01Gopadri and Jyeshteshvara
Kalhana records in the first book of the Rajatarangini that King Gopaditya gave lands on the Gopadri hill to Brahmins and consecrated a shrine of Shiva Jyeshteshvara there. The temple that stands now is a square shrine on a high octagonal plinth, reached by a flight of stone steps, and archaeologists place the present structure around the 9th century. Persian writers later called the hill Takht-i-Sulaiman. For Kashmiri Pandits it has always been Shankaracharya Parvat.
02Shankara in Kashmir
Kashmiri tradition holds that Adi Shankaracharya, on his digvijaya, stayed on this hill and there came to worship Shiva together with Shakti, and that the Saundarya Lahari was inspired here. A small cave below the shrine is shown as the place of his meditation. Maharaja Gulab Singh, founder of the Dogra state, laid the stone steps up to the temple. On Shivaratri and in the month of Shravan the steps are crowded, and the Chhari Mubarak of Amarnath halts here for puja on its way to the cave.
The life of this place
- c. 9th centuryPresent stone temple built on the Gopadri hill.
- after 1846Maharaja Gulab Singh has stone steps laid up to the shrine.
A road climbs to the security gate from the Boulevard; then about 240 steps. Phones and cameras are often not allowed beyond the gate.
