A collaborative project between linguists and physicists has resulted in the decipherment of several Sharada script fragments discovered in a high-altitude Himalayan cave. The manuscripts contain a treatise titled Chaya-Prakash (The Light of Shadows), which discusses the principles of refraction, reflection, and the behavior of light through various mediums like water and glass crystals.
The text utilizes mathematical ratios to describe the bending of light, suggesting a proto-scientific understanding of optical phenomena that predates the works of later medieval scholars. This discovery indicates that the Kashmiri Sharada tradition served as a major center for physical sciences, preserving knowledge that combined philosophical inquiry with empirical observation of the natural world.