamaica felt was similar to that of the original Sodara, in colour, taste, etc., which fulfilled his cherished wish Expectedly, the new spring, also, was called Sodara Aurel Stein made an attempt to locate this spring. He said that he had no hesitation to connect the name of the spring with Sudar-khun, Sudarbal, etc, situated above Dal to its east but Shrinagari was not associated with this region.

(to be concluded)

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Courtesy:- Dr. P.L. Ganju   and Koshur Samachar 2018, January