On a February morning in AD 638, Sophronius, patriarch of Jerusalem, said mass in the abbey church of St Stephen’s. Then, clad in his silk robes of office, he walked out to yield the city to the Arabs.

They had laid siege for twelve months — the caliph had forbidden his generals to mar the sanctity of Jerusalem by taking it by storm — and the patriarch had despaired of relief from Constantinople.


He made only one condition: it could be no lesser individual than the caliph in person who must receive the keys of the Holy City.

Once the formalities were over, the caliph requested that he be escorted somewhere to say his prayers.

One of his lieutenants suggested he do so in the Holy Sepulchre, the most hallowed site in Christendom. The caliph immediately turned him down. Asked why, he replied, ‘‘Some day one of the faithful may say: ‘Is not this the place where the Companion of the Prophet, the Commander of the Faithful, prayed? Surely, it should become a mosque!’ And this will be displeasing in the eyes of the Almighty.’’

Islamic jurists insist that the example of the Second Caliph must hold for all true Muslims. In principle, then, no mosque may be built by expropriating any other site of worship. However, there has been a gulf between precept and practice.

In 1453, for instance, Mehmet II’s first act after the conquest of Constantinople was to offer prayers in Hagia Sophia, one of the wonders of the mediaeval world. Predictably, it immediately became a mosque.

One of the tragedies of Indian history is that her Muslim conquerors were closer in spirit to the Ottoman rather than to Omar. Walk around the Qutub Minar in Delhi, and you notice that the cloisters are built with the remains of temples ransacked immediately after the sack of Delhi. And even people from other faiths have confessed their dismay at the sight of Aurangzeb’s mosques in Kashi and Mathura, structures so alien to their surroundings that it is plain that they were built as a deliberate affront.

However these mosques, and others like them, are not the subject of this column. Shortly after the disputed structure in Ayodhya came tumbling down, the Narasimha Rao ministry got Parliament to enact legislation maintaining the status quo as of 1947 with respect to all such sites.

This covers not just Aurangzeb’s mosques but also, say, the Bhojshala in Dhar. Unless Parliament in its majesty repeals or amends that statute, it continues to be the law of the land. The single exception in that legislation was Ayodhya.

On March 5 this year, the Allahabad High Court ordered the Archaeological Survey of India to conduct a survey of the area, and to report back within a month on whether or not a temple stood on the spot on the site once occupied by the Babri Masjid.

The Archaeological Survey of India is already at work as you read this, calling upon a new technology called ‘‘ground penetration radar’’ among other things. (If I have understood it correctly, this is the same technique - and the same firm - being used to build the Metro in Delhi.)

The High Court’s order has led to peculiar reactions, especially from ‘‘distinguished’’ historians. (‘‘Distinguished’’, ‘‘eminent’’, and ‘‘scientific’’ are code language for ‘‘Leftist’’; I cannot understand why the comrades refuse to use other adjectives!) Some people seem to be saying that their Lordships should be content with whatever evidence is presented to them, not go around trying to find the facts. The onus, it seems, should always be on the petitioner(s) to prove a point.

Be charitable, and give them the benefit of the doubt to assume that they are motivated by fears of communal outbursts instead of a knee-jerk dislike of Hinduism. Even so, can you build a palace of amity on a foundation of untruth? In this instance, the best thing, literally and metaphorically, is to unearth the truth.

But, leaving academics and attorneys aside, is there any reason for the Muslim community at large to feel agitated? If historical proof is made the basis, Muslims fear that nothing prevents the Vishwa Hindu Parishad from demanding the ‘‘restoration’’ of the mosques in Kashi and Mathura.

True, there is a law barring the way, but ever since Rajiv Gandhi was misguided enough to interfere in the Shah Bano case we have all known that laws can be revised in the name of faith if there is enough pressure. And make no mistake about it, pressure aplenty there will be.

But the crisis could also turn into an opportunity if the Muslim leadership so chooses. Is there anything that prevents them from reaching an agreement outside the court system, before the archaeological evidence — if any — is presented? Realistically, there is no chance of the ‘‘Babri Masjid’’ being rebuilt. (Even V.P. Singh asks for no more than a ‘‘multi-faith research centre’’ in Ayodhya.) So, in exchange for an assurance that there will be no more demands, the Muslim leadership could voluntarily waive whatever rights they may have to the site in Ayodhya.

Will such a manoeuvre work? Frankly, I do not know. What I do know, however, is that throwing the dispute into the lap of the judiciary has settled nothing in the past decade. It has only given extremists, on both sides of the dispute, some more time to whip up passions.

It is time to end the madness — if the liberals on both sides of the dispute have the guts and imagination.

I find your reference to the Jaganatha puri temple as having been converted from buddhism to hinduism not quite historically correct.Yes there was a time when the management of the temple was in the hands of Buddhist followers but if you go back further you will see that the worship was always performed by "brahmins" and the diety of Lord Jaganatha has been worshipped for many thousands of years long before the doctrine of Buddhism even existed.

ps.Also the person you quote what is his authority?

Madarchood ! IF Jagannad Puri is bhuddist , mail to archiology dept .

Theri Maiiaaa kho lagu ... kette ka lund le ke chus ..

PARADIGM SHIFT IN HISTORY

Like physics a century ago, historical research today is in the midst of a
paradigm shift. New methods need to be devised for dealing with data from
sources like underwater archaeology, ecology and satellite photography.

