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Dr Viroopaksha V Jaddipal

A professor of Sanskrit in India has claimed that there are over 70 Hindu pilgrimage spots in Kashmir but people are able to recollect none other than Amarnath while stressing on need to revive the historical link with Kashmir.

Dr Viroopaksha V Jaddipal, an associate professor in Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeetha, Tirupati said that in ‘Kashmira Theertha Sangraha’ authored in 1861 AD, scholar Rama Pandita mentioned that there are 72 Theertha Kshetras in Kashmir, with details on the streams, rivulets and mountains, the auspicious time to visit and the mode of offering prayers.

“During the last 150 years, the knowledge faded out of public memory and the manuscripts moved out of public domain,” he told media.

Dr Jaddipal has recently been selected for the prestigious ‘Maharshi Badrayan Vyas Samman’ announced by the President for young scholars in Sanskrit.

As part of the UGC-funded project worth Rs7.11 lakh, he had undertaken study on the commentaries of Kashmiri scholars Prakasavarsa (9th Century) and Jonaraja (14th Century).

“Thousands of manuscripts have been moved out of Kashmir, some are in Leningrad, Russia, some in British India Office Library, London and some in the Manuscripts library at Pennsylvania. If we do not study all of the manuscripts and decipher the information, it will be permanently lost,” he told a Chennai-based newspaper. “Even the famed Hazratbal shrine is home to a whopping 8,000 manuscripts, mostly in Sharada script.”

Dr Jaddipal, who hails from North Kanara district of Karnataka, has extensively travelled to J&K, Rajasthan and the North East in search of manuscripts. He can speak Telugu, Kannada, Sanskrit, Konkani, Odiya, Pali, Prakrit, and read Brahmi, Sharada, Grantha, Nandinagari and Tigalari scripts.

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