Kashmir Through Old Photographs

This post brings together early photographs that trace everyday life in Kashmir as it unfolded along rivers, lakes, neighbourhood spaces, and places of routine activity. The scenes move through moments of prayer in shrine courtyards, children swimming in the Jhelum after school, women spinning yarn and trading vegetables on Dal Lake, and villagers gathering in shared outdoor spaces. Education, work, leisure, and movement appear closely connected to water and locality, reflecting a way of life shaped by familiarity with rivers and lakes rather than separation from them. Taken together, these photographs offer a quiet, human view of Kashmir in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, where daily routines, community life, and landscape were deeply intertwined. The Shah-i-Hamadan Mosque stands prominently on the banks of the Jhelum River in Srinagar in 1920, its tiered wooden roof and riverside position forming a distinctive part of the city’s skyline. Also known as Khanqah-e-Mou...

This post brings together early photographs from Kashmir, spanning the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and documenting everyday life across rivers, villages, institutions, and sacred spaces. The images include the Hazratbal Shrine, royal river processions on the Jhelum, children at a hospital school, rural family life, canal-side Srinagar near Barbarshah Bridge, houseboat culture below Takht-i-Suleiman, public health vaccination work, rice processing by children, women spinning thread in Sopore, and river scenes near Baramulla. Together, these photographs show how work, worship, education, health, and movement were closely woven into the landscape and daily rhythms of Kashmir before modern transformation.  This early 20th-century photograph from the 1920s, originally captioned "Hasrat Bal. The Mosque.", shows the historic Hazratbal Shrine (Dargah Sharif) in Srinagar, Kashmir, in its original wooden form before the modern marble reconstruction. Considered the ho...

 A collection of old photographs showing everyday routines, crafts, and community moments in Kashmir from the 1870s to the early 20th century. The pictures include a woman spinning yarn on a traditional yander wheel outdoors with a child nearby; children playing the hopscotch-style game saz’lo’ng in a village courtyard around 1903; a young shepherd’s daughter seated by a sheep overlooking Dal Lake in the late 19th century; the Jamia Masjid in Srinagar viewed from surrounding lanes in 1906; a studio portrait of women in pherans with hookah and kangri in 1907; charcoal sellers carrying heavy loads along a path in the 1870s; earthenware hawkers with baskets of clay pots on a roadside in the late 19th century; a serene view of Manasbal Lake in the 1880s; paddy fields and villages near Banihal Pass in 1928; and a young girl on a wooden boat on Dal Lake. Simple views of old Kashmir. This early twentieth century photograph shows a Kashmiri woman seated outdoors, operating a yander, the tr...