Why Muslims revere Adi Shankaracharya's seat in PoK

Legend has it that Adi Shankaracharya’s ‘digvijaya’ or tour of philosophical conquest culminated at a temple-university called Sharda Peeth in ancient Kashmir. Today, the remains of the Peeth lie in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir’s Neelum Valley, hardly 20km from Keran village in Kupwara on the Indian side of the line of control (LoC). Only a snow-coated gateway and an imposing arch of the Peeth remain, but the institution’s multifaith legacy is thriving. The Muslim community of Sharda village has taken the initiative to conserve and renovate it. Disregarding politics, they believe the ruins should be protected and taken good care of. “For Hindus, it’s Sharda Devi, and for Muslims, Sharda Mai, and in this area we treat the temple with all reverence and sanctity,” says Khwaja Abdul Ghani, a local writer and school headmaster from the village who has written a book on Sharda. medium95027508Pan-India pilgrimage Historical records show Sharda Peeth was a pan-Indian site of pilgrimage and learning from the 8th century CE. It is believed to be the place where Adi Shankaracharya was elevated to ‘Sarvajna Peetha’ (seat of omniscience) after exhaustive debates with Buddhist and Jain monks. Noted scholars TOI spoke to vouched for Sharda Peeth’s antiquity and eminence, and supported the move to give it protected status.Shonaleeka Kaul, associate professor, Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, says the Peeth’s centrality as a site of learning is part of the larger story of the intensely connected histories of Kashmir and the rest of India. She says the Peeth finds mention in Nilamata Purana, a 7th-century text. Kalhana’s Rajatarangini from the 12th century – deemed the first history of Kashmir – also records the Peeth was a Hindu pilgrimage site of subcontinental renown by the 8th century CE when devotees from as far as Gauda (Bengal) visited it, she adds. medium95028596Kaul, who has written The Making of Early Kashmir: Landscape and Identity in Rajatarangini, described the Peeth as “the last frontier, as it were, of learning and scholarship”. She says Adi Shankaracharya’s famed visit to Kashmir in the 8th century and his ascension of the Sarvajna Peetha there are salient examples of this, and the Madhaviya Shankara Digvijaya, a 13thcentury text, details this episode. Crossroads of civilisations Rukhsana Khan from the University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Muzaffarabad, says the Peeth was much more than a Hindu temple – it was “a crossroads of civilisations” that attracted scholars of various faiths, pilgrims and monks, who left their mark in the form of rock inscriptions in Neelum Valley or the valley of Kishanganga. Khan heads the department of art and design at the varsity’s Sharda Centre of Learning, Archaeology and Cultural Heritage.She says, “The evidence of this civilisation is the Sharda temple, which is similar to the Martand temple (near Anantnag on the Indian side) built by Lalitaditya in the 7th century.”Although there are no specific records of Adi Shankaracharya’s visit to the Peeth, Khan says archaeological evidence in the form of rock inscriptions, copper coins, etc, confirms the idea of visits by different monks, including from Korea and China, to Sharda in the remote past. 95027561Out of bounds Access to the temple from the Indian side is barred, but communities on both sides of the LoC have been lobbying politicians, officials and international NGOs to get access to it and have it declared a heritage site.Khan says the Peeth “has already been declared a protected site, which means there cannot be any rituals in this temple. It should be declared a heritage site as heritage stands as a strong link between the past and the present”. medium95028790A great deal of effort is being invested to preserve the monument from the Indian side. “We have written to the UN to intervene to reopen the temple for pilgrimage as well as for exploration of one of the oldest civilisations. There is no need to even build a new corridor to this location (as) there are two bus routes across the LoC manned by both the countries,” says Ravinder Pandita, founder of Save Sharda Committee (SSC) in Kashmir. “All we demand is some amendments in the permits issued for those who have relatives across the LoC, to include pilgrims to the Sharda temple.” After SSC’s relentless efforts, the supreme court of PoK ordered the local authorities to protect the structure in January 2018. However, Khan says the Kartarpur corridor formula cannot be applied to the Sharda site “because there are similar sites in Rawalakot, Poonch, Kotli, etc. For this reason, Kartarpur’s policy cannot be applied here. What is urgently required is conservation, and we at the university have come up with some projects for Sharda Peeth’s conservation,” she says.