Jaddipal aims to revive historical connect with Kashmir

Did you know that there are over 70 Hindu pilgrimage spots in Kashmir? Not many can recollect other than Amaranath cave today.

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. There is an urgent need to revive the historical link with Kashmir,” says Viroopaksha V. Jaddipal.

An associate professor in Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeetha, Tirupati, 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 Rs.7.11 lakh, he had undertaken study on the commentaries of Kashmiri scholars Prakasavarsa (9th Century) and Jonaraja (14th Century).

He is of the view that unravelling facts from similar manuscripts will help map the centuries-old historical connection Kashmir has with the mainland.

“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,” Dr. Jaddipal told The Hindu . 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.

As part of his D.Litt project, he has compiled over 5,000 ‘Subhashitas’ and presented them as case studies for management thought.

The tech-savvy researcher has also developed ‘e-Vachaspatyam’, an encyclopaedic etymologic dictionary of Sanskrit and was part of the Vidyapeetha’s Sansk-Net project aimed at networking and sharing textual resources among Sanskrit institutions. He has also developed a tutor for learning Grantha script.

Thousands of manuscripts have been moved out of Kashmir, If we do not study all of the manuscripts and decipher the information, it will be permanently lost

Viroopaksha V. Jaddipal

Associate Professor, Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeetha