Sharada Peeth
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Sharada Peeth or, more correctly, Śāradā pīṭha, located near Sharda was the famous temple of the goddess Śāradā or Sarasvatī in Northern Kashmir on the banks of what is known as the Neelum River in Pakistan and Kashmir (referred to as Kishenganga river in India). Its ruins are now in the Neelum District of Azad Kashmir (Pakistan Occupied Kashmir), Pakistan near the Line of Control (LOC) and Gurez, Kashmir, India. Shina and Kashmiri languages are mostly spoken in the area. Kashmir was sometimes called Sharada Desh because of this temple.
The place was once a celebrated centre of learning headed by Kashmiri Brahmins. It is at this temple that Sankaracharya received Sarvanjyapeethom chair. It was a centre of great Sanskrit scholars and Kashmiri Pandits and was a famous centre of Buddhism and later Hinduism. Sharada script and Takri (from which gurmukhi is derived. According to the Prabhāvakacarita, a Jain historical work dated 1277-78, the Śvetāmbara scholar Hemacandra requested grammatical texts preserved here so he could compile his own grammar, the Siddhahema.[1] The Vaishnava saint Swami Ramanuja traveled all the way from Srirangam to refer to Bodhayana's vritti on Brahma Sutras preserved here, before commencing work on writing his commentary on the Brahma sutras, the Sri Bhasya. The Śāradā image at Shringeri Sharadamba temple was once said to have been made of sandalwood, which is supposed to have been taken by the Sankaracharya from here.
Kalhana mentions that in Lalitaditya's reign (8th century AD), some followers of a king of Gauda (Bengal), come to Kashmir under the pretence of visiting the shrine of Śāradā.
The temple was last repaired by Maharaja Gulab Singh of Jammu and Kashmir.
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- ^ The narrative is translated in S. Pollock, Language of the Gods in the World of Men (Berkley, 2006): 588-89.