N.S. Rajaram

The history of India, especially of ancient India is now in the midst
of a major debate. This is over new data as well as new methods that they
demand. When the study of ancient India by Europeans began in the late
eighteenth century, the driving force was the European discovery of
Sanskrit
and the extraordinary affinity between it and European languages,
especially
Latin and Greek. This resulted in new academic disciplines like
comparative
linguistics and Indo-European studies. It gave rise also to philology, a
discipline devoted to the reconstruction of history and culture based on
the
comparative study of ancient languages like Sanskrit, Greek, Latin and
others.

Philology and theology
In the light of this, it is natural that the most influential figures
in writing Indian history, especially ancient history happened to be
philologists rather than historians in the real sense. They put their
stamp
on the historical method also. According to Ralph T.H. Griffith, the
well-known translator of the Rigveda, "The great interest of the Rgveda
[Sic], is, historical rather than poetical. As in its original language we
see the roots and shoots of the languages of Greek and Latin, of Kelt,
Teuton and Slavonic, so the deities, the myths, and the religious beliefs
and the practices. the comparative history of the religions of the world
would have been impossible without the study of the Veda."

The passage is revealing in more ways than one. Philologists and
historians of religion saw the Rigveda less as a literary work than as a
source of philology and history, especially history of religion. As a
result, right from the beginning, the field of linguistics (philology) and
Indian history and culture-often called Indology-became inseparable from
religion. And because of the perceived value of the Vedas as source in the
study of religions, it soon attracted theologians like Bishop Caldwell and
Reverend W.W. Hunter, who continue to exert their influence on Indology.
The work of these pioneers-both linguists and theologians-has left its
imprint on the historical method and historiography. Even secular scholars
like Max Muller could not escape the influence of theology. The real point
is not that nineteenth century scholars resorted to theological methods
and
beliefs that go with them, but the continued persistence of such methods
and
arguments well into the twentieth century. For example, Murray Emeneau
writing as late as 1954 asserted: "At some time in the second millennium
B.C., probably comparatively early in the millennium, a band or bands of
speakers of an Indo-European language, later to be called Sanskrit,
entered
India over the northwest passes. This is our linguistic doctrine, which
has
been held for over a century and a half. There seems to be no reason to
distrust the arguments for it, in spite of the traditional Hindu ignorance
of any such invasion." (Emphasis added.)
The fact that such an argument invoking a "linguistic doctrine" as
authority could be made a scholarly field in the face of confessed lack of
evidence bears testimony to the influence of theology on history.
Observing
such doctrinaire approaches, the Greek scholar M. Kazanas recently noted:
"Several scholars indulge in semantic conjurings saying that various names
in the RV [Rigveda] refer to places and rivers in Afghanistan,
Baluchistan,
Iran etc., but. such interpreting (turning facts into metaphors and
symbols,
and vice versa) one can prove anything." ('Indigenous Indo-Aryans and the
Rigveda' in: The Journal of Indo-European Studies, Vol. 30, Number 3 and
4,
Fall/Winter 2002.)
This should not be seen as just disagreement over facts and conclusion,
but
as getting to the heart of the current debate over methodology- between a
heritage based on linguistics and theology and an approach that seeks to
place empirical data at the bottom of any theory. This phenomenon is more
a
commentary on human behaviour than objective research. Also, it is by no
means limited to history. Even physics, a subject in which empirical data
is
paramount, has not been exempt from it. Max Planck, one of the founders of
modern physics observed in 1936:
"An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually
winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul
becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out and
that the growing generation is familiarized with the idea from the
beginning."
All this highlights a crucial point: when confronted with new data that
contradict an established theory, its proponents tend to ignore or
rationalize the contradictions with ingenious arguments, or "turning facts
into metaphors and symbols" as Kazanas puts it. This becomes more and more
complex as data from new fields like geomorphology, satellite photography
and genetics have to be dealt with as is the case today. As a result,
arguments become highly convoluted taking one further and further from
reality. This can be understood by looking at the growing body of
knowledge
about the Vedic river known as the Sarasvati.

The Sarasvati example
The Rigveda gives great importance to a river known as the Sarasvati.
While
the Ganga receives only one mention, the Sarasvati is mentioned at least
sixty times. Vasishta, the seer of the seventh book of the Rigveda
(7.95.5)
describes Sarasvati as the river (and goddess) that brought prosperity to
the "progeny of Nahusha." (Nahusha was one of the ancestors of the
Bharatas,
who were also known as the Purus and later as the Kurus.) He also
describes
the Sarasvati as "purest among the rivers, flowing from the mountains to
the
sea." According to Bharadwaja of the sixth book (6.61.2), the Sarasvati in
her course through the mountains "crushed boulders like the stems of lotus
plants." From all this we learn that the Sarasvati was the greatest river,
the most holy and also nourished large populations. This idea finds
_expression in the following famous verse by Gritsamada (2.41.16):
ambitame,
naditame, devitame sarasvati. ("Sarasvati, best of mothers, best river,
best
goddess."
There is now no river answering to this description. This led scholars to
dismiss it as the imagination of poets. This is still the position of some
scholars who insist that philology must have the final say in any debate.
More to the point, beginning in 1978, evidence for the Sarasvati became
available in the form of satellite images acquired earth sensing
satellites
launched by NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) and ISRO
(Indian Space Research Organization). These images showed traces of
paleo-channels that lay along the course of the Sarasvati River described
in
the ancient literature. They showed an ancient river channel ranging in
width from 6 to 8 kilometres, exceeding 14 kilometres in places.
Once satellite data established the existence of the Sarasvati, several
archaeologists, notably the late V.S. Wakankar, undertook the task of
locating its course on the ground by correlating satellite data with
ground
observations. This and the succeeding investigations showed that the
Sarasvati River described in the Rigveda is not a myth but a great river
that flowed in a course more or less parallel to the Indus but to the east
of the Sutlej. After going through many vicissitudes, the Sarasvati dried
up
completely around 1900 BC, except for a few minor seasonal streams along
its
former course. Nonetheless, some scholars continue to use arguments,
mainly
philological, to claim that the river never existed. At the same time,
they
gave no explanation for the abundant data attesting to its existence but
insisted on the validity of their theory.

