Kashmir Cultural Heritage --- VII

Nunda Rishi, also called Sheikh Noor-ud-Din was born in 1377 AD. He started a normal life, got married and had two children. He got gradually disgusted with the ordinary life and at age thirty he began visiting far off solitary places and took to penance and meditation. It’s said he fasted continually and gave up eating meat, onions, milk and honey for all times to come. Later he sustained on merely a cup of tea a day and in the last years of his life confined to water alone.
Nunda Rishi lived in the most critical times of the history of Kashmir when Sultan Sikandar and Ali Shah ruled the valley. He was very unhappy over the persecution of Hindus and their religious places by the rulers of the time. He was fully convinced and preached that the essence of all religions was the same and there was no use to discriminate on the basis of religion. He soon became the most beloved of the masses. People flocked to seek his blessings. He called upon people to live the life of purity and piety and stressed upon both Hindus and Muslims to live in a state of co-existence not confrontation. His main teachings were to subdue human senses and overcome the evils of Kama, Kroda, Loba and Moha. He wanted his devotees to enter their own self and seek the lord with controlling their breath. These and his other views of Nunda Rishi were not liked by the rulers of the time as they took it as sedition against their religion and he was imprisoned. He bore all these cruelties patiently and continued with his realistic teachings. The people as a whole respected him immensely and he was popularly called Alamdaar i.e. the flag bearer of real Kashmir ethos.
Nund Rishi attained mahasamadhi in the year 1438 AD. His mortal remains were buried in village Chrar-i-Sharif in Kashmir in the presence of Badhshah, the king and son of the tyrant ruler Sikandar where a grand memorial building stands gracefully in memory of the great saint. Thousands of devotees of all faiths visit there today and bow before this great saint to get their heart’s desires fulfilled...... (to be continued)