Amarnath, crossing two mountain
ranges on the way. Although the region
is thinly settled for most of the year, dur-
ing the pilgrimage season, camps and
businesses spring up along the route;
many are run by local Kashmiri
Muslims, for whom this is a major
source of livelihood. The offeringsat the
shrine are evenly split between the
mahant, the local pandas (Hindu
pilgrimage priests), and a group of
Muslims from a village near Pahalgam
who traditionally maintained the road,
although the state has done this since
India has gained independence. During
the early 1990s, parts of Kashmir were a
war zone between Indian government
forces and a variety of Kashmiri Muslim
groups, some of which pressed for
greater self-determination and others
for unification with Pakistan. These
problems have affected the pilgrimage,
which passes through some of the most
contested areas. In 1994 there were sev-
eral attacks on travelers, reportedly
prompted by pilgrims chanting anti-
Muslim slogans, and in 1995 the pil-
grimage took place under heavy security
provided by the Indian army. The 1996
pilgrimage had no political turmoil, but
several hundred people died of
hypothermia caused by a sudden unsea-
sonable snowstorm.Amaru
(7th c.?) Sanskrit poet traditionally
thought to be the author of the
Amarushatakam(“Amaru’s Hundred”),
a collection of poems on the theme of
eroticlove. The text’s name is doubly
misleading since present editions con-
tain almost 200 poems, and there is
strong evidence that it was compiled
from several earlier collections, making
its authorship uncertain. Although
Amaru’s poetry explores the joys of car-
nal love and is thus not explicitly reli-
gious, the themes of lover/beloved
and union/separation treated in this
poetry later became standard themes in
bhakti (devotional) poetry. In the
Shankaradigvijaya, a legendary
biography of the philosopherAmaruThe outside entrance of the limestone caves at Amarnath.
This is a sacred site in which the god Shiva is believed to reside.