[Bernier says:  “The women [of Kachemire] especially are very handsome; and it is from this country that nearly every individual, when first admitted to the court of the Great Mogul, selects wives or concubines, that his children may be whiter than the Indians, and pass for genuine Moguls.  Unquestionably, there must be beautiful women among the higher classes, if we may judge by those of the lower orders seen in the streets and in the shops.” (Travels in the Mogul Empire, edited by Archibald Constable, 1891, p. 404.)]

NOTE 5.—­In the time of Hiuen Tsang, who spent two years studying in Kashmir in the first half of the 7th century, though there were many Brahmans in the country, Buddhism was in a flourishing state; there were 100 convents with about 5000 monks.  In the end of the 11th century a King (Harshadeva, 1090-1102) is mentioned exceptionally as a protector of Buddhism.  The supposition has been intimated above that Marco’s picture refers to a traditional state of things, but I must notice that a like picture is presented in the Chinese account of Hulaku’s war.  One of the thirty kingdoms subdued by the Mongols was “The kingdom of Fo (Buddha) called Kishimi.  It lies to the N.W. of India.  There are to be seen the men who are counted the successors of Shakia; their ancient and venerable air recalls the countenance of Bodi-dharma as one sees it in pictures.  They abstain from wine, and content themselves with a gill of rice for their daily food, and are occupied only in reciting the prayers and litanies of Fo.” (Rem.  N. Mel.  Asiat. I. 179.) Abu’l Fazl says that on his third visit with Akbar to Kashmir he discovered some old men of the religion of Buddha, but none of them were literati.  The Rishis, of whom he speaks with high commendation as abstaining from meat and from female society, as charitable and unfettered by traditions, were perhaps a modified remnant of the Buddhist Eremites.  Colonel Newall, in a paper on the Rishis of Kashmir, traces them to a number of Shiah Sayads, who fled to Kashmir in the time of Timur.  But evidently the genus was of much earlier date, long preceding the introduction of Islam. (Vie et V. de H. T. p. 390; Lassen, III. 709; Ayeen Akb. II. 147, III. 151; J.  A. S. B. XXXIX. pt. i. 265.)

We see from the Dabistan that in the 17th century Kashmir continued to be a great resort of Magian mystics and sages of various sects, professing great abstinence and credited with preternatural powers.  And indeed Vambery tells us that even in our own day the Kashmiri Dervishes are pre-eminent among their Mahomedan brethren for cunning, secret arts, skill in exorcisms, etc. (Dab. I. 113 seqq.  II. 147-148; Vamb.  Sk. of Cent.  Asia, 9.)