Paradigm shift
All this has an important lesson to offer. Like science, history must
also progress. Progress is always driven by new discoveries that expose
the
shortcomings of old theories. To take an example, the Michelson-Morley
experiment to determine the velocity of light gave rise to Einstein's
Theory
of Relativity. Also, at crucial points in history, progress comes in
quantum
jumps rather than in a smooth flow. This invariably results in a "paradigm
shift" that leaves aside old theories and methods. Any such shift leads to
new methodologies- like the mass-energy equivalence and the uncertainty
principle that lie at the foundation of modern physics. This also calls
for
new disciplines. This appears to be the situation in history today.

Noting this, Dr. B.P. Radhakrishna, President of the Geological
Society
of India and the editor of the authoritative volume Vedic Sarasvati:
Evolutionary History of A Lost River in Northwest India (Geological
Society
of India) remarked in a recent editorial: "Evidence on the antiquity of
Indian civilization is considerable and can no longer be ignored.
Archaeologists have no right to claim any monopoly of interpretation.
Findings of other disciplines must also be taken into consideration. .
Geo-archaeology an emerging field in earth science has a very important
role
to play in unraveling the pre-historical evolution of man and civilization
in South Asia. We should build up a strong indigenous school of research
in
this vital area, with modern tools of underwater sampling, videography and
mapping. Only then, can we come out with bold hypothesis to alter the
entrenched 'semi-colonial' perspectives of history and pre-history that
will
stand the test of time."

This is part of the paradigm shift. It demands new paradigms and a
fresh outlook not tied to the past. It is also the challenge before the
next
generation of historians.

N.S. Rajaram
( nsrajaram@vsnl.com)

THE MARXIST HISTORIANS


What was uncovered at Sidhpur only to be covered up again was verily the tip of an iceberg which remains submerged in hundreds of histories written by Muslim historians, in Hindu literary sources which are slowly coming to light, in the accounts of foreign travellers who visited India and the neighbouring lands during medieval and modern times, and above all in the reports of the archaeological surveys carried out in all those countries which had been for long the cradles of Hindu culture. No systematic effort has yet been made by scholars to see the iceberg emerge from the dark depths and tell its own story in a simple and straight-forward manner. Rare is the historian or archaeologist who had related this vandalism to the theology of Islam based on the Qur’ãn and the Sunnah of the Prophet. On the contrary, the subject has been politicised by the votaries of Secularism who become hysterical by the very mention of the untold story. Politicians in power have made and are making frantic efforts to suppress every tip of the iceberg which chances to surface in spite, of the conspiracy to keep it out of sight.


Some of these politicians are masquerading as academicians and selling far-fetched and fantastic apologies for the havoc caused by Islamic iconoclasm. The following story illustrates what happens whenever the subject comes into the open and invites attention.


One day in August, 1986, The Times of India printed on its front page the photographs of two stones carrying defaced carvings of some Hindu deities. There was a short statement beneath the photographs that the stones had been found by the Archaeological Survey of India in course of repairs to the Qutb Mînãr at Delhi. The stones, according to the Survey, had been built into a wall with the carved faces turned inwards. But the daily had dropped this part of the news.


Some correspondence cropped up in the letters-to-the-editor column of the newspaper. The majority of writers congratulated the editor for breaking a conspiracy of silence regarding publication of a certain type of historical facts in the mass media. A few writers regretted that a news item like that should have been published in a prestigious daily in an atmosphere of growing communal tension. None of the writers raised the question or speculated as to how those stones happened to be there. None of them drew any inference from the fact that the Qutb Mînãr stands near the Quwwat al-Islãm Masjid which, according to an inscription on its eastern gate, was built from the materials of twenty-seven Hindu temples.


The correspondence would have closed after a few days but for another photograph which was front-paged by The Times of India dated September 15, 1986. It depicted the Îdgãh built by Aurangzeb on the site of the Kešavadeva temple at Mathura and gave the news that a committee had been formed by some leading citizens for the liberation of what is known to be Šrî KrishNa’s place of birth. A few more letters for and against the photograph and the news item were published in the newspaper. None of them was well-informed. None of them threw any light on what was the Kešvadeva temple and why and when Aurangzeb converted it into a mosque.


