Know the history of Shardapeeth located in POK

 

History of Shardapeeth

When Lord Shankar took out the body of Sati from the Yagyakund and lifted it onhis shoulder, Lord Shiva started doing tandava in grief. Thereafter, to save the whole world from the holocaust, Lord Vishnu, the preserver of the world, cut the body of Sati with Sudarshan Chakra. Subsequently, the places where the pieces are surrounded are known as Adi-Shakti Peeth, Shakti Peeth and Mahashakti Peeth. Sharda Peeth is one of the 18 Mahashakti Peeths and it is said that this the place where the right hand of Sati fell. The form of Shakti worshiped here is Sharda. The Hindu Goddess Saraswati is called Sharda in Kashmiri language, Sharda Peeth means the seat of Sharda. Sharda Peeth is a Hindu temple located in Kashmir and also an ancient center of learning dedicated to Sharda, the Hindu goddess of learning. Between the 6th to the 12th centuries CE, the Sharada Peeth Temple and University was one of the leading temples and universities of the Indian subcontinent. Comparisons were also made. The place is in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, which is 130 km from Srinagar in Kashmir and about 22 km from Kupwara and very close to the Line of Control. The name of the village where this temple is situated is Sharda, where the Neelam river meets the Madhumati and Sargun rivers. Sharda Peeth is considered to be more than 5000 years old shrine of Hindus.

The Sharada Peeth, dedicated to Goddess Sati, is considered to be the holiest pilgrimage site. One of the main reasons for this is that the Sharda Peeth in Kashmir is the quarterly incarnation of Goddess Shakti, in which Sharada, the goddess of learning, Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge, and Vagdevi, the goddess of speech, all worship Shakti. It is as important as Baba Amarnath, Martand Sun Temple and Mata Vaishno Devi Temples in Jammu and Kashmir. It is considered to be one of the 18 Mahapeeths where Goddess Sati resides in a triple avatar.

The history behind the Sharda Peeth temple located in Kashmir is not completely clear, some believe that it was built in the Kushan Empire between 30 CE - 230 CE. While some say that the similarities between the Sharada Peeth and the Martanda Sun Temple suggest that it was built by Lalitaditya, some say that it was not built in one go but in several stages. Apart from this, it is also said that it was established in 237 B.C. during the reign of Emperor Ashoka the great. In ancient times, Kashmir was sometimes called Sharda Desh due to this temple and the people living there were called residents of Kashmir. This temple is so old that at that time the state of Kashmir was also known as 'Sharda Peeth'. This temple was also known as Kashyappur after the name of Rishi Kashyap. In ancient times, people from all over India, including Kashmiri Pandits, used to go to Sharda Peeth for pilgrimage on Vaisakhi, which was a major center of religion and Vedic education. Sage Panini composed his Ashtadhyayi here. It was an important center of Sri Vidya Sadhana. The Neelmat Purana was also composed by Veda Kumari here near the Neelam river, which is a major source of the history of Sharda Peeth. The earliest available reference to Sharada Peeth is found in the Nilamat Purana 6th-8th century CE. In the 10th century, al-Biruni describes a place of pilgrimage worshiped by both local people and pilgrims. He associates it with the famous temples of the time such as Multan Sun Temple and Somnath Temple and describes that at that time, Sharada Peeth was one of the most revered places of worship in Bharat. In his description of Pravapura (presently called Srinagar), the 11th-century poet Bilhana mentions the Sharada Peeth, referring to it as the source of Kashmir's reputation as a center of learning. He describes the goddess as a swan carrying gold washed from the river Madhumati (currently called Neelam river or Kishanganga) as her crown. In 12th century, Kalhana in his book Rajatarangini has described Sharda Peeth as a place of worship.

Sharda Peeth was one of the most prominent temple university of the Indian subcontinent, hosting scholars such as Kalhana, Shankaracharya, Vairotsana, Kumarajiva and Thonmi Sambhota etc. It played an important role in the development and popularization of the Sharda script in North India, where Adi Shankaracharya got the right to sit on the Sarvajnanapeetham (the Throne of Knowledge) in the Sharda Peeth. The first verse of 'Prapanchasar' composed by Adi Shankaracharya is dedicated to the praise of Sharda. The image of Sharda in the Sringeri Shardamba temple in South India was once made of sandalwood, which is said to have been taken from here by Adi Shankaracharya. The Vaishnava sage Swami Ramanuja traveled from Srirangam before starting work on writing his commentary on the Brahma Sutras and wrote his review on the Brahma Sutras here. The Sharada Peeth is included in many South Indian Brahmanical traditions, such as the ritual prostration towards the Sharada Peeth at the beginning of formal education. The Saraswat Brahmin community in Karnataka is said to perform seven steps towards Kashmir before taking back their steps during the Yagyopaveet ceremony. Brahmins also include the Sharada Stotram in their morning prayers:

Sharda Devi Kashmira Mandla Vasini.

