Kashmir Weed
- November 7, 2021
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN Topics
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Kashmir Weed
Subject – Environment
Context – A Kashmir spring is protected by a local festival
Concept –
- Panzath Nag in south Kashmir’s Anantnag district supplies water for a trout fish hatchery and drinking and irrigation to a number of villages downstream.
- Derived from ‘Paanch Hath’ — Kashmiri numeral for five hundred — the spring is said to have been once a source to as many smaller ones.
- Hundreds of men and children from the villages go fishing in the spring once a year as part of their tradition on Rohan Posh, a local festival.
- Rohan Posh (flowering the souls) is the traditional annual fruit blossom festival specific to the region.
- The collective activity rids the spring of silt and weeds and restores its water level for the rest of the year.
- The spring has a mythological relevance; the cleaning tradition has been in existence since time immemorial.
- The proliferation of weeds in Kashmir valley is a major challenge, having led to the deterioration of water bodies, especially the world-famous Dal Lake in the capital city of Srinagar, leading to biodiversity loss and pollution.
- Panzath spring has a mythological relevance, finding a mention in Nilamata Purana and Rajatarangini, the legendary chronicle of Kashmir by Kalhana, the 12th-century contested Kashmiri historian.
- He calls it Naga of Pancahasta, a ‘pure’ spot where the river Vitasta — popularly known as Jhelum — was “brought to light a second time” by sage Kashyapa’s prayer after it had disappeared from fear of “defilement by the touch of sinful men.”