One version of the story was collected by British reverend James Hinton Knowles and published in his book Folk-Tales of Kashmir.
Knowles attributed the source of his version to a man named Pandit Shiva Rám of Banáh Mahal Srínagar.
[6] In Knowles's version, titled Nágray and Himál, a poor brahmin named Soda Ram, who has an "ill-tempered" wife, laments his luck.
One day, he decides to go on a pilgrimage to Hindustan, since a local king gives five lachs of rupees to the poor.
One day, he asks his father where he can find "a pure spring" that he can bathe in, and Soda Rám points to a pool at princess Himal's garden, heavily guarded by the king's troops.
Himal sends a maid to follow the snake and sees it enter Soda Ram's house.
Nágray instructs his adoptive father to toss a paper in a certain spring, one hour before the wedding, and the procession will come.
However, Nágray's other wives, which live in the realm of snakes, decide to pay a visit to the human princess, under a magical disguise, due to their lordship's extended absence.
[7] The story of Himal and Nagaray is considered to be a "well-known tale", representative of the Kashmiri region.
[8][9] Indian scholarship states that the tale has existed in the oral repertoire of the Kashmir region,[10] with multiple renditions appearing in both Persian and Kashmiri in the 18th and 19th centuries.
[11][12][13][14][9] According to S. L. Sadhu, the earliest recorded version of the story was by Maulvi Sadr-ud-Din in Persian with the title Qasai Heemal va Arzun.
His disappearance is caused when Himal forces him to take a dip in a bowl of milk, which transports him back to Talpatal.
[18] Knowles also informed that another version existed with the title Hímál Nágárajan, obtained from Pandit Hargopal Kol.
[20] According to professor Ruth Laila Schmidt, the hero's name, Nágráy (Nāgarājā 'snake king'), indicates remnants of snake worship in the Western Himalayas (including the Kashmir region),[21] that is, worship of the nagas, snake-like beings of Hindu mythology associated with water.
[23][24] Suniti Kumar Chatterji also noticed some resemblance between the Kashmiri tale and the Lithuanian folktale Eglė the Queen of Serpents, wherein a human maiden named Egle marries Zilvinas, a snake-like prince that lives in an underwater palace.