Economy of Early Kashmir

Kashmir is renowned throughout the world for its beauty- for the girdle of snowy mountains which surrounded the lovely valley, for its rivers and lakes and its primeval forests, and for its moderate temperature. Kashmir was a centre of knowledge and education since the time of its habitation by humans. With the advent of the Aryans, ancient Kashmir produced scholars of the Vedas, and once Sanskrit emerged as the literary language, Kashmir’s took its study and learning to great heights, producing mature and renowned scholars of Sanskrit. Kashmir has a tradition of recorded history dating back to the times when history as an organized study was unknown in most of the civilized nations of today.

There has been no serious attempt to delineate the economic life of people of Kashmir in the early period. The overemphasis by earlier scholars on political history had led the neglect of social history in general and economic life in particular. The aim of the present study is to give a comprehensive picture of economic life of Kashmir prior to medieval times. The information for this work has been derived from, literary works, epigraphical evidence, sculptural and archaeological data, and accounts of foreign travellers and historians.