But even these meagre and ill-informed comments were too much for a dozen professors from Delhi. They wrote a long letter of protest which was published in The Times of India on October 2, 1986. The letter is being reproduced in full because it reveals the line laid down by a well-entrenched clique which has come to control all institutions concerned with the researching, writing and teaching of history in this country. They said:


“Sir-We have noted with growing concern a recent tendency in The Times of India to give a communal twist to news items and even to editorial comments. An example of this is a report from Mathura dated 15 September and entitled, ‘Krishna’s Birthplace after Aurangzeb.’ It evoked considerable correspondence some of which, as could be expected, was markedly communal in tone.


“Your readers should know that historical analysis and interpretations involve more than a mere listing of dates with an eye to pious sentiments. The Dera Keshava Rai temple was built by Raja Bir Singh Deo Bundela during Jahangir’s reign. This large temple soon became extremely popular and acquired considerable wealth. Aurangzeb had this temple destroyed, took the wealth as booty and built an Idgah on the site. His actions might have been politically motivated as well, for at the time when the temple was destroyed he faced problems with the Bundelas as well as Jat rebellions in the Mathura region. It should be remembered that many Hindu temples were untouched during Aurangzeb’s reign and even some new ones built. Indeed, what is really required is an investigation into the theory that both the Dera Keshava Rai temple and the Idgah were built on the site of a Buddhist monastery which appears to have been destroyed.


“Your news report also gives credence to the suggestion that this site was the birthplace of Krishna. This is extraordinary to say the least, when even the historicity of the personality is in question. It creates the kind of confusion such as has been created, probably deliberately, over the question of the birthplace of Rama in the matter of the Ramajanam-bhumi. A Persian text of the mid-nineteenth century states that the Babari mosque was adjacent to the Sita-ka-rasoi-ghar and was known as the Rasoi-Sita mosque and adjoined the area associated with the birthplace of Rama. It would be worth enquiring whether there is reliable historical evidence of a period prior to the nineteenth century for this association of a precise location for the birthplace of Rama. Furthermore such disputes as there were between Hindus and Muslims in this area upto the nineteenth century were not over the Babari mosque but the totally different site of Hanuman-baithak.


“It cannot be denied that acts of intolerance have been committed in India by followers of all religions. But these acts have to be understood in their context. It is a debasement of history to distort these events for present day communal propaganda.


“The statement in your news report that the site at Mathura is to be ‘liberated’ and handed over to the ‘rightful owners’ as the birthplace of Krishna raises the question of the limits to the logic of restoration of religious sites (and this includes the demand for the restoration to worshippers of disused mosques now under the care of the Archaeological Survey of India). How far back do we go? Can we push this to the restoration of Buddhist and Jaina monuments destroyed by Hindus? Or of pre-Hindu animist shrines?”


The letter was signed by Romila Thapar, Muzaffar Alam, Bipan Chandra, R. Champaka Lakshmi, S. Bhattacharya, H. Mukhia, Suvira Jaiswal, S. Ratnagar, M.K. Palat, Satish Saberwal, S. Gopal and Mridula Mukherjee. Most of them are minor fries who merely lent their names to the protest letter. But four of them, namely, Romila Thapar, Bipan Chandra, H. Mukhia and S. Gopal are well-known as Marxist historians. It is for future scholarship to judge the worth of their work in the field of historical research. What is relevant to our present purpose is that the prestige which they have come to enjoy in our times, succeeded in suppressing what might have been an informative and interesting debate in The Times of India.


Quite a few readers of The Times of India including several professors of equal rank wrote letters challenging the facts as well as the logic of the Marxist professors. But none of these letters was published in the letters-to-the-editor column of the newspaper. After a fortnight, the daily published some nondescript letters from its lay readers and announced that the “controversy has been closed”. It was a curious statement, to say the least. The controversy had only started with the publication of the long letter from the Marxist professors, accusing The Times of India of spreading “communalism” and making a number of sweeping statements. The other side was waiting for its rejoinders to appear in print. The Times of India would have been only fair to itself and its readers to let the other side have its say. But it developed cold feet. Perhaps it was not prepared to get branded as “communalist” for the sake of “a few facts from the dead past.” Perhaps it was in a hurry to retrieve its reputation which had been “compromised” by the publication of the “controversial photographs.” Whatever the reason or calculation, the Marxist professors walked away with victory in a match which the other side was not permitted to contest, leaving an impression on the readers of the newspaper that the Marxist case was unassailable.


It would, therefore, be worthwhile to examine the Marxist case and find out if it has any worth. Incidentally, the Marxist historians have equipped the Muslim historians as well with what is now considered to be a fool-proof apologetics vis-a-vis the destruction of Hindu temples during Muslim rule in India. An examination of the Marxist case in this context, therefore, constitutes an examination of the Muslim case as well.


We are leaving aside die Marxist accusation of “communalism” against The Times of India. Marxist of all hues have a strong nose for smelling communalism in the faintest expression of Indian nationalism which they have fought with great vigour and vigilance ever since they appeared on the Indian scene in the twenties of this century. Their writings and doings during nearly seven decades testify to the type of patriotism they preach and practise.


We are also overlooking the ex-cathedra tone which characterises their pronouncements regarding interpretation of history. The tone comes quite easily to those who have enjoyed power and prestige for long and, therefore, begun to believe that they have a monopoly over truth and wisdom. We shall confine our examination to what they have stated as facts and what they claim to be the correct interpretations of those facts.


