Dr Javaid Iqbal Bhat
Each year thousands of pilgrims visit Hazratbal shrine in Srinagar. These people are from within Kashmir and also those who come from outside Kashmir. Especially, on occasions when the moi muqaddas (Prophet’s, upon Him be peace, hair) is held up for mass presentation. Scenes of deep emotion are visible as tears stream down the faces on such occasions and the hands are held high in supplication. The emotions are amplified in the context of the painful, contemporary geo-politics of the place. From early times, from far off villages, people would leave early in the morning to reach the destination to participate in the congregational prayers and benefit from their presence in the deep spiritual aura. The pilgrimage used to be charged with a sense of purpose and deep meaning in the earlier times. That may have reduced but the flow of people has not as the place continues to remain a spiritual rallying point. The journey is less physical but more spiritual, less about material gain than about spiritual acquisition, a psychological trip to free oneself for some time from the tangles of life and immerse in the collective spiritual experience.
Hazratbal shrine, like the Chrar-i-Sharief shrine, and so many others peppered across the landscape, is a pilgrim center for mostly Muslims, though the soft and sacred precincts are not out of bounds for anyone. There are other spiritual centers in Kashmir and the larger Kashmir region that have remained away from attention. A number of them belong to the minority community, whose population has shrunk over the past three decades. One of these shrines is the Sharda Peeth shrine. An ancient sacred shrine whose traces are visible in Neelmatpurana, Al Birun’s accounts and other great Sanskrit literary sources, including Kalhana’s Rajatarangini, Sharda Peeth has remained an impossible destination due to the conflict. However, spiritual attachment to the place has not decreased. Adi Shankaracharya’s visit to the ancient learning and spiritual seat is part of the Hindu folklore. How he was not allowed to enter the sacred precincts unless he passed some challenges from the scholars at the gate of the temple and then from the goddess Saraswati herself. Even today, the lore goes, that in some parts of south, a few steps are traced in the direction of Sharda Peeth, as a sign of devotion. Along with Sharda Peeth, the martand sun temple, kheer Bhawani are important centers of spirituality for Hindus especially the Kashmiri pandits.
Although replicas of gods and goddesses have been made, after their shape and form in their original places. Like in the case of Kashmiri pandits whose migration is accompanied, in several cases, by a replication of gods and goddess in outside of Kashmir. In a story by Rattan Lal Shant, titled ‘Gauri’s Div Gaam,” Gauri, an old woman in the family is distraught after migration to Jammu. But she has a secret with her from her village in Kashmir which she had hurriedly put in a trunk. She has brought her family idol with her. Finally, from the small savings and some pension from her late husband, and bypassing the internal bickering atmosphere in the family and the refugee colony, she is able to make a temple in the refugee colony and install the idol there. A wish of the community is fulfilled and a feel of the village back in Kashmir, is intensely reproduced. Similarly, replicas of Sharda have been made in Srinagar and some other parts of Kashmir, however, the longing, like that of the Jews for Jerusalem (as poignantly reflected in Oh Jerusalem by Dominique Lappier and Larry Colins), for Sharda Peeth in the Neelum Valley across the Line of Control, has not disappeared from the heart. That longing is finding an expression.
March 2019 witnessed the opening of the Kartarpur Corridor, which opened the doors of the Sikh pilgrims to their cherished spiritual center across the border in Pakistan. Until then they used binoculars to see their pilgrim center. Lately, there is a growing murmur about the opening of the Sharda Peeth corridor. This corridor is long overdue and should be opened for the minority community in Kashmir and outside Kashmir to reconnect them with their cherished center. The corridor will also connect Kashmir as a whole with the broader collective legacy of the past as a knowledge-centric spot whose offshoots created ripples all around the place. The spiritual center is not merely an aspiration and spiritual, but it is also inspirational, as the goddess to whom it is associated with, is herself connected to learning. What can be more beautiful and motivational than a corridor that links us to a part of the past that is linked to learning and knowledge.
We know Teetwal from the famous short story of Saadat Hassan Manto, wherein an ordinary canine becomes a powerful metaphor for the senselessness of Partition. The same place is a just a few kilometers away from the Sharda Peeth temple across the Line of Control. Therefore, the corridor has an apt and symbolic point of beginning at Teetwal as it would recollect memories of partition and simultaneously seek to cut through the pain and devastation of partition into a future of compassion and spiritual transformation. Sharda Peeth is today almost in a state of ruin because post-partition practically no attention was paid to such heritage sites. On the pattern of the Sharda Peeth corridor, other corridors may also be opened, like the Hazratbal Corridor, for religious pilgrims from across the border. Such an initiative would boost religious tourism as a much-needed support to the economy but also provide a soothing milieu of peace and transformation, not only on this side of the Line of Control but also on the other side. People of that area, close to the border, have heard more of the sounds of shelling, than the sounds of music or of modern technology, this corridor would open up opportunities for them in more ways than one. Sharda Peeth corridor may not only satiate an ancient longing but also open a corridor of peace and tranquility.
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