Zain-ul-Abidin (Budshah): Kashmir’s Great King

Kashmir’s most destructive sultan and its most celebrated one were father and son. Sikandar earned the name Butshikan, the idol-breaker. His son spent fifty years undoing the damage.

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MedHist0075 · Medieval Indian History

Zain-ul-Abidin

Fifty years on the throne of Kashmir, and the reversal of a persecution

1418 – 1419

A first, brief reign

He takes the throne in February 1418, but loses it to his elder brother Ali Shah by December 1419.

7 July 1420

Returns to the throne

After civil conflict with Ali Shah he rules for a further fifty years, until his death.

1443 – 1444

Zaina Lank built in Wular Lake

An island is reclaimed and embanked in stone, carrying a palace, a mosque and gardens.

12 May 1470

Death, and a weaker successor

His son Haji Khan succeeds as Haider Shah. Kashmir’s Shah Mir sultanate never regains this footing.

Read the sources carefully

Much of what we know comes from Jonaraja and Shrivara, Sanskrit chroniclers he personally patronised. Their account is detailed and valuable, but it is court history written by beneficiaries — not a neutral record.

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From Civil War to the Throne Need to Know

• Zain-ul-Abidin was a sultan of Kashmir from the Shah Mir dynasty. He is remembered by the title Budshah, meaning “the Great King.”
• For the dynasty’s full arc, from Shah Mir in 1339 to the Mughal conquest in 1586, see MedHist0071 — Kashmir Sultanate. This article covers Zain-ul-Abidin’s own reign in depth.
• He was born around 1401 in Srinagar and died on 12 May 1470.
• His father was Sultan Sikandar, known as Butshikan, the idol-breaker.
• Sikandar’s reign saw the destruction of temples and the persecution of Kashmir’s Hindus. That is the backdrop to everything his son did.
• Zain-ul-Abidin first took the throne on 20 February 1418. He lost it to his elder brother Ali Shah by December 1419.
• He regained the throne on 7 July 1420 after a civil conflict, and then ruled for around fifty years.
• How Ali Shah actually died is disputed. Some accounts say he died in captivity; others say he was executed.
• His capital works centred on Naushahr, a new settlement he founded near Srinagar.
• He was succeeded by his son Haji Khan, who took the regnal title Haider Shah.

Undoing His Father’s Persecution Need to Know

• He abolished the jizya, the tax levied on non-Muslims in Kashmir.
• He encouraged Hindus who had fled his father’s reign to return to the valley.
• He restored stipends to Brahmins that had been withdrawn.
• He permitted the rebuilding of temples destroyed under Sikandar. Accounts credit him with repairing some himself.
• He allowed Hindus to follow their own personal law, according to the Dharmashastras.
• He brought in regulations on cattle slaughter, including a ban on killing cows by poisoning.
• This is why he is often called the “Akbar of Kashmir” — a comparison to the later Mughal emperor’s policy of religious accommodation.
• Treat that nickname as a useful shorthand, not a technical description. Akbar ruled a much larger empire, over a century later.

The Translation Project Good to Know

• He commissioned translations of Sanskrit works into Persian, paid for from the state treasury.
• The Mahabharata was among the works translated.
• So was Kalhana’s Rajatarangini, the great chronicle of Kashmir’s kings.
• The first Persian version of the Rajatarangini was titled Bahr-ul-Asmar, meaning “Sea of Tales.”
• He also had Persian works rendered into Sanskrit, so the traffic ran both ways.
• He patronised the Sanskrit scholar Jonaraja, who died in 1459.
• Jonaraja wrote the Dvitiya Rajatarangini, continuing Kalhana’s chronicle down to his own patron’s reign.
• Jonaraja’s pupil Shrivara carried the chronicle further, in the Tritiya Rajatarangini, covering 1459 to 1486.
• Shrivara also translated Jami’s Persian poem Yusuf u Zulaikha into Sanskrit, as the Katha-Kautuka.

Crafts Brought from Samarkand Good to Know

• He brought craftsmen and teachers to Kashmir from Central Asia and Iran, especially from Samarkand.
• Papier-mâché arrived this way. In Kashmir it developed as kar-i-qalamdan, first used for decorated pen cases.
• Paper-making came too. Rag-based techniques replaced the older practice of writing on birch bark.
• Carpet weaving was introduced, using Persian weaving and knotting methods.
• Decorative woodwork followed: khatamband ceilings and pinjrakari lattice screens.
• Stone polishing, metalwork and other trades were also established under his patronage.
• These crafts still define Kashmiri artisanal work today. That is the practical reason his name carries such weight in the valley.
• One caution: the detailed stories of his own years in Samarkand, and of the artisans he brought back, come from later accounts rather than contemporary record.

Test Yourself

Please wait…

1. Sultan Zain-ul-Abidin of Kashmir is popularly remembered by which title?

Butshikan

Budshah

Sikandar Sani

Zinda Pir

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Engineering the Valley Great to Know

• In 1443–1444 he had an island reclaimed in Wular Lake, known as Zaina Lank.
• The island was embanked in stone and carried a palace, a mosque and gardens.
• He built the bridge at Zaina Kadal in Srinagar, which still carries his name.
• In 1439 he laid out Zainanagar, a larger settlement stretching from Hari Parbat towards Amberhor.
• He had a stone-reinforced embankment built between Sopore and Safapur.
• That work served two purposes: controlling floods, and reclaiming marshland for cultivation.
• Notice the pattern. Much of his reputation rests on public works and irrigation, not on conquest.
• He is buried at Mazar-e-Salatin, the royal burial ground at Zaina Kadal in Srinagar.

What the Sources Don’t Settle Great to Know

• Most of what we know about his reign comes from Jonaraja and Shrivara.
• Both were Sanskrit scholars he personally patronised, with land grants and financial support.
• Their chronicles are detailed and valuable. They are also court history written by beneficiaries.
• That does not make them false. It does mean a glowing verdict on their patron is exactly what you would expect.
• Read alongside this, the “Akbar of Kashmir” label starts to look partly like an artefact of who was writing.
• The circumstances of his brother Ali Shah’s death remain disputed between accounts.
• Accounts of his later years describe a decline. Modern scholars interpret this variously, and no diagnosis at this distance is secure.
• No contemporary likeness of him survives, which is normal for a fifteenth-century Kashmiri ruler.
• The honest summary is this. The broad achievements are well attested; the moral glow around them comes from interested witnesses.