Historiographie und Geisteskultur Kaschmirs

Arbeitsstelle der
Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Mainz
an der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg

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Mokṣopāya-Manuscripts

One folio from Ś7:

A Journey to the Pradyumnaśikhara in Kaśmīr

Many authors have pointed to the fact that the Mokṣopāya contains specific references to Kashmir, but have failed to deal in more detail with one passage, in which the capital of Kashmir, Adhiṣṭhāna under King Yaśaskara is mentioned. It refers to one peak called Pradyumnaśikhara and to the Ratnāvalīvihāra (vihāra perhaps here in the sense of a large mansion), in which one minister Narasiṃha, a Jīvanmukta, lived. This minister, it is foretold in a prophecy contained in the Mokṣopāya, will recite the story of the three demons there:

kaśmīramaṇḍalasyāntar nagaraṃ nagaśobhitam |
nāmnādhiṣṭhānam ity etac chrīmat tatra bhaviṣyati ||4.32.11||

pradyumnaśikharaṃ nāma tasya madhye bhaviṣyati |
śṛṅgaṃ laghu sarojasya kośacakram ivodare ||12||

tasya mūrdhni girer gehaṃ ko 'pi rājā kariṣyati |
abhraṅkaṣamahāsālaṃ śṛṅge śṛṅgam ivāparam ||13||

...

tasminn eva tadā kāle tatra rājā bhaviṣyati |
śrīyaśaskaradevākhyaḥ śakraḥ svarga ivāparaḥ ||16||

...

adhiṣṭhānābhidhe tasminn evogranagare tadā |
ratnāvalīvihārākhyo vihāro 'pi bhaviṣyati ||18||

tasmiṃs tadbhūmipāmātyo narasiṃha iti śrutaḥ |
karāmalakavad dṛṣṭabandhamokṣo bhaviṣyati ||19||

bhaviṣyati gṛhe tasya krīḍanakrakaraḥ khagaḥ |
kaṭo māyāsuro nāma kṛtahiñjīrapañjaraḥ ||20||

sa nṛsiṃho nṛpāmātyaḥ ślokair viracitām imām |
dāmavyālakaṭādīnāṃ kathayiṣyati saṅkathām ||21||

Unfortunately no minister of this name is known for Yaśaskara's times, and until the riddle is solved the following impressions from a search tour of manuscripts undertaken in 2003 by W.Slaje, which included a visit to the Pradyumnaśikhara may give an impression of the site where the Mokṣopāya was, perhaps for the time, recited.

The Pradyumnaśikhara in the back (beyond the Dal lake):

From below we see the site of the former fort of Yaśaskara. The present building was constructed by Akbar and is now an inaccessible military site:

The entrance gate to the Pradyumnaśikhara. The Sanskrit text on the arch runs as follow:

pradyumnaśikharāsīnāṃ mātṛcakropaśobhitāṃ
pīṭheśvarīṃ śilārūpaṃ śārikāṃpraṇanāmy aham

"I adore Śārikā, the goddess of this holy site, who sits on the Pradyumna peak in the form of a stone and is adorned by the circle of mothers."

We know from the Devīrahasya, a compendium of Kashmirian ritual texts that Śārikā is one of the 10 family goddesses of the Kaula clan. As the following quotations make clear, Śārikā is revered in the form of a stone on the Pradyumna peak.

This is how the stone looked like in 2003: