Cities are the living embodiments of a people’s triumphs and tragedies. Orhan Pamuk views Istanbul as a city defined by melancholy (hüzün), a poignant sadness from living amidst the ruins of a lost empire. To Geoffrey West, “cities are the crucible of civilisation. Cities are where most of humanity’s creative and intellectual ideation, communication, and innovation takes place”. For Sameer Hamdani, “the city suggests it is all-knowing; like an aagur (the source of a spring), the fountainhead of knowledge; and it parades its sophistication. It is the marker of culture, as well as cultural spaces, and also the mannerisms that define culture-adab”. In his book City of Kashmir, Srinagar: A Popular History, Hamdani presents a historically rich and rigorously researched portrayal of Srinagar city.

For millennia, Srinagar has been a cosmopolitan city and a seat of learning where civilisation thrives and empires have flourished. The greatness of Srinagar has attracted legendary scholars such as Xuanzang (Hiuen Tsang), Hafiz Shirazi, and Abhinavagupta, whose chronicles describe Kashmir as a culturally rich, intellectually vibrant, and geopolitically significant region. Hamdani presents a powerful and in-depth account of the many empires that ruled Kashmir over the centuries.

One such polity was the Karkota dynasty, which rose to prominence under Lalitaditya,...

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