In the classical literature of Kashmir Saivism kundalini is described in three different manifestations.

Their branch of Shiva worship is known as Kashmir Saivism.

The primary idealogy of Kashmir Saivism states that the individual soul is one with the universal spirit, and each person has to experience and discover this for themselves.

Pratyabhijña is the philosophical articulation of Kashmir Saivism.

Although domesticated into a householder tradition, Kashmir Saivism recommended a secret performance of Kaula practices in keeping with its heritage.

From 1956 after King of Kashmir ceded to India entirely resulting from a Pakistani invasion of Kashmir earlier, India has claimed the entire area of Kashmir as part of their state's " national territory.

Aksai Chin, claimed by India to belong to Kashmir and by China to be part of Xinjiang, contains an important road link that connects the Chinese regions of Tibet and Xinjiang. China's construction of this road was one of the triggers of the conflict.

It is administered by China as part of Hotan County in the Hotan Prefecture of Xinjiang Autonomous Region, but is also claimed by India as a part of the Ladakh district of the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Johnson presented this line to the Maharaja of Kashmir, who then claimed the 18, 000 square kilometres contained within, and by some accounts territory further north as far as the Sanju Pass in the Kun Lun Mountains.

Citing confusion of this town, with another in northern Okanogan County ( that no longer exists ), that same year, Mission and the entire valley were renamed for Kashmir, India, as local judge James H. Chase claimed it resembled the foothills of that region.

In 2012, Indian media reports claimed that Benazir Bhutto took tough rhetoric on India over the Kashmir problem, and threatened India with an atomic attack ; her foreign minister Lieutenant-General Yaqub Ali Khan convened the message to higher authorities of India.

India claimed that the whole territory of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir had become Indian territory ( India's official posture ) due to the accession, it claims the whole region including Azad Kashmir territory as its own.

Aksai Chin, claimed by India to belong to Kashmir and by China to be part of Xinjiang, contains an important road link that connects the Chinese regions of Tibet and Xinjiang.

* Vale of Kashmir, a disputed territory, claimed by both Pakistan and India

While on other hand, the Peoples Party claimed the exclusive mandate in Gilgit-Baltistan and Kashmir.

The Balti curry is a British dish that is claimed to have origins in the Kashmir region of Pakistan.

Pakistan's government has repeatedly claimed that India is violating the Simla Agreement by constructing a fence along the Line of Control in the Kashmir Conflict.

In addition, the disputed Kashmir province of India ( claimed by Pakistan ) borders both the PRC and India.

He had declared to start attacking Pakistan if Pakistan stopped backing jihadis in Jammu and Kashmir who, he claimed, were fighting Pakistan's war.

* ABC Live Reports: Hizbul Mujahideen claimed Blast Left 1 Killed And 22 injured In Jammu Kashmir

It is still claimed by India as part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

From 1947 India claimed sovereignty over the entire area of the pre-1947 Jammu and Kashmir, and therefore maintained that Pakistan and China did not share a common border.

* Shaiva Devotional Songs of Kashmir: A Translation and Study of Utpaladevas Shivastotravali ( Suny Series in Human Communication Processes ) Constantina R. Bailly

The Shaiva Siddhanta goal of becoming an ontologically distinct Shiva ( through Shiva's grace ) was replaced by recognizing oneself as Shiva who, in Kashmir Saivism's monism, is the entirety of the universe.

* Triadic Heart of Siva: Kaula Tantricism of Abhinavagupta in the Non-Dual Shaivism of Kashmir ( Suny Series, Shaiva Traditions of Kashmir )

The Siddhanta tradition, like Kashmir Shaivism and Kaula, differs from the Vedic and Puranic worship of Shiva and also from the ancient Pasupati tradition by its adherence to texts called Agamas or Tantras, which lay down rites that may be performed by men of the first four varnas ( women in these varnas played marginal roles ) and describe a progressive, fourfold spiritual path of virtuous and moral living ( charya ), ritual ( kriya ), individual practice ( yoga ) and knowledge ( jnana, vidya ).

The Hindu Tantras total ninety-two scriptures, where sixty four are purely Abheda ( literally " without differentiation ", or monistic ), known as the Bhairava Tantras or Kashmir Śaivite Tantras, eighteen are Bhedābheda ( literally " with differentiation and without differentiation " or monistic cum dualistic ), known as the Rudra Tantras ), and ten are completely Bheda ( literally " differentiated " or dualistic ), known as the Tantras.

Even if Kashmir Shaivism is an idealistic monism, there is still a place for dualistic aspects as precursory stages on the spiritual path.

The Muslims and Hindus of Kashmir lived in relative harmony, since the Sufi-Islamic way of life that Muslims followed in Kashmir complemented the Rishi tradition of Kashmiri Pandits, and Sufi saints such as Sheikh Noor-ud-din Wali were thought of as Muslim Rishis.

Kanishka is renowned in Buddhist tradition for having convened a great Buddhist council in Kashmir.

The Muslims and Hindus of Kashmir lived in relative harmony, since the Sufi-Islamic way of life that ordinary Muslims followed in Kashmir complemented the Rishi tradition of Kashmiri Pandits.

Since dark red was the cheapest colour in Kashmir, the Tibetan tradition has red robes.

The Siddha Yoga tradition draws its teachings from the yogic philosophy of Vedanta, Kashmir Shaivism, and the Maharashtran poet-saints.