I bow to Goddess Sharda, who lives in Kashmir.

A major source of mythological knowledge about the temple is the Sharda Sahasranama manuscript, written in the Sharada script, and communicated by Prakash Swami, the last purohita (chief priest) of the Sharda temple before the partition of India. According to the script, sage Shandilya meditated rigorously with penance on Mount Harmukh to win the favor of the gods. In this period, the local Siddhas and Gandharvas served him. He achieved desirelessness, and gained control of his senses and body through rigorous meditation. To please the deities, they performed a grand yajna and rituals involving local men, women and children of the Sharda region. Hundreds of qualified priests were invited to take part in reciting the Vedas and making offerings to the Yagya. In the middle of the yajna, a beautiful woman appeared and came to him, and introduced herself as a brahmini, who had accepted his invitation to participate in the yajna. She said that she and her partner have come a long way and wished for food. Shandilya welcomed him and bowed apologetically, saying that the rules of the yajna forbade him from offering food: the yajna had to be performed, and the priests ate the food first to sanctify it. The brahmini became enraged and declared themselves as the Vedic goddess and the divine mother, saying that it was the same goddess for whom the yajna was being performed. He told him that the God whom he worships is the essence of the goddess. In her anger, she transformed before him into the divine blue form of Saraswati, who had ornaments, weapons and clouds in the form of a blue lotus, and declared that she would absorb the world, humans, forests, trees and others. In shock, remorse and fear, Shaandilyaa collapsed and died. Seeing his repentance, the goddess asked her companions to revive him with Amrita, the elixir of life. Shaandilyaa woke up and saw the destruction caused by the wrath of the goddess, and felt himself responsible. The goddess transformed into a different, beautiful form of Saraswati. Addressing him as "son", he told him that he was pleased with his devotion and compassion and would provide him with whatever he wanted. Shandilya, addressing her as the Divine Mother, asked her to revive the dead and restore the village and the forest. Saraswati accepted, and instructed him to build his ashram at the base of a hill near the Madhumati River (present-day Neelam River). He resided there in the Sharada Peeth and blessed Shandilya.

According to another legend, Shandilya prayed to the goddess Sarada with great devotion, and was rewarded when she appeared before him and promised to show her true, divine form. He advised her to search for Sharda Van(forest). His journey was full of miraculous experiences. On the way he had a vision of Lord Ganesha on the eastern side of a hill. When he reached near the Neelam river, he took a bath in it and saw that half of his body had turned golden. Eventually, the goddess manifested herself in her three forms of Sarada, Saraswati and Vagdevi and invited them to her abode. As he was preparing for a ritual, he drew water from the Mahasindhu. Half of this water turned into honey, and a stream was formed, which is now known as Madhumati Dhara(stream). It is said that taking a bath in the confluence of the Neelum river and Madhumati stream washes away the sins of the pilgrim, they are considered pious like the Ganga.

In the 13th century CE (1277–78), the Shvetambara scholar Hemchandra writes that, since the Sharada Peeth was the only place with a library, where all such works were known to be available in their complete form, Hemachandra ordered King Jayasimha Siddharaj, requested to send a team to get copies of the existing eight Sanskrit grammatical texts. In the 16th century, Wazir Abul-Fazl ibn Mubarak described the Sharda Peeth as a "stone temple and also described the sanctity of the place". Kalhana narrates an incident in Lalitaditya's reign (713–755), where a group of assassins from the Gowda kingdom entered Kashmir on the pretext of a pilgrimage to the Sharda Peeth. This suggests that in the 8th century AD, the Sharda Peeth was visited by the people of present-day Bengal. He also describes a rebellion by three princes: Lothana, Vigraharaja and Bhoja during the reign of King Jai Singh of Kashmir. These princes, pursued by the royal army, sought refuge in the upper Kishanganga valley at Sirahsila Castle. Kalhan and Stein believe that the royal army took refuge in the Sharda Peeth, as it contained the necessary open space for a temporary military village.

