The village of Ushkar or Wushkur is situated at a distance of half a mile from the Baramula dak bangalow. The name is a corruption of Huvishkapura, which, according to Kalhana, was the name of a city founded by Huvishka, the great Kushan king in the second century A.D. It was a flourishing town in mediaeval times owing to its position on the principal trade-route between Kashmir and northwestern India. Lalitaditya built here a shrine of Vishnu named Muktasvamin and a large vihara with a stupa. Hsuan-tsang, the famous Chinese pilgrim who visited Kashmir in A.D. 631, entered the valley by the Baramula pass, and spent his first night at one of the monasteries here. The reigning king accorded him a very hospitable welcome, sending his own mother and younger brother with chariots and horses to escort him to the capital.

Of the monasteries and temples which Hsuan-tsang saw, and Kalhana mentions, none now remain above ground, except the ruins of a stupa and its surrounding wall, a few yards to the west of the village. On the analogy of style which is similar to that of the great stupa at Parihasapura, there can be little doubt that it is the same structure which the Kashmir chronicle states Lalitaditya built in the middle of the eighth century A.D. Only the lowest courses of its base are now in position.

An interesting fact about this stupa is that it seems to have been built over an older structure of nearly the same type, stones of which were found in situ when the silt round the base was removed some years ago. That structure may have belonged to Kushan times. This surmise is strengthened by the discovery outside the north-eastern corner of the surrounding wall, of eleven terracotta heads, besides a number of fragmentary limbs of images which display the unmistakable influence of the Gandhara school of the third and fourth century. These are now preserved in the Srinagar Museum.

The town of Baramula, properly Varahamula, named after the Boar incarnation of Vishnu, was an important place in mediaeval times. The temple of Adi-Varaha, " Primeval Boar," destroyed by Sikandar But-shikan, is said to have been one of the most splendid in Kashmir. Its site is identified, on the strength of local tradition, with the Kotitirtha situated half a mile below the bridge. A few architectural stones may still be seen lying about at this place.