The Shri Pratap singh Museum: The Historic Memory of Kashmir

M Saleem Beg

saleembeg@gmail.com

Museums are repositories of memory-places where history can be encountered through objects of stone, metal, cloth, paper and bone. The S.P.S. Museum in Srinagar, established in 1898, is one such repository. Its galleries bring together fragments of Kashmir's long and layered past, from the Neolithic settlement of Burzahom to the Sultanate and Mughal periods, and from the Sikh and Dogra eras to the rich craft traditions that continue to define the Valley.

The museum possesses more than 82,000 objects including 71000 coins, although only a small proportion of this remarkable collection is currently accessible to the public. It was originally housed in Maharaja Pratap Singh's Summer Guesthouse at Lal Mandi, on the left bank of the Jhelum. Its earliest collections came largely from the State Toshkhana, the government repository for royal trophies, crafts and other objects, and included shawls, arms and other artefacts. Over the decades, excavations, acquisitions, donations and gifts transformed this modest beginning into one of the most important museum collections in the subcontinent.

Kashmir has often been described as a meeting place of cultures and a crucible of civilisations. The collections of the S.P.S. Museum provide tangible evidence of that extraordinary history. The story of the museum is also the story of how Kashmir itself came to be studied, documented and interpreted by generations of scholars, travellers and antiquarians.

European interest in Kashmir had begun much earlier. François Bernier, who travelled to the Valley in 1665 with the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb as his physician, recorded his impressions in his 'Travels in the Mughal Empire' contributing to the curiosity about this fabled land. By the nineteenth century, this curiosity had become more systematic and scholarly. British officers and European scholars began studying Kashmir's languages, monuments, manuscripts, coins and antiquities. Alexander Cunningham, the noted Indologist and former Surveyor General of India, wrote extensively about the Valley's monuments and coinage. Aurel Stein's pioneering work on ancient manuscripts and texts opened further windows into Kashmir's intellectual and historical past.

It was against this background that officers of the British Residency in Kashmir, particularly Captain S. H. Godfray, Assistant to the Resident, proposed the establishment of a museum. The idea was to create a permanent home for Kashmir's antiquities and traditional crafts. Maharaja Pratap Singh approved the proposal, his Summer Guesthouse was selected for the purpose, and the institution was named after him.

The early years of the museum were modest. Over the years, as the collection expanded, the old building could no longer cope with its responsibilities. Thousands of objects had to remain in storage, while the building itself, despite its architectural character and decorative features, became increasingly unsuitable for conservation and public display.

The answer was a new museum building. Construction began in 2008, and after the completion of the structure and museum-specific interiors, the new building was opened to the public in 2017. This allowed a substantial part of the collection to be moved out of the fragile old building.

In the new building, the archaeological galleries immediately convey the extraordinary scale of Kashmir's past. Stone and metal sculptures, some dating back to the fifth century AD, include a graceful Gajalakshmi and a striking three-headed Shiva. The objects come from archaeological sites spread across the Valley, including Pandrathan, Parihaspur, Awantipur, Ushkar, Harwan, Hoinar, Pahalgam, Hutmura, Ashrat-nar-Badgam, Verinag, Soura and the Tomb of Madin Sahib. The contributions of archaeologists such as Sir John Marshall and Aurel Stein add another important dimension to the collection.

The museum, however, is much more than an archaeological repository.

Its armoury contains around 300 objects, including guns, revolvers, swords, daggers, shields and old cannons associated with the Sikh and Dogra periods. The textile galleries tell another story through shawls, brocades, zari work, bedcovers, darbari chogas and carpets representing the Sultanate, Afghan, Sikh and Dogra periods.

Then there is the numismatic collection, one of the museum's greatest treasures. More than 71,000 gold, silver and copper coins provide an extraordinary chronological record, beginning with punch-marked coins and continuing through the Greek, Indo-Greek, Indo-Scythian, Indo-Parthian, Kushan, medieval Hindu and Sultanate periods. The collection also includes coins associated with Mughals, Durranis, Sikhs and Dogras. Taken together, the collection becomes a record of remarkable history of trade and contact across Kashmir and the wider region.

Among the archaeological treasures are terracotta tiles discovered at the remains of the nearly 2,000-year-old Buddhist monastery at Harwan. The site has traditionally been associated with the Fourth Buddhist Council convened by the Kushan emperor Kanishka in the first century AD. According to Buddhist tradition, the council was followed by the movement of monks towards Central Asia, Tibet and China, helping to carry the message of Buddhism far beyond Kashmir.

