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Kasmīra

A district in Northern India, the modern Kashmir. In the Pāḷi texts it is always mentioned with Gandhāra and probably once formed part of that kingdom. (See also PHAI., p.93. The Jātaka stories mention the countries separately as comprising two kingdoms ruled by a single king, e.g., J.iii.364, 378). At the end of the Third Council, Moggaliputta Tissa sent the thera Majjhantika to propagate the religion in Kasmīra-Gandhāra. Majjhantika quelled the power of the Nāga-king Aravāḷa (q.v.), who was a menace to the inhabitants, and converted him to the faith, while the yakkha Paṇḍaka and his wife Hāritā, with their five hundred sons, became Stream-winners (sotāpanna). The thera taught the Āsīvisopama Sutta to the assembled multitude and won eighty thousand converts, while one hundred thousand persons entered the Order. We are told that from that time onwards the yellow robe was held in great esteem in Kasmīra. (Mhv.xii.3,9 ff; Dpv.viii.4; Sp.i.64 ff; see also Beal, op.cit., i.134, n.39).

There was evidently a large community of monks at Kasmīra, until long after the coming of Majjhantika, for we are told that two hundred and eighty thousand monks, led by Uttinna Thera, came from Kasmīra to Anurādhapura on the occasion of the foundation ceremony of the Mahā Thūpa (Mhv.xxix.37).

In Hiouien Thsang’s time Kasmīra seems to have been an independent kingdom whose king was given to serpent-worship while his queen was a follower of the Buddha. Near the capital was a stūpa which enshrined a tooth of the Buddha. This tooth was soon after taken away by Harsavardhana of Kanoj. (CAGI.104 ff; Beal, i.116 f, etc.)

Sāgala is mentioned as being twelve leagues from Kasmīra (Mil.82).