Note 111 — The Fifteenth New Year’s Feast after the Auspicious Accession

Veth is the Kashmiri name for the Jhelam (Lawrence, 18). It is contracted from Vitasta. It is curious that the date of the festival should be given according to a Muhammadan month (S͟hawwāl), which must recur at different seasons. Apparently the meaning is that the birth of the Jhelam took place on that day.

Apparently the festival is not much celebrated nowadays, for it is not mentioned by Lawrence (264–266), except that in a note to p. 266 the Vathtrwah is mentioned as a day on which daughters receive presents. The 19th S͟hahrīwar, the corresponding date mentioned by Jahāngīr, would answer to the end of August or beginning of September, and to the Hindu month of Āsin. 13 S͟hawwāl, 1029, would correspond to 1 September, 1620. Possibly the S͟hawwāl of text is a mistake for the Hindu month Sāwan—i.e., Srāvan. The legend of the birth of the Jhelam is told in Stein, 97. Possibly S͟hawwāl does not here mean the month, and we should read s͟hag͟hal-i-chirāg͟hān, “the business of lamps.” ↑