Sharda Peeth: History of the Ancient Temple University

Sharda Peeth, often called the ancient Sharda University of Kashmir, is a ruined temple and centre of learning above the village of Sharda in the Neelum Valley, Azad Kashmir, in Pakistan. It is not a modern university: it flourished between about the 6th and 12th centuries as one of the leading temple universities of South Asia, a centre of Sanskrit and Kashmiri Shaivist learning. Today the roofless red sandstone shrine stands on a platform above the Neelum River, about a twenty-minute walk from the Sharda bazaar.

This guide covers its history, what remains to see, and how to visit. If you searched for Sharda University and meant the modern private university of that name, that is in Greater Noida, India, and has no connection with this site.

What was Sharda Peeth?

Sharda Peeth grew into one of the foremost centres of learning in the region between roughly the 6th and 12th centuries, teaching subjects that included the Vedas, philosophy, grammar, astronomy and medicine. That is why it is often called a university, in the same breath as ancient Taxila and Nalanda, though it was a temple with scholars around it rather than a campus. It was also a major Hindu pilgrimage site, counted among the Shakti Peethas, and by the medieval period it drew scholars and pilgrims from well beyond Kashmir. A note from the 16th century describes the stone temple as still "regarded with great veneration" centuries after its peak.

Who built the temple that stands today is not firmly known. It is often linked to the Kashmiri king Lalitaditya Muktapida, who ruled in the 8th century, but there is no definite evidence.

The site's importance went beyond religion. It gave its name to the Sharada script, once used to write Kashmiri and Sanskrit across the region, and to the goddess Sharada, a form of Saraswati associated with learning, whose wooden image was kept in the main shrine.

What survives today

What stands now is a ruin: a rectangular stone platform and the remains of the temple structure, built in red sandstone in the Kashmiri architectural style, with a plain conical form rather than elaborate carving. The roof is gone and the interior is open to the weather. Later visitors in the 19th century still found the enclosing walls and pillars standing to a good height; time, earthquakes and long neglect have reduced what is left since.

The earthquake of October 2005 struck this part of Azad Kashmir hard, and the ruin has had no major restoration that we could find reported. Even in its current state, the setting, on a platform above the river with mountains behind, gives a sense of why this location was chosen in the first place.

Visiting Sharda Peeth

The ruins sit above the Sharda bazaar, reached by a walk of about twenty minutes, the final stretch on stone steps. Most visitors spend thirty to forty-five minutes at the site itself, enough time to see the platform and walls and take in the view over the town and the river.

There is no ticket office or formal visitor centre, so treat the site with the same care you would any historic ruin: keep to marked paths where they exist, do not climb on unstable stonework, and take any rubbish back down with you. For those planning a longer stop in the area, our guide to Sharda covers the rest of the town, and our guide to where to stay in Sharda covers accommodation for a night nearby.

Why it still matters

For readers on the Indian side of the Line of Control, Sharda Peeth remains one of the most significant historic sites of old Kashmir. There have been repeated calls for a Kartarpur-style corridor for pilgrims, none of which has resulted in an open route to the site as of 2026. In March 2023 a new Sharda temple was opened at Teetwal, on the Indian side of the Line of Control. For visitors from Pakistan, Sharda Peeth is one of the few places in the Neelum Valley where the region's history predates the modern border by well over a thousand years, and it is worth the short climb for that alone.

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