Note 157 — The Fifteenth New Year’s Feast after the Auspicious Accession

On Friday, the 8th, Rājaur was the camping-ground. The people of this country were in old times Hindus, and the landholders are called Rajas. Sult̤ān Fīrūz made them Muhammadans, but they are still called Rajas. They still have the marks of the times of ignorance. One of these is that just as some Hindu women burn themselves along with their husbands (bodies), so these women (the Rājaur women) are put into the grave along with their (dead) husbands. I heard that recently they put alive into the grave a girl of ten or twelve along with her (dead) husband, who was of the same age. Also, when a daughter is born to a man without means, they put her to death by strangulation.157 They ally themselves with Hindus, and both give and take girls. Taking them is good, but giving them, God forbid! I gave an order that hereafter they should not do such things, and whoever was guilty of them, should be capitally punished. There is a river at Rājaur. Its water during the rainy season becomes much poisoned. Many of the people there get a swelling (būg͟hma) under the throat, and are yellow and weak. The rice of Rājaur is much158 better than the rice of Kashmir. There are self-grown and sweet-scented violets in this skirt of the hills.