01Kashmir, the land of Sharada
Kashmir was called Sharada-desha, the land of Sharada, and every Kashmiri Pandit child once began lessons with the salutation "Namaste Sharade Devi, Kashmira-pura-vasini". Kalhana names the shrine of Sharada in the Rajatarangini, and al-Biruni, writing around 1030, knew of the venerated wooden image of Sharada in Kashmir. The Madhaviya Shankara Digvijaya tells that Adi Shankaracharya came here and ascended the Sarvajna Pitha, the throne of all knowledge, after answering the scholars at each of its four doors. The Sharada script, in which Kashmir wrote for a thousand years, takes its name from the Devi.
02Ruin and separation
The pitha fell out of regular worship in the long Sultanate period, and the shrine, a stone temple on a platform reached by a flight of steps within a walled court, was in ruins by the 19th century. Since 1947 it has lain in the part of Kashmir held by Pakistan, and the 2005 earthquake damaged it further. Kashmiri Pandits have long asked for a corridor to it. In March 2023 a new temple of Mata Sharada was opened at Teetwal in Kupwara, on the Indian side of the Kishanganga, as the last halt before the old pitha.
The life of this place
- c. 1030 CEAl-Biruni records the image of Sharada venerated in Kashmir.
- 1947 CEThe pitha falls in Pakistan-held Kashmir after the invasion of 1947.
- 2005 CEThe Kashmir earthquake damages the ruins further.
- March 2023New Mata Sharada temple opened at Teetwal on the Indian side.
The old pitha cannot be visited from India. The Teetwal temple in Kupwara district is open to pilgrims with local permits.
