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The sun-god is in essence is a Vedic god and its reverential worship has
been widely prevalent throughout including Kashmir. In the Rig-veda we find a web of
mythology woven around the sun-god known as Aditi. During the upanishadic era the
sun-worship had assumed tremendous significance and the Chamdogya upanishad is replete
with references to the sun-worship as it created life and also nourished it. In the
Mahabharata the sun-god attained a sweeping sovereign status and in some respects was
deemed more significant than most other gods in the Hindu pantheon. The sun-worship was so
pervasive that massive temples were built in honour of the sun-god. The magnificent Konark
temple, built in the eleventh century A.D. testifies to the importance and prevalence of
the sun-god worship.
The sun-worship touched a new height during the reign of King Harsha. In his court, an
eminent writer Banabhata, has made a specific reference to Harsha's father, who was an
ardent devotee of sun-god and offered its worship as a matter of regular practice.
Kalhana's Rajatarangini equally establishes that the sun-worship was prevalent in Kashmir
too. As Kashmir had been a crucible of numerous cultural traditions and trends, the
sun-god was worshipped alongwith a litany of religious gods and icons connected with
Buddhism, Shaivism and Vaishnavism. As per Kalhana, a ruler named Ranaditya as a devotee
had built a sun-temple at a place known as 'Simharotsika'. The temple was said to be
grand, massive and exemplary in terms of art. He has made a mention of another sun-temple,
known world over as Martand. This temple is built on an elevated plateau in natural
ambience in the vicinity of Mattan in Anantnag.
The temple was made to perfection by Lalitaditya, who besides being a conqueror was a
great builder. Martand as a temple has been evaluated as the 'germ of Indian
architecture', which set a trend in the contemporary temple architecture. The temple
caused amazing wonder to medieval fanatic Zealot Sultan Sikander, who set up a government
department to destroy it by the use of gun-poweder. The hamlet of Mattan which has been of
great religious importance to the Hindus all
over India has been traditionally known as the 'Surya tirth', a place of sun-pilgrimmage.
After Mattan, second in importance was Kwalkhetra, not far away from Srinagar. Here
Pandits would go on pilgrimage for sun-worship and for a purificatory bath to wash off
wordly sins. As per Nilmatpurana, there were eight places exclusively meant for
sun-worship in Kashmir. The temples built at the places were known as Aryaman Arka,
Divakar, Surya , Savitra, Martand etc, all these words are synonyms of the word sun.
Kashmiri Pandits still stick to a number of rituals, which are directly related to
sun-workshipr
KASHMIRI
LANGUAGE
The Kashmiri
Pandit scholars who were intimately connected with Dr George Grierson were not at all in
agreement with his formulations about the origins of Kashmiri language. There were many
other European scholars like Ralph Turner, Joules Block, Stenkonow and George
Morgenhtierna, who openly flouted the observations made by Grierson. The fundamental
word-hoard of Kashmiri language, its syntax, its noun and verb forms and more than most
words related to agricultural processes and names of implements used during such
operations owe their origin to Sanskritic word-hoard. Dr Grierson has placed Kashmiri in
the Dardic group of dialects and subdialects. These, as per him, are intermediate to the
Indo-Aryan and Iranian groups of languages. Stenkonow and Joule Block have placed the
Dardic languages or dialects within the Indo-Aryan grou of languages and not in the
Iranian cluster of languages. Even the very word 'Dard' is itself a Sanskritic word and as
a
language is a metamorphosed form of old Vedic Sanskrit Languages Chitrali, Kafri, Shina,
Kashmiri and Kohistani are the Dardic group of languages,which in terms of linguistics are
directly related to Paischachi, which is a recognised prakrit, having a sufficient quanta
of litterature.
According to Hornley, Pashachi is a Dravidian prakrit, but
Purshotamdeva and Dr Gune as experts consider it a meta-morphosed form of Sanskrit and
Shaursemi prakrit. It is peritnent to put that Dr TN Ganjoo under the able guidance of Dr
RK Sharma, former HoD of Hindi, Kashmir University, has thoroughly researched the subject
and established the origin of Kashmiri language to the Vedic Sanskrit. Dr Grierson had
colonialist imperatives in distorting the origins of Kashmiri language in a region, which
was being eyed by British Imperial government for imperialist designs. Dr Grierson, whose
presumptions were accepted uncritically, was equally unaware of the fact that the
litterature of Kashmiri language pre-dated fourteenth century and references in this
behalf, which are of extreme relevance are available from the works of Abhinavagupta,
Bilhana, Kalhana. |