Kashmir is a dream of loveliness! The ancient poets of India and Persia wrote of this wondrous land tucked away in the Himalayan Range, describing its charms by such names as Kachemire-be-Nazeer or the Unequalled, the Garden of Paradise, and the Emerald set with Pearls, because of its rich, fertile rice fields and pastures, surrounded by the everlasting snows.
Francois Bernier who went to Kashmir in 1664 with the royal suite, tells us that on arrival, a bard presented a poem to Aurungzebe, describing the country thus: "The summits of the higher and more distant mountains were clothed resplendently in while, and the minor and more contiguous preserved in perpetual verdure, and embellished with stately trees, because it was meet that the mistress of the kingdoms of the earth should be crowned with the diadem whose top and rays were diamonds issuing from a basework of emeralds." |
