Takht-i Suleiman, which, perched above the city, keeps
guard over the inhabitants. As an antiquity, I own
to having found it a very considerable fraud, for its great
age, on inquiry, reduces itself to a possible 300 B.C.
(generally considered incorrect), or a probable 300 a .d .,
and that is only the date of the outer wall and the
plinth. The upper structure is remarkably ugly, and
quite modern (that is, seventeenth century). I visited
it on various occasions, and found naught to admire
Takht-i - Suleiman
save the glorious views to be obtained from it. Learned
archaeologists may be able to argue much from the small
scraps of the earlier buildings; to me they were merely
rough blocks of limestone. The temple is a very popular
place of pilgrimage, crowds every Thursday mounting
the steep rock on which it stands one thousand feet
above the Dal Lake. I approached it from different
sides, but none of the routes are very pleasant, and as
the hot weather came on I felt I was entitled to the
pilgrim’s reward, whatever that may be, when I
achieved it. The Brahmin in charge, a kindly-faced old
man, with a shrewd look of worldly wisdom in his keen
eyes, would never take any gift, but generally gave me
a flower or two from the offerings brought by the
faithful—a rose and some marigolds. He pointed out
to me an inscription on one of the pillars supporting
the roof, and standing behind the central platform,
with the great Sivaite emblem encircled by a serpent.
The writing is Persian, and I believe sets forth that a
Soukar, a certain Haji Hushti, raised the idol, but the
dates are uncertain, and a portion of the inscription is
hidden under the floor. Kashmir is a land of tolerance;
the real feeling of the people is Hindu, and they practise
its precepts of brotherly forbearance and silent
endurance. The spirit of a race cannot be changed,
though their form of worship is altered by royal edict,
and in spite of nominally being Mussulman, in practice
the “ faith of the prophet ” has lost most of its usual
characteristics. There is a very real and living substratum
of Naga worship, and this influences followers
of both creeds. Buddhists have entirely disappeared
from the country, leaving scarce a trace of their
existence. The Sikhs are a very inconsiderable body,
so that the inhabitants of the valley are divided between
the two great creeds, some ninety-five per cent, being
Mahomedans, the rest Hindus. They share their holy
places and sacred springs very amicably. The Mahomedans
refrain from killing kine, and the Hindus halal,*
such birds and beasts as they may eat. Possibly the
* No Mahomedan may eat meat th a t has not had the invocation to the
prophet said over it before life was extinct.