The Hamam and the Kangri: Two Ways Kashmir Traditionally Stayed Warm

Staying warm through a Kashmiri winter has traditionally relied on two very different solutions — one carried on the body, one built into it. Together, they cover most of how Kashmiri households historically managed the cold season.

The Kangri: Warmth You Carry

The kangri — a small wicker-covered clay pot filled with hot coals — provides direct, personal warmth, carried under a pheran throughout the day. It's an individual, portable solution, suited to moving around while staying warm, and part of why the pheran's roomy cut exists in the first place.

The Hamam: Warmth Built Into the Floor

Some traditional Kashmiri homes incorporate a hamam — an underfloor heating system, historically using a space beneath the floor where a fire could be maintained, warming the room from below rather than through an open flame or portable heat source.

Different Solutions, Different Scales

Where the kangri solves for individual, portable warmth, the hamam addresses whole-room heating — two complementary rather than competing approaches, often used together depending on whether someone was moving around the house or settled in one room for an extended period.

Wool as the Third Layer

Alongside both heating methods, wool clothing — the pheran, worn constantly through winter — forms a third, more passive layer of warmth, working in combination with active heat sources rather than replacing them.

Ingenuity Before Central Heating

Neither the kangri nor the hamam depends on the kind of centralised, modern heating infrastructure many households take for granted elsewhere — both represent practical, effective solutions developed specifically for Kashmir's cold climate, well before modern heating became widely available.

Traditions That Still Matter

Even as modern heating has become more common in Kashmiri homes, the kangri in particular remains a genuinely active tradition, still carried daily through winter — not a historical relic, but a practical habit that's simply continued alongside newer options.