Texts from the Kashmir Shaivite tradition include the Shiva Sutras of Vasugupta, the Spanda Karikas of Vasugupta, the Prataybhijnahridayam, and the Vijnana Bhairava.

Another Fourth Buddhist Council was held in the Sarvastivada tradition, said to have been convened by the Kushan emperor Kanishka, in 78 AD at Jalandhar or in Kashmir.

Rahul Sharma was born in Mumbai to the santoor player Shivkumar Sharma and Manorama, from a family steeped in the tradition of Kashmir.

Examples of esoteric cosmologies can be found in Gnosticism, Neoplatonism, Nagualism, Nagualism ( Carlos Castaneda ), Tantra ( especially Kashmir Shaivism ), Kabbalah, Sufism, the teachings of Jacob Boehme, The Urantia Book, the Sant Mat / Surat Shabda Yoga tradition, Theosophy, Anthroposophy, The Cosmic Tradition of Max Theon and his wife, Max Heindel ( The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception ), elements of the teachings of Sri Aurobindo, Meher Baba, the Fourth Way propounded by Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, PaGaian Cosmology and many current New Age teachings, to give only a few examples.

They also have a tradition that their ancestors came from Kashmir.

The 9th-10th century master of the religious system known as " the nondual Shaivism of Kashmir " ( or " Kashmir Shaivism ") and aesthetician, Abhinavagupta brought rasa theory to its pinnacle in his separate commentaries on the Dhvanyāloka, the Dhvanyāloka-locana ( translated by Ingalls, Masson and Patwardhan, 1992 ) and the Abhinavabharati, his commentary on the Nātyashāstra, portions of which are translated by Gnoli and Masson and Patwardhan.

Eastern variants of Gupta called Nāgarī are first attested from the 8th century CE ; from c. 1200 CE these gradually replaced Siddham, which survived as a vehicle for Tantric Buddhism in East Asia, and Sharada, which remained in parallel use in Kashmir.

This weak brigade, under the command of Brigadier-General Ayub Khan ( local rank Major-General – GOC of 14th Army Division ), together with the East Pakistan Rifles which was tasked with defending East Pakistan during the Kashmir War of 1947.

They sorted out their differences through a " round robin of expulsions, blindings and executions ," which resulted in the deterioration of the Afghan hold over far-flung territories, such as Attock and Kashmir.

According to India's claim, it also shares a 106 km ( 66 mi ) border with Afghanistan in northwestern Kashmir, which is under Pakistani control.

Both nations lay claim to the Aksai Chin region of northeastern Kashmir, which fell into Chinese control during the Sino-Indian War of 1962.

Today Kashmir denotes a larger area that includes the Indian-administered state of Jammu and Kashmir ( which consists of the divisions: the Kashmir valley, Jammu and Ladakh ), the Pakistani-administered Gilgit – Baltistan and the Azad Kashmir provinces, and the Chinese-administered regions of Aksai Chin and Trans-Karakoram Tract.

The word Kashmir is an ancient Sanskrit word which literally means Land of Kashyap Rishi.

In his long life he completed over 35 works, the largest and most famous of which is Tantrāloka, an encyclopedic treatise on all the philosophical and practical aspects of Trika and Kaula ( known today as Kashmir Shaivism ).

Kalhana's metrical chronicle of the kings of Kashmir, called the Rajatarangini, has been pronounced by Professor H. H. Wilson to be the only Sanskrit composition yet discovered to which the appellation " history " can with any propriety be applied.

However, the Sikh governors turned out to be hard taskmasters, and Sikh rule was generally considered oppressive, protected perhaps by the remoteness of Kashmir from the capital of the Sikh empire in Lahore ; The Sikhs enacted a number of anti-Muslim laws, which included handing out death sentences for cow slaughter, closing down the Jamia Masjid in Srinagar, and banning the azaan, the public Muslim call to prayer.

Drafted by a treaty and a bill of sale, and constituted between 1820 and 1858, the Princely State of Kashmir and Jammu ( as it was first called ) combined disparate regions, religions, and ethnicities: to the east, Ladakh was ethnically and culturally Tibetan and its inhabitants practised Buddhism ; to the south, Jammu had a mixed population of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs ; in the heavily populated central Kashmir valley, the population was overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim, however, there was also a small but influential Hindu minority, the Kashmiri brahmins or pandits ; to the northeast, sparsely populated Baltistan had a population ethnically related to Ladakh, but which practised Shi ' a Islam ; to the north, also sparsely populated, Gilgit Agency, was an area of diverse, mostly Shi ' a groups ; and, to the west, Punch was Muslim, but of different ethnicity than the Kashmir valley.

After the Indian Rebellion of 1857, in which Kashmir sided with the British, and the subsequent assumption of direct rule by Great Britain, the princely state of Kashmir came under the suzerainty of the British Crown.

" In the same Census of 1901, in the Kashmir Valley, the total population was recorded to be 1, 157, 394, of which the Muslim population was 1, 083, 766, or 93. 6 % and the Hindu population 60, 641.

In the last census of British India in 1941, the total population of Kashmir and Jammu ( which as a result of the second world war, was estimated from the 1931 census ) was 3, 945, 000.

Militias have played an important role supporting Pakistan's Military since Indo-Pakistani War of 1947 when Pakistan, with the support of militias, was able to gain control of the region which is now known as Azad Kashmir.

The nation is geopolitically placed within some of the most controversial regional boundaries which share disputes and have many-a-times escalated military tensions between the nations, e. g., that of Kashmir with India and the Durand Line with Afghanistan.