The Kešavadeva Tradition at Mathura


It is true that the temple of Kešavadeva which was destroyed and replaced with an Îdgãh by Aurangzeb, was built by Bir Singh Deva Bundela in the reign of Jahãngîr. But he had not built it on a site of his own choosing. An age-old tradition1 had continued to identify the KaTrã mound (on which Aurangzeb’s Îdgãh stands at present) with the spot where KaMsa had imprisoned the parents of Šrî KrishNa, and where the latter was born. The same tradition had also remembered with anguish that an earlier Kešavadeva temple which stood on this spot had been destroyed by an earlier Islamic iconoclast.


Romila Thapar has herself testified to this tradition about Kešavadeva. Referring to descriptions of the Mathura region by Greek historians, she writes, “The identification of Sourasenoi, Methora and Iobares/Jomanes do not present any problem. But the identification of Cleisobora or Carisobora or the other variants suggested such as Carysobores remain uncertain.... The reading of Cleisobora as KRSNpura has not yielded any firm identification. A possible connection could be suggested with Keshavadeva on the basis of this being an alternative name for KRSNa and there being archaeological evidence of a settlement at the site of Keshavadeva during the Mauryan period.”2


Dr. V.S. Agrawala is well-known for his study of the sculptures and inscriptions found on the ancient sites of Mathura and around. He was Curator of the museum at Mathura as well as that at Lucknow. He makes the following observations:

1. “Mathurã on the Yamunã is famous as the birthplace of KRishNa. It was the scat of the Bhãgvata religion from about second century BC to fifth Century AD…3


2. “Brãhmanical shrines of Mathurã began to be built quite early as shown by the discovery of an epigraph, viz. the Morã Well-Inscription as well as other records like the lintel of the time of ŠoDãsa. It was in the reign of Chandragupta Vikramãditya that a magnificent temple of VishNu was built at the site of KaTrã Kešavadeva… 4


3. “The rich store of Brãhmanical images in Mathurã Museum is specially noteworthy. The formulation of these images was a natural result of the strong Bhãgavata movement of which Mathurã had been the radiating centre from about the first century BC… The chronological priority in the making of Brãhmanical images to that of the Buddha should be taken as a settled fact on the basis of an image of Balarãma from JãnsuTî village. It is definitely in the style of the Šuñga period. Patañjali also writing in the same age informs us of the existence of shrines dedicated of Rãma and Kešava i.e., Balarãma and KrishNa…”5

An inscription of Svãmî MahãkSatrapa ŠoDãsa recovered by Pandit Radha Krishna in 1913 testifies that a temple dedicated to Vãsudeva existed at Mathura in the first century BC. “From an examination of the stone,” writes Professor H. Luders, “Mr. Ram Prasad Chanda came to the conclusion, which undoubtedly is correct, that the epigraph was originally incised on a square pillar which was afterwards cut lengthwise through the inscribed side into two halves and turned into door jambs.”6 Scholars have differed regarding the location of the temple mentioned in the epigraph. The latest to study and interpret the inscriptions of ŠoDãsa is Professor R.C. Sharma. “Luders thought,” he writes, “that it belonged to the Bhãgvata shrine of Morã about 12 kms to the west of Mathurã. But V.S. Agrawala opined that it must have originated from the site of KaTrã, the famous Bhãgvata spot. We shall see that the conjecture of Agrawala carries weight… The upper part of the inscription is corroded and five lines cannot be made out properly. The remaining part is better preserved and it can be translated as: ‘At the great temple of Lord Vãsudeva, a gateway and a railing was erected by Vasu son of Kaušiki Pãkšakã. May Lord Vãsudeva be pleased and promote the welfare of Svãmî Mahãksatrapa ŠoDãsa.’ This is the earliest archaeological evidence to prove the tradition of the building of KRSNa’s shrine.”7 It is possible that some more inscriptions may surface in future and take the tradition of KrishNa-worship at Mathura still farther in the past.


Another inscription found at the same site points to the same tradition prevailing in the seventh and eighth centuries AD. “A fragment of an inscribed stone slab,” writes Dr. D.C. Sircar, “was discovered in 1954 at Katra Keshavdev within Mathurã city, headquarters of the District of that name in Uttar Pradesh. It was presented by the Shri Krishna Janmabhumi Trust, Mathurã, to the local Archaeological Museum.” After describing the size of the slab and the style of writing that has survived on it, he continues, “The characters resemble those of such inscriptions of the seventh and eighth centuries belonging to the Western parts of Northern India as the Banskhera plate of Harsh (AD 606-47), the Kundesvar inscription (vs 718 = AD 661) of Aprajita, the Jhalarpatan inscription (vs 746 = AD 689) of DurgagaNa, the Kudarkot inscription of about the second half of the seventh century, the Nagar inscription (vs 741 = AD 684) of Dhanika, and the Kanaswa inscription (vs 795 = AD 738) of ŠivagaNa.”8 The inscription was composed “in adoration of a god whose epithets kãl-ãñjana-rajah-puñja-dyuti, (ma)hãvarãha-rûpa and jañgama have only been preserved”. It leaves “no doubt that the reference is to the god VishNu since the expression mahãvarãha-rûpa certainty speaks of the Boar incarnation of the deity.”9 The hero of the prašasti is a king named DiNDirãja of the Maurya dynasty. “It therefore seems,” concludes Dr. Sircar, “that the king performed the deed in question in the chain of many other pious works and at the cost of a large sum of money. The purpose seems to have been to put garlands around the head of a deity whose name seems to read Šauri (i.e. VishNu; cf. the Vaishnavite adoration in verse 1).”10


