Kashmiri Pandit

The Kashmiri Pandits (also known as Kashmiri Brahmins) are a Brahmin community from the Kashmir Valley, a mountainous region in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. They are the only remaining Hindu community native to the Kashmir Valley.

History

Early history

The Hindu caste system of the Kashmir region was influenced by the influx of Buddhism from the time of Asoka, around the third century BCE, and a consequence of this was that the traditional lines of varna were blurred, with the exception of that for the Brahmins, who remained aloof from the changes. Another notable feature of early Kashmiri society was the relative high regard in which women were held when compared to their position in other communities of the period.

A historically contested region, Northern India was subject to attack from Turkic and Arab regimes from the eighth century onwards, but they generally ignored the mountain-circled Kashmir Valley in favour of easier pickings elsewhere. It was not until the fourteenth century that Muslim rule was finally established in the Valley and when this happened it did not occur primarily as a consequence of invasion so much as because of internal problems resulting from the weak rule and corruption endemic in the Hindu Lohara dynasty. Mohibbul Hasan describes this collapse as

List of Kashmiri Pandits

List of persons of Kashmiri pandit lineage:

Military

Administrators and diplomats

Philosophers and historians