Sources of History of Himachal Pradesh In English

|| Sources of History of Himachal Pradesh In English|| Sources of History of HP In English||

Sources of History of Himachal Pradesh In English:-We can get information about history of Himachal Pradesh from the coins of ancient times, inscriptions, literature, buildings, travelogues and genealogies, which are available in limited quantities whose details are as follows:

(i) Literature

Purana: There is a mention of the residents of this area in Vishnu Purana, Markandeya Purana, Skanda Purana.
Details of tribes living in the Himalayas found in the Ramayana, Mahabharata and Rigveda.
The description of the areas of Himachal are found in Panini's 'Ashtadhyayi', Vrihatsamhita, Kalidas's 'Raghuvanshan', the Mudrarakshasa of Vishakhadatta and the Rajatarangini of Kalhan (which tells the history of Kashmir) which was compiled in 1149-50 AD.
There is evidence of the attack of Firoz Shah Tughlaq at Nagarkot Fort in 'Tarikh-e-Firoz Shahi' and 'Tarikh- e-Farishta'. In 'Tujuk-e-Jahangiri', Jahangir's Kangra attack and "Tujuk-i-Timuri' provide information about Timur Lung's invasion of Shivalik.

(ii) Coins: The task of discovering coins in Himachal Pradesh began to catch momentum after the establishment of Himachal Pradesh state museum. Coins of Trigarta, Audumbar, Kuluta and Kunind dynasties have been kept in Bhuri Singh Museum and State Museum Shimla. 12 coins kept in Shimla State Museum have been received from Arki. 21 coins of Apollodotus have been obtained from the village of Tappameva of Hamirpur. Some of Indo-Greek coins have been received from Lachodi and Sarol of Chamba. The oldest coin of Kullu was run by Raj Viryasa in the first century.

(iii) Inscriptions/Tamrapatra manuscript on copper plate: We can get information about the socio-economic activities of Himachal Pradesh in ancient times by the inscriptions of the Pathiar and Kanihara of Kangra, the cave of Sunpur at Hatkoti, the Salonu of Mandi. 36 records have been kept from Chamba in Bhuri Singh Museum Chamba which are written in Sharda and Tankari scripts. The information of the Guptas is obtained from the Shalaru records of Kullu. Ashoka's inscription is located in the Jaunsar-Bawar area on the confluence of the Tons and the Yamuna River. Nirmand has an inscription of Samudrasen, a seventh-century Mahasamanta.

(iv) Buildings: We also get to know the history of ancient Himachal from the buildings of the Kangra Fort of Himachal Pradesh, the temples of Bharmour, the ruins of Sirmauri Tal, the Buddhist viharas of Kamru, Naggar, Tabo and 'Ki'.

(v) Genealogies: Moorcraft worked primarily on genealogy guides, and helped find the genealogies of the kings of Kangra. Captain Harcourt obtained the genealogy of Kullu. Later Cunningham searched the genealogy of the kings of Kangra, Chamba, Mandi, Suket and Nurpur.

(vi) Travelogue: The most archaic description of Himachal Pradesh is made by Ptolemy in which the description of Kulindas is given. Chinese traveler Hiuen Tsang remained in India till 630-644 AD. During this time he also came to Kullu and Trigarta. Thomas Coryat and William Finch traveled to Himachal Pradesh during Jahangir. Forster in 1783, William Moorecraft in 1820-1822, Major Archer in the 1829 travelogues wrote about Himachal. Apart from this, Alberuni (1030) has described this area (with Mahmud Ghaznavi).