Hoping to revive the pilgrimage of Sharda Peeth, the traditional Hindu college in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), the Sharda Bachao Committee has laid the inspiration stone for the reconstruction of the temple and dharamsala in Kupwara.
The basis stone was laid on Friday by BJP nationwide govt member Darkhsan Andrabi on the Line of Control (LoC) in Teetwal, which was once the bottom camp for Sharda Yatra earlier than 1947. Andrabi can be the chairman of the Waqf Development Committee. Union Ministry of Minority Affairs.
Ravinder Pandita, president of Save Sharda Committee, says, “I’m the primary Kashmiri to go to Kartarpur Sahib. “If they (India and Pakistan) can develop a system for Kartarpur Sahib, why not for Sharda Peeth? If I can go to Kartarpur Sahib, why cannot I’m going to Sharda Peeth? he asks.
The Sharada Peeth or the seat of Sharada, named after Saraswati, the goddess of data, is believed to be an historical heart of studying established within the Neelum Valley in 273 BC, even earlier than the schools of Taxila and Nalanda. While the college has all the time been a middle of attraction, annual pilgrimages to the temple flourished through the reigns of Maharaja Pratap Singh and Ranbir Singh.
The pilgrimage got here to a halt after Partition in 1947 and since then the college and the temple have been dilapidated. While India and Pakistan began motion throughout the Line of Control for folks from each side of the border, journey was restricted to divided households solely.
“Though the movement across the Line of Control is suspended these days, we are hopeful that it will start soon,” says Pandita. “We desire a change within the present mechanism. People from each side of Kashmir also needs to be allowed to go to their non secular locations. Muslims must be allowed to go to Hazratbal and Charar pilgrimages. Similarly, folks right here must be allowed to go to Sharda Peeth and Gurdwara Ali Beg.
Over the years, Pandita has made efforts in India and Pakistan to revive the annual Sharda Yatra. He established a cross-LoC civil society and his efforts finally led the court docket of PoK to place a cease to the encroachment of the Sharda Peeth and convey it below the Archaeological Department of PoK.
Pandita says that the Muslims of Titwal helped him to retrieve the land for the Sharda Yatra base camp. “The residents of Teetwal, especially Iftikhar Ahmed, Captain Ilyas and Ejaz Ahmed rediscovered this land, which was the base camp of the yatra, and they contacted us. We went there and captured two kanals (0.25 acres) of land,” he says. “We are building a temple-cum-dharamsala there and also a small gurudwara which existed there before 1947.”
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With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
