Everything charmed Stein and interactions with the Pandits discussing the literature which their ancestors had known inspired in him his early affection for Kashmir. One Pandit who influenced Stein the most was Govind Kaul.

In him he had found a Kashmiri scholar whose erudition was to be essential to the editing and translation of the Rajatarangini - a task on which both of them laboured together over the next decade. By the time Stein left Kashmir in early October, he had arranged for Pandit Govind Kaul to join him in Lahore to work on various Sanskrit manuscripts. It was the beginning of commitment to joint scholarship marked by mutual respect and abiding friendship between Stein and Govind Kaul that lasted until latter’s untimely demise eleven years later.

In his very maiden visit to Kashmir,Aurel Stein fell in love with the green paradise. His first sojourn there was “merely a foretaste of many years to come.” But Srinagar also gave Stein some sad news.

Going one day by walk to the city’s reading room- the Club, he read in the Times newspaper about the death of his patron who had sanctioned him the necessary scholarship to complete his post - doctoral studies in England that had enabled him to pursue an orientalist career and in fact given him the opportunity to visit Kashmir.