South of the well-known Dal Lake in Srinagar lies the enduring Shankaracharya Hill, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi talked about after he landed in Srinagar on Thursday, March 7.
“Upon reaching Srinagar a short time in the past, I had the chance to see the majestic Shankaracharya Hill from a distance,” PM Modi wrote on X.
PM Modi landed in Srinagar to inaugurate growth tasks price Rs 5,000 crore and would additionally attend the ‘Viksit Bharat, Viksit Jammu Kashmir’ programme.
This additionally marks the Prime Minister’s first go to to Srinagar after Article 370 was scrapped and the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir was downgraded to a Union territory in 2019.
PM MODI BOWS TO SHANKARACHARYA HILL
After touchdown at a helipad close to the Shankaracharya Hill, PM Modi posted a couple of photos of him folding palms and bowing earlier than the “majestic Shankaracharya Hill”.
One have to be questioning why the Prime Minister would fold his palms in entrance of a hill. Nicely, the reply lies within the title of the hill itself, ‘Shankaracharya Hill’.
SHANKARACHARYA TEMPLE, KASHMIR’S OLDEST TEMPLE
The Shankaracharya Hill, also referred to as Gopadri, Sandhimana-parvat, Koh-e-Suleman, and Takht-i-Sulaiman, shrines Kashmir’s oldest temple, devoted to Lord Shiva.
“The Shankaracharya Temple is the oldest temple in Kashmir, each in look and in keeping with traditions,” in keeping with Alexander Cunningham’s 1848 “Essay on the Arian order of Structure, as exhibited within the Temples of Kashmir”.
The Shankaracharya Temple can also be revered as probably the most sacred shrine in Kashmir and is flocked by pilgrims and devotees, particularly throughout festivals reminiscent of Mahashivaratri, regionally often known as Herath.
SHANKARACHARYA TEMPLE’s HISTORY
The temple bought its title from the go to of the Eighth-century thinker and saint Adi Shankaracharya, who visited the Kashmir valley, in keeping with native legends. It’s believed that Shankaracharya, to revive Hinduism and unify varied colleges of thought, visited Kashmir to advance Vedantic information.
The Shankaracharya Hill and the temple, since then, have been a logo of his teachings and philosophy.
The erection of the temple is attributed to Jaloka, the son of the Mauryan Emperor Asoka, in keeping with Alexander Cunningham.
The earliest written references to the hill hint again to Kalhana, a Twelfth-century scholar, who known as it ‘Gopadri‘ or ‘Gopa Hill’. King Gopaditya (426-365 BC) granted land on the foot of the hill to Brahmins from “Aryadesa“, establishing an agraharam known as ‘Gopa Agraharas‘, in keeping with Kalhana.
Agraharam in Sanskrit refers to land donated to Brahmins with out a lease.
The temple itself has a storied historical past and is believed to have been constructed round 371 BCE as a shrine to Jyesthesvara, a type of Lord Shiva, by King Gopaditya, in keeping with Kalhana’s e-book, ‘Rajatarangini, a chronicle of the kings of Kashmir’.
Over the centuries, the Shankaracharya Temple has seen many reconstructions and renovations, notable ones being carried out by King Lalitaditya within the Eighth century and Gulab Singh of the Dogra dynasty renovating the Durga Naag shrine within the Shankaracharya temple premises.
The temple additionally noticed an improve by Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV of Mysore’s Wadiyar dynasty, who put in electrical fittings within the temple, in keeping with a 1935 e-book by Pandit Anand Koul, ‘Archaeological Stays in Kashmir’.
In his e-book ‘India After Gandhi: The Historical past of the World’s Largest Democracy’, historian Ramchandra Guha mentions Sheikh Abdullah, the primary elected Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, writing concerning the Shankaracharya Hill. In a column within the Madras weekly Swatantra, Abdullah’s message was about looking for to “unite north and south, mountain and coast, and, above all, Kashmir and India”.
“A memorial to the good Shankaracharya in Kashmir stands distinguished on the highest of the Shankaracharya Hill in Srinagar,” wrote Abdullah, highlighting the inclusive society of Kashmir.
The Shankaracharya of Dwarka, in 1961, consecrated a statue of Adi Shankaracharya, in honour of the good Indian scholar. The Shankaracharya Temple is now a ‘monument of nationwide significance’, a protected website by the Archaeological Survey of India.
The Shankaracharya Temple and the hill, aside from their cultural and spiritual significance, supply a singular view. Landmarks in Srinagar, just like the Dal Lake, River Jhelum, and the Hari Parbat will be simply noticed on a transparent day.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s go to to Srinagar and his reverence for the Shankaracharya Hill may underscore the thought of ‘unity and variety’ that defines India’s cultural identification.