Prophet Moses in Kashmîr

When they die, all good Americans go to Paris. The rest of us have to settle for heaven. Many, notably the Mughals, thought that Kashmîr was heaven on earth. The Kashmîris themselves think of their land as being ‘a replica of heaven on earth’. Moses, the Prophet, was not just good, he was one of the best. So, it stands to reason that he, too, would be buried in Kashmîr.
The precise location is near the tomb of Sank Bibi on the Booth Mountain in Bâñdîpura. According to Aziz Kashmîri, Bâñdîpura, which is 34 miles from Srinagar, was called Bethpura in the past. I have not been able to confirm this, or any of the other details given in this section, from the 19th century Gazetteer. So, I mainly have Aziz Kashmîri’s word for all this.Francois Bernier (1620- 1688) was perhaps the first to record the existence of a ‘belief that Moses died in the city of Kashmîre and that this took place within a league of it’.
(Srinagar was known as Shehr e Kashmîr or the city of Kashmîr during the 15th and 16th centuries. It would seem that some people still used the name when M. Bernier came visiting.)Actually, it was the handy Bhavishya Maha Puran that is said to have first alluded to Moses. Must get the original manuscript checked. If it has not been tampered with then its contents revolutionise what the world knows about Moses- and, as we have seen, Jesus. Apparently it says, ‘The entire land is full of the followers of the [sic] Moses with the exception of sacred land of river Sarasouti,’ (P.I.A. 5, shlok 30, quoted in Christ in Kashmîr, p.21.)Judaism was not unknown in this part of Asia. One Jewish family continued to live in Kabul (Afghânistan) till 1998.
Kashmîri quotes the November 23, 1898 issue of the British Civil and Military Gazette, Lahore as saying, ‘One of [the manuscripts found in South India] is an old copy of the Book of Moses, written on a roll of leather… It was brought from Cashmere.’
What the Old Testament itself records about the death of Moses is as follows:‘1 And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pis’gah, that is over and against Jericho. And the LORD shewed him all the land of Gilead, unto Dan. 2 And all Naph’ta-li, and the land of E’phra-im, and Ma-nas’seh, and all the land of Judah, unto the utmost sea… 5 So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab… 6 And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-pe’or: but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day.’ (Deuteronomy, 34: 1, 2, 5, 6; I have cross- checked with The Holy Bible, King James Version, published by The Gideons International, 1978. The italics are all mine.)

Elsewhere, Deuteronomy (4: 46) talks again of ‘the valley over against Beth-pe’or’ and of Heshbon. Numbers (27: 12) mentions ‘mount Ab’a-rim’.Aziz Kashmîri claims that Bethpura is the old name of Bâñdîpura. This seems plausible because Beth is the local name of River Jehlum. ‘Pura’ means ‘town’ in all north Indian languages. Kashmîri cites authority that Booth, the mountain where the said tomb is located, is really called Nebu Ball.
He adds that Pisgah, aka Chasmagah, is a mile away from the tomb. Moab, he says, is a pasture north- east of the tomb believed to be Moses’. As for Heshbon, it’s a little village now called Hasbal. Mount Abarim is a hillock 4 miles from Moab, called Abul or Ablu by the local people.Kashmîri goes on to cite Nazim Sewharwi’s Nigaristan e Kashmîr to the effect that the ‘brothers Moses and Haroon [rested] at Haroon… The locality is famous as “Haroon” only because the prophet Haroon is [buried] there.’ Srinagar has a suburb called Harwan.
In Urdu Harwan is spelt exactly the same as Haroon, the Muslim name for Aaron.Far fetched? Perhaps. For this author it would be sufficient if it could be proved that Bâñdîpura was indeed called Bethpura in the past.My findings: I decided to cross-check the facts. Several elders of Bâñdîpura said that their town was called Bethpura ‘during the era of the Jews.’
But the elders were merely going by what they had heard: more likely from the media than from their ancestors. Therefore, the evidence given by them is weak.Revenue records have a section that mentions the wajâh tasmiyâ [the ‘reason for naming’ any person or place in a particular manner]. However, we could not find a single revenue record that confirmed this belief. The oldest extant revenue record (which dates to AD 1890) says that the town took its name after its first inhabitants, the Bândey community [which is of a Turkish origin]. The name of the town’s mediæval founder is Hasu (Hasan?) Mîr [again a Turkish name], who came here from Srînagar. No mention of Jews or Bethpeor.Bâñdîpura can not be a corruption of ‘Bethpura’ because both are full- fledged words, with distinct meanings. Bethpura (or Vethpura) means ‘the town [near] River Jehlum.’
However, regarding the other italicised words, Mr. Aziz Kashmîrî does have a point. Almost all the places mentioned in the Bible and italicised by me above seem to be there. Nebu Baal (also called Ibâl and Mâwâ) is a hillock near Irun [pron. ee-run, rhymes with ‘pun’]. The tomb of Shank (or Sank, both rhyme with ‘sunk’) Bibi (also known as Dod Mouj or ‘the milk mother’) is in Bonthoo on a hillock called Booth. The so- called tomb of Moses, too, is in Bonthoo.What Aziz Kashmîrî identifies with the biblical Moab is a meadow called Mâhâb, which is close to Athwatoo (and beyond the Mântrey meadow).And the mystery does not end there. A Vethpura (the name of which is often pronounced much like the Biblical Bethpeor) does exist in Kashmîr. It is a pretty village in the Lasjan area, right next to Srînagar City, on the banks of the Jehlum.