From the 14th century, Islam gradually became the dominant religion in Kashmir. At the end of the fourteenth century, Kashmir came under a fanatical ruler named Sultan Sikandar, and Jammu and Kashmir began a reign of Islamizing terror and brutality against his Hindu subjects. He tried to destroy the Martand temple but failed. He taxed Hindus, forbade them from practicing their religion, forcibly converted to Islam, and earned the title of butt-shikan for destroying statues and temples. He and his ministers destroyed the Hindu scripture, whatever they found. During his reign lakhs of Pandits were killed in Kashmir. Jammu and Kashmir ruled by the Afghans for 66 years, almost seven decades, until 1819. This is the period when mass conversion took place in Jammu and Kashmir. A large number of people became Muslims during the Afghan rule, many migrated from the valley to different parts of Bharat to save themselves. Due to which the Sharda Peeth temple was also lost its fame and its importance decreased. After a long rule of Islam, Jammu and Kashmir once again came under non-Muslim rule in 1819 AD, which was followed by Sikh rulers in 1819 AD and then passed into the hands of the Dogra dynasty. The Shardapeeth temple once again emerged as a regular pilgrimage site for Kashmiri Pandits after the Dogra rule in Jammu and Kashmir and the temple was renovated during the rule of Maharaja Gulab Singh.

Once again when the country was partitioned and after the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947-1948, religious tourism in Sharda Peeth declined significantly. Most Kashmiri Pandits remained on the Indian side of the Line of Control, and travel restrictions discouraged Indian Hindus from visiting the temple. In 1947, Swami Nand Lal Ji of Tikkar Kupwara transferred stone idols from Sharda to Tikkar, some of which are preserved at Devibal in Baramulla and Tikkar in Kupwara. Later the yatra was completely stopped due to poor relations with India and Pakistan. In 2007, a group of Kashmiri Pandits, who were allowed to visit Azad Kashmir, were not allowed to visit the temple. In September 2009, the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies recommended religious tourism between India and Pakistan, including allowing Kashmiri Pandits to visit the Sharda Peeth and Pakistani Muslims to visit the Hazratbal shrine in Srinagar, but There was no solution. In 2019, the Government of Pakistan opened the Kartarpur Corridor to allow Sikh pilgrims in India to visit Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartarpur across the border. This has prompted the Pakistani government to open a corridor to the Sharda Peeth site (Neelam Valley, 22 km from Kupwara) by Kashmiri Pandits. Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chief and former Jammu and Kashmir chief ministers Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah have requested Indian PM Narendra Modi to take forward the request.

More recently, the Sringeri Shankaracharya Math in Karnataka has taken the initiative to build a new temple for Goddess Sharda along the Line of Control (LoC) in the Titwal area of ​​Kupwara district of North Kashmir. The temple will be built on the banks of the Kishanganga River at Teetwal, enroute to the original sixth century AD Sharada temple, the Sarvagya Peeth. Sringeri Math will donate a Panchaloha idol of Goddess Sharada, a replica of Sri Sharada Peetham, for installation at the under-construction Sharada Temple. According to the Sringeri Math, Sharda Yatra (Sarvajana Peeth) temple committee, Ravinder Pandita of Kashmir met Sringeri Jagadguru Shankaracharya Bharati Tirtha and Jagadguru Vidhushekhar Bharati, and received blessings for the construction of a temple.

 

References:

Kalhaṇa's Rājataraṅgiṇī. Vol. 3 : a chronicle of the kings of Kaśmīr. Kalhana, Stein, M. A. (Reprint ed.). 2003. ISBN 81-208-0371-X. OCLC 872559688

Qazi, Junaid Ahmad; Samad, Abdul (January 2015). Shakirullah; Young, Ruth (eds.). "Śarda Temple and the Stone Temples of Kashmir in Perspective: A Review Note". Pakistan Heritage. Hazara University Mansehra-Pakistan. 7: 111–120 – via Research Gate.

Godbole, Sanjay. "The Sharda Temple of Kashmir". Kashmiri Pandit Network / Kashmir Sentinel. Archived from the original on 21 December 2018. Retrieved 21 December 2018.

"Pandits denied entry into temple in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir". The Hindu. 3 October 2007. Retrieved 12 February 2014.

 "Shankara Digvijayam Part 5". Sringeri Sharada Peetham. Retrieved 31 March 2020.

 Raina, Mohini Qasba (2013). Kashur: The Kashmiri Speaking People. Trafford Publishing. p. 191. ISBN 978-1490701653. Custom among South Indian Brahmans of prostrating in the direction of Sharda Peeth, in Kashmir, prior to initiation to formal education is still prevalent.

 "After Kartarpur, Pakistan approves plan to open Sharda Peeth corridor in PoK". The Indian Express. 25 March 2019. Retrieved 7 April 2020.

 "No decision taken on opening of Sharda temple corridor in PoK: Pakistan". The New Indian Express. Retrieved 7 April 2020

 Raina, Dina Nath (1994). Kashmir - distortions and reality. Michigan: Reliance Publishing House, University of Michigan. p. 38. ISBN 8185972524. No wonder that from remote ages, Kashmir became the seat of learning and earned for itself the appropriate name of Sharda Peeth or the seat of Sharda, the Goddess of Learning and Fine Arts.

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