The shepherd and the sack of coal (Buta Malik and the finding of the cave)
The Malik family of Batakote above Pahalgam tells that their ancestor Buta Malik, a Muslim shepherd, was given a sack of coal by a sadhu in the high mountains about 1850; at home it was gold; going back to thank him he found the ice linga's cave where the man had sat. Maharaja Gulab Singh is said to have ordered a Malik always present at the shrine with the Mahant and the Purohits and a share of the offerings, kept until the Shrine Board Act of 2000. The Kashmiri Pandit tradition answers that the cave was never lost: the sage Bhrigu or Bhringesha saw it when the lake was drained, the Bringesha Samhita gives the mace, and the Nilamata, Kalhana and Jonaraja knew Amareshvara centuries earlier.
Who is in it
Buta Malikthe shepherd of Batakote who found the cave
Maharaja Gulab Singhthe ruler said to have given the Maliks their place at the shrine
Buta Malik, a shepherd of Batakote, grazes his flock high above Pahalgam and meets a sadhu alone on the mountain.
The sadhu gives him a sack of coal for his kindness; at home the coal is gold.
He climbs back to thank the sadhu, finds no one, and finds instead a cave with a pillar of ice rising from its floor.
The Hindus of the valley come up; Maharaja Gulab Singh is pleased and orders that a Malik always be present at the shrine with the Mahant and the Purohits, and the Maliks take a third of the offerings.
For generations the Maliks keep the track, guide and carry the pilgrims, and sit at the cave with the Mahant of the mace and the Brahmins of Mattan.
The Pandit tradition tells instead that Bhrigu or Bhringesha saw the cave after Kashyapa drained the lake, that Bhringesha's disciples were harassed by demons and Shiva gave him the mace, and that Kalhana, the Nilamata and Jonaraja knew Amareshvara long before any shepherd.
After the 1996 deaths the Shrine Act of 2000 and the Board of 2001 end the hereditary shares; a tribunal fixes one-time sums in 2004 and the Maliks refuse theirs.
The Himalaya · Batakote and the Amarnath cave, KashmirFolkthe Malik family; Kashmiri Muslims of the Lidder valley🪔 Amarnath Yatra
Buta Malik, a shepherd of Batakote about five kilometres above Pahalgam, took his flock deep into the mountains and met a sadhu, who gave him a sack of coal. At home the coal had turned to gold. He went back to thank the sadhu, found no one, and found the cave with the great icicle instead; the family adds that a pair of pigeons sat near it. The family puts this about 1850, in the reign of Gulab Singh, who was pleased and decreed that a Malik of Batakote must always be present at the shrine with the Mahant and the Purohits; the Maliks received an estate in Pahalgam, freedom from land revenue and a third of the offerings, and after Buta his children organised the fortnight of the yatra each summer, kept the track, guided and escorted the pilgrims, welcomed them in the villages with songs and kehwa, and in later years ran free medical camps. Lawrence in 1895 recorded the one-third share as payment for maintaining the track, guiding, carrying the sick and preventing theft, the other two thirds going to the Pandits of Mattan and the Giri mahants who led with the Chhari. After 243 pilgrims died in the 1996 storm, the J&K Shri Amarnathji Shrine Act of 2000 set up a Board (12 February 2001) that ended all hereditary rights with a one-time settlement; Justice H. N. Mishra's tribunal gave its award on 23 January 2004 (the Mahant about Rs 1.02 crore, Mattan Rs 68 lakh, Ganeshpora Rs 34 lakh, the 52 Malik families Rs 1.12 lakh). The Maliks refused the money, said they would go to court, and still go up to the cave; some sixty of them now work as tent-pitchers and vendors on the route.
As the old Kashmiri books tell it: the sage, the disciples and the mace
The Himalaya · KashmirShaivaKashmiri Pandits🪔 Amarnath Yatra
The Kashmiri tradition says the cave was never found by a shepherd because it was never lost. When Kashyapa drained the lake that filled the valley, the sage Bhrigu (Wikipedia) or Bhringesha (Anantnag district, the Pandit writers) was the first to see the lord in the cave, and the Bringesha Samhita named for him says he sent his disciples up each summer to see the ice linga; when demons harassed them on the road he prayed to Shiva and was given a mace (the Organiser: a pair) for the pilgrims' protection, the Chhari Mubarak that still leads the yatra. The Nilamata Purana lists a bath at Amaresha among Kashmir's tirthas with the merit of a hundred cows; Kalhana in 1148 to 1149 says people on the Amareshvara pilgrimage still see the milk-white lake of the Naga Susravas (1.267), that King Aryaraja spent his summers worshipping lingas of snow above the forests (2.138), and that Queen Suryamati endowed Amareshvara with mathas, agraharas, tridents and banalingas (7.183 to 185); Jonaraja adds Sultan Zain-ul-Abidin's visit in the fifteenth century. M. M. Munshi argues that 'Malik' was a title for the keepers of routes and passes, that Vigne (1842) and Lawrence (1895) never mention a rediscovery, and that the competing dates (1600, 1750 to 1775, 1775) and names (Adam, Buta, Akram) cancel one another; the ikashmir.net history page allows that the yatra may have gone quiet under Afghan rule (1753 to 1819).
What is different here:
No shepherd and no gold: the cave is known from the draining of the lake, the mace comes from Shiva to Bhringesha, and the chronicles carry the pilgrimage from the twelfth century; the Maliks are route-keepers paid a share, not finders.
Sources: Buta Malik lives (Kashmir Life, 2016); Buta Malik is out of business (Kashmir Life, 2010); Muslim caretakers of Amarnath dispute tribunal (Hinduism Today, Hindu Press International, 21 August 2004; dispatch Batakoot 25 July 2004); Did Muslim shepherd Buta Malik discover Amarnath cave? (Free Press Journal); Upendra Kaul, The sacred cave (Greater Kashmir, 2 July 2025); M. M. Munshi, Tirtha of Amreshvara and Who discovered Amarnath? (ikashmir.net, a Kashmiri Pandit site); Shri Amarnath Cave (Anantnag district, Government of Jammu and Kashmir); History of the cave temple of Sri Amarnath (Organiser, 31 August 2008)