Puja to be offered at Sharada Peeth on Indian border

New Delhi, Aug 25: Puja will be offered at the famous temple ‘Maa Sharada Peeth’ on the occasion of ‘Maa Sharada Ashtami’ on August 26. The 5000-year-old Maa Sharada Peeth is one of the oldest seats of Goddess Saraswati and the center of learning since ancient times.

Sharada Peeth is one of the three holiest sites of pilgrimage for Kashmiri Pandits, alongside the Martand Sun Temple and the Amarnath Temple. Sharada Peeth is 150 km from Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pak Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (POJK) and 130 km from Srinagar, the capital of Jammu & Kashmir. Part of the temple is situated in the POJK and partly in the Indian state of J & K.

The puja will be held at the temple on the Indian side of the border, said Indresh Kumar, senior RSS functionary who served as ‘Prant Pracharak’ of J & K during the heydays of terrorism in the late 80s and early 90s.

This group will proceed to the Indian side of the border and offer the Puja at the temple while some Muslims from POJK will be reaching the border to carry with them the presents from the Goddess, Indresh Kumar said. This way, the worshipping of Maa Sharada will be completed on the auspicious occasion of Sharada Ashtami, he added.

Ravindra Pandit and others will reach Delhi with the Prasad on August 29-30.

Indresh Kumar said that he prayed to Maa Sharada to free the Sharada Peeth from the illegal occupation of Pakistan so that rejuvenation of Sharada Peeth could be done to offer ‘darshan’ to all devotees with ease.

It is believed that the famous temple of Maa Sharda was built by Kashmir’s powerful King Lalitaditya as a prominent seat of learning of Sanatana Dharma. Temple Sharada is also regarded as one of the Shakti Peeths where body parts of Devi Sati had fallen while being carried by her husband Lord Shiva.

Since 1947 partition the temple has been completely deserted. Restrictions from visiting the shrine also discouraged the devotees.