The Harwan tiles also reveal a distinct Parthian and late Sasanian influence, reflecting the close cultural connections Kashmir maintained with the Gandhara region at a time when Buddhism was a dominant intellectual and spiritual force in both regions. Several of the tiles depict aspects of everyday life, offering an unusually intimate glimpse into the world of ancient Kashmir.

The manuscript collection tells yet another story. Written in Sharada, Sanskrit, Persian, Bodhi, Brahmi and Arabic, the manuscripts, pattas and wills testify to Kashmir's long intellectual tradition. Among the most significant are the Gilgit manuscripts, discovered in the Gilgit region and subsequently coming into the possession of the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir. Their importance extends far beyond Kashmir, as they contain some of the earliest surviving Buddhist texts.The dispersal of the Gilgit collection is itself part of its history. Portions of the manuscripts are held in different institutions, including the National Archives in Delhi and the Karachi Museum. What remains available with the S.P.S. Museum represents an important fragment of a manuscript tradition.

The decorative arts collection, numbering about 4,000 objects transferred from the State Toshkhana, includes shawls, textiles, wood carving, papier-mâché, jewellery, utensils, table tops, enamelled flasks and brass spittoons. These seemingly ordinary objects may, in fact, be among the most intimate witnesses to Kashmir's social history.

The natural history collection provides yet another dimension. Skins, skulls, horns and eggs of wild animals and water birds document the richness of Kashmir's natural environment. Much of this collection was assembled by Colonel A. E. Ward, an authority on the fauna of Kashmir. Unfortunately, this collection has not yet been shifted to the new museum building.

The history of the museum, however, has another and darker dimension-loss.

The first reported theft took place in 1917, just nineteen years after the institution was established. Sixty-eight objects were stolen, including jamawars, silk brocades, Shah Pasand Kani Tosa shawls, Pashmina robes, and agate and turquoise stones. Six almirahs and three glass cases had been broken open. Maharaja Pratap Singh was reportedly furious that such a theft could occur in a state institution.

In 1973, six more antiquities disappeared-five bronze and one wooden. Among them were Standing Buddha, a Jain figure, a wooden Buddha, Tara, a seated Buddha and an Ardhanarishvara.

Then, in 2003, an important seventeenth-century Arabic manuscript of the Qur'an bearing Emperor Aurangzeb's seal was reported missing.

Every such disappearance represents more than the loss of an object. A museum object has a provenance, a context and a story. Once it disappears, the loss is not merely material; a small piece of the historical record disappears with it.

Ironically, although the museum had maintained registers and indexes recording its holdings and provenance, proper object-level descriptions and photographic documentation were not available for many of the missing objects. This vulnerability highlighted the urgent need for systematic documentation.

INTACH Kashmir took up the digitisation and object documentation of antiquities at the S.P.S. Museum in 2010 under the National Mission on Monuments and Antiquities. For the first time, the museum's coins were also digitally documented with the assistance of the National Institute of Numismatics, alongside the broader object documentation programme.

Unfortunately, the National Mission did not cover decorative objects because these did not fall within its definition of antiquities. INTACH, while documenting the old museum building, subsequently obtained a small UNESCO grant under which the textile collection, particularly the shawls, was documented and identified in terms of design and significance. The services of Janet Rizvi, the noted art historian and an exceptional storyteller, were availed for this work. Her documentation forms part of the UNESCO-INTACH project relating to the S.P.S. Museum.

This gap in documentation acquired an even greater significance during the devastating floods of 2014. The museum suffered substantial losses, particularly among decorative objects, papier-mâché and wooden artefacts. Since many of these objects had not been covered by the earlier digitisation programme, there is no comprehensive photographic or digital record of exactly what was lost. The episode is a powerful reminder that documentation is not merely an administrative exercise; it is itself a form of conservation.

This museum, like other museums, deserves to be seen not simply as a building filled with old stones, coins, shawls and manuscripts, but as a living institution of memory. Its collections connect Kashmir with Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, the Buddhist world and the many cultures that have passed through or settled in the Valley.

Kashmir does not lack history. Nor does it lack objects through which that history can be told. What it needs is the public outreach which is long awaiting to happen and not much thought seems to be given to this critical need. The museum must work to create a stronger interface between the collections and the public-through interpretation, digital displays, exhibitions and sustained outreach.

In the end a visit to the museum testifies to the fact that it has kept Kashmir's memories safe for more than 125 years.

(The write is former Director General Tourism. Member and Chairman, National Monuments Authority Government of India)