That Bir Singh Dev Bundela’s choice of the site was not arbitrary is proved by another inscription discovered by Dr. A. Fuhrer in 1889 “from the excavations made by railway contractors at the Kešava mound.”11 It is a long prašasti in Sanskrit stating that “Jajja, who long carried the burden of the varga together with the committee of trustees (gosThîjana) built a large temple of VishNu brilliantly white and touching the clouds.”12 The colophon in prose informs us that the prašasti was composed by “two ‘wise’ men, Pãla and Kuladdhara (?)” and “incised by the mason Somala in SaMvat 1207 on the full moon day of Kãrttika, during the reign of his glorious majesty, the supreme king of kings, Vijayapãla.” The king cannot be identified with certainty. But SaMvat 1207 corresponds to AD 1149-51. “This king,” concludes the epigraphist, “certainly was the ruler of Mathurã at this period, and Jajja was one of his vassals. This much is absolutely certain, and the inscription also settles the date of at least one of the temples buried under the Kešava mound.”13


Why Aurangzeb Destroyed the Temple


There is no substance in the Marxist statement that the temple was destroyed because it had “acquired considerable wealth” which attracted Aurangzeb’s greed for booty or that the destruction of the temple was “politically motivated as well, for at the time when the temple was destroyed he faced problems with the Bundela as well as the Jat rebellions in the Mathura region.” We have only to refer to contemporary records to see how these explanations are wide of the mark.


The temple of Kešavadeva was destroyed in January, 1670. This was done in obedience to an imperial firmãn proclaimed by Aurangzeb on April 9, 1669. On that date, according to Ma’sîr-i-Ãlamgîrî, “The Emperor ordered the governors of all provinces to demolish the schools and temples of the infidels and strongly put down their teaching and religious practices.”14 Jadunath Sarkar has cited several sources regarding the subsequent destruction of temples which went on all over the country, and right up to January 1705, two years before Aurangzeb died.15


None of the instances cited by him make any reference whatsoever to booty or the political problem of rebellion. The sole motive that stands out in every case is religious zeal. Our Marxist professors will find it very hard, if not impossible, to discover economic and/or political motives for all these instances of temple destruction. The alibis that they have invented in defence of Aurangzeb’s destruction of the Kešavadeva temple are, therefore, only plausible, if not downright fraudulent. It is difficult to believe that the learned professors did not know of Aurangzeb’s firmãn dated April 9, 1669 and the large-scale destruction of Hindu temples that followed. If they did not, one wonders what sort of professors they are, and by what right they pronounce pontifically on this subject.


Putting the Cart Before the Horse


The veneer of plausibility also comes off when we look into the chronology of Hindu rebellions in the Mathura region. We find no evidence that Aurangzeb was faced with any Hindu rebellion in that region when he destroyed the Kešavadeva temple. There was no Bundela uprising in 1670 when the Kešavadeva temple was destroyed. The first Bundela rebellion led by Jujhar Singh had been put down by December, 1635 in the reign of Shãh Jahãn when that Rajput prince was killed and the ladies of his house-hold were forced into the Mughal harem. The second Bundela rebellion had ended with the suicide of Champat Rai in October, 1661. The third Bundela rebellion was still in the future. Champat Rai’s son, Chhatrasal, had joined the imperial army sent against Shivaji in 1671 when Shivaji drew his attention to what was being done to the Hindus by Aurangzeb. It may also be pointed out that our professors stretch the Mathura region too far when they include Bundelkhand in it.


The professors have put the cart before the horse by holding the Jat rebellion in the Mathura region responsible for the destruction of the Kešvadeva temple. The Jats had risen in revolt under the leadership of Gokla (Gokul) after and not before Aurangzeb issued his firmãn of April, 1969 ordering destruction of Hindu temples everywhere. This highly provocative firmãn had come as a climax to several other happenings in the Mathura region. The Hindus of this region had been victims of Muslim high-handedness for a long time, particularly in respect of their women. Murshid Qulî Khãn, the faujdãr of Mathura who died in 1638, was notorious for seizing “all their most beautiful women” and forcing them into his harem. “On the birthday of Krishna,” narrates Ma’sîr-ul-Umara, “a vast gathering of Hindu men and women takes place at Govardhan on the Jumna opposite Mathura. The Khan, painting his forehead and wearing dhoti like a Hindu, used to walk up and down in the crowd. Whenever he saw a woman whose beauty filled even the moon with envy, he snatched her away like a wolf pouncing upon a flock, and placing her in the boat which his men kept ready on the bank, he sped to Agra. The Hindu [for shame] never divulged what had happened to his daughter.”16


Another notorious faujdãr of Mathura was Abdu’n Nabî Khãn. He plundered the people unscrupulously and amassed great wealth. But his worst offence was the pulling down of the foremost Hindu temple in the heart of Mathura and building a Jãmi‘ Masjid on its site. This he did in AD 1660-61. Soon after, in 1665, Aurangzeb imposed a pilgrim tax on the Hindus. In 1668, he prohibited celebration of all Hindu festivals, particularly Holi and Diwali. The Jats who rightly regarded themselves as the defenders of Hindu hounour were no longer in a mood to take it lying.


It is true that the capture and murder of Gokul with fiendish cruelty and the forcible conversion of his family members to Islam, coincided with the destruction of the Kešavadeva temple. But there is no reason to suppose that the temple would have been spared if there was no Jat rebellion. There were no rebellions in the vicinity of many other temples which were destroyed at that time or at a later stage. The temples were destroyed in obedience to the imperial firmãn and for no other reason.


The Logic of the Argument


The real worth of the defence of Aurangzeb put up by the professors becomes evident if we lead their argument for economic and political motives to its logical conclusion. The Kešvadeva temple was not the only place of worship which was wealthy. Many mosques and dargãhs and other places of Muslim worship were bursting with riches in Aurangzeb’s time. But he is not known to have sought booty in any one of them. There were several rebellions led by Muslims against the rule of Aurangzeb. Some of these rebellions had their centres in places of Muslim worship. Yet Aurangzeb is not known to have destroyed any one of these places before or after suppressing the rebellions. So, even if we accept the economic and political motives for the destruction of Hindu temples, an irreducible minimum of the religious motive remains. That alone can explain the erection of an Îdgãh on the site of the Kešavadeva temple and taking away the idols to Agra for being trodden under foot by the faithful.


The Argument about Historicity


Now we can take up the last point by raising which the professors seem to clinch their case in defence of Aurangzeb. They question the historicity of Šrî KrishNa and dismiss him as a mythological character who can have no place of birth. The implication is that Hindus are getting unduly excited by associating the Kešavadeva temple with the birth-place of Šrî KrishNa and should cool down after discovering that the temple was built by a Rajput protege of Jahãngîr, at a nondescript place and on a much later date. This is a strange argument, to say the least. It means that the sanctity of a religious place declines in proportion to its dissociation from a historical personality. One wonders if the professors would extend the logic to Muslim ziãrats and qadam-sharîfs which are associated with characters who cannot be traced in any history. Some of these ziãrats have been built on the sites and from the debris of Hindu temples according to unimpeachable archaeological evidence. The qadam-sharîfs are without a doubt the Buddha’s feet carved in the early phases of Buddhism and worshipped in subsequent ages by the Buddhists as well as the Hindus. The Ka‘ba at Mecca was taken over by Muhammad because, according to him, it was built by Abraham in the first instance and occupied by the polytheists at a later stage. Should the Muslims take the desecration or demolition of the Ka‘ba less seriously if they are told that Abraham has never figured in human history? There is no evidence that he did.


Of course, Šrî KrishNa is a historical character which the professors can find out for themselves by reading Bankim Chandra, Šrî Aurobindo and many other savants who have, unlike them, studied the subject. But that is not the point. The Šrî KrishNa for whom the Hindus really care is a far greater figure than the Šrî KrishNa of history. What they really worship is the Šrî KrishNa of mythology. There are many temples and places of pilgrimage all over India associated with this mythological Šrî KrishNa. So are the various šaktipîThas associated with the limbs of Pãrvatî scattered by Šiva during the course of his anguish over her death. So are the various jyotirliñgas and most other places of Hindu pilgrimage. In fact, a majority of the renowned places of Hindu worship and pilgrimage have only mythology in support of their sanctity. Are the professors telling the Hindus that the desecration or destruction of these places should cause no heart-burn to them because the characters associated with these places are drawn from mythology, and that an iconoclast is badly needed in every case for blowing up the myth?


The Birth-Place of Šrî Rãma


Having cleared the “confusion” over the birth-place of Šrî KrishNa, the professors proceed to clear a similar “confusion” regarding the birth-place of Šrî Rãma. We are ignoring their insinuation that the second “confusion” has been created “probably deliberately”. The insinuation has its source in political polemics and not in academic propriety to which professors are expected to adhere. We are also ignoring the implication that Šrî Rãma being another mythological character is not entitled to a place of birth because, mercifully, the professors concede that a place called Rãma-janmabhûmi did exist at Ayodhya, and that it did not occupy the site of a Buddhist monastery demolished by the devotees of Šrî Rãma. We shall only examine the point they have raised, namely, that the mosque known as the Babari Masjid does not stand on the site of the Rãma-janmabhûmi.


The professor have referred us to a “Persian text of the mid-nineteenth century” which “states that the Babari mosque was adjacent to the Sita-ka-rasoi-ghar and was known as Rasoi-Sita mosque and adjoined the area associated with the birthplace of Rama”. What they mean in plain language is that the real Babari Masjid, also known as Rasoi-Sita Masjid, has disappeared or been demolished by the Hindus at some stage, and that there is no substance in the current Hindu claim that die mosque known as the Babari Masjid at present stands on the site of a temple built on the Rãma-janmabhûmi.


This contention could have been examined satisfactorily if the professors had named the Persian text and told us whether, according to it, the Rasoi-Sita Masjid stood on the right or left of the Sita-ka-rasoi-ghar. We can, therefore, thank the professors only for admitting that the Muslims did raise a mosque on a spot which, we may be permitted to infer, was also sacred for the Hindus. But, at the same time, we cannot help wondering why the professors are at pains to pin-point the exact spot where Šrî Rãma was born instead of conceding that the temple built in his memory must have occupied a large area. Maps of the area in which the mosque now known as the Babari Masjid stands, show clearly that the site of the Sita-ka-rasoi-ghar is adjacent to the mosque. Is it not possible that what is now known as the Babari Masjid was also known as Rasoi-Sita Masjid in the mid-nineteenth century? Moreover, the mosque in dispute has been named as the Babari Masjid by the Muslims and not by the Hindus.


Thus the Persian text dragged in by the professors creates complications rather than clear the “confusion” which, according to the professors, exists in the Hindu mind. On the face of it, it looks like a deliberate attempt to side-track the issues involved. The suspicion gets strengthened when the professors go on to suggest that prior to the nineteenth century the dispute was not over the Rãma-janmabhûmi but over “the totally different site of Hanuman-baithak.” No doubt the suggestion admits, although inadvertently, that there was a Hanuman temple at Ayodhya which also the Muslims had converted into a mosque. But we are trying to straighten the record regarding a mosque standing on the site of the Rãma-janmabhûmi temple.17


Finally, their thesis is that “acts of intolerance have been committed in India by followers of all religions.” Having found it difficult to hide the atrocities committed by Islam in India, they have invented stories of Buddhist, Jain and Animist temples destroyed by the Hindus. We shall examine these stories in some detail at a later stage in this study. Here it should suffice to say that in their effort to whitewash Islam they have ended by blackening Hinduism. The exercise is devoid of all academic scruples and is no more than a neurotic exhibition of their deep-seated anti-Hindus animus.18


The Appropriate Context


What is most amazing about our Marxist professors, however, is that while they are never tired of preaching that facts of history should be placed in their proper context, they have studiously managed to miss the only context which explains simply and satisfactorily the destruction of Hindu temples by Islamic invaders. Our reference here is to the theology of Islam systematised on the basis of the Qu’rãn and the Sunnah of the Prophet. This theology lays down loud and clear that it is a pious act for Muslims to destroy the temples of the infidels and smash their idols. Conversion of infidel temples into mosques wherever practicable, is a part of the same doctrine. We have presented this theology at some length in Section IV.


Destruction of idols and conversion of infidel places of worship into mosques became obligatory on Muslim conquerors and kings whenever they got the opportunity. The plunder which the iconoclasts obtained from infidel places of worship was not the main motive; that was only an additional bounty which Allãh had promised to bestow on them for performing pious deeds and earning religious merit. Those who want to know the relevant prescriptions of Islam should read the orthodox biographies of the Prophet, the orthodox collections of Hadîth, and the authentic commentaries by recognised imãms rather than swallow old wive’s tales told by Marxist professors.


This is the simple and straightforward explanation why Muslim invaders of India destroyed Hindu temples on a large scale and converted many of them into mosques. The economic and political motives, invented by the Marxists, are not only far-fetched but also do not explain the destruction and/or conversion of numerous temples which contained no riches, and where no conspiracy could be conceived.


The Muslim apologists who have been in a hurry to borrow the Marxist explanation do not know what they are doing. The explanation converts Islam into a convenient cover for brigandage and the greatest Muslim heroes into mere bandits. In the mouth of those Muslims who know what their religion prescribes vis-a-vis infidel places of worship, this apologetics is dishonest as well. They should have the honesty to admit the tenets of the religion to which they subscribe. It is a different matter whether those tenets can be defended on any spiritual or moral grounds. That is a subject on which Islam will have to do some introspection and hold a dialogue with Hinduism some day.


Finally, the professors want us to remember that “many Hindu temples were untouched during Aurangzeb’s reign, and even some new ones were built”. The underlying assumption is that Aurangzeb’s writ ran in every nook and corner of India, all through his reign. But the assumption is unwarranted. There is plenty of evidence in Persian histories themselves that there were regions in which Hindu resistance to Aurangzeb’s terror was too strong to be overcome even by repeated expeditions. It is no credit to Aurangzeb that the Hindus in those regions were able to save their old temples and also build some new ones. The Hindus all over north India were up in arms against the Muslim rule during Aurangzeb’s long absence in the South. If they built some new temples, it was in spite of Aurangzeb. The subject needs a detailed scrutiny on the basis of concrete cases located in space and time. It must, however, be pointed out that the professors bid goodbye to all sense of proportion when they gloat on the few temples that survived or were newly built while they forget the large number of temples that were destroyed. They also forget that, in the present context, exceptions only prove the rule.


Footnotes:

1 The Varãha PurãNa says, The is no God like Kešava and no BrãhmaNas like those of Mathurã.
2 Romila Thapar, ‘The Early History of Mathurã upto and including the Mauryan period’ in Mathurã: The Cultural Heritage, edited by Doris Meth Sriniwasan, New Delhi, 1989. p. 15. It is her habit to speak with two tongues - one when she is in the midst of scholars who know the facts, and another when she functions as a professional Hindu-baiter.

3 V.S. Agarawala, Masterpieces of Mathura Sculpture, Varanasi, 1965. p. 1.

4 Ibid., P. 2.

5 Ibid., p. 11.

6 Epigraphia Indica, Vol. XXIV (1937-38), New Delhi, Reprint, 1982, p. 208.

7 R.C. Sharma, ‘New Inscriptions from Mathurã’ in Mathurã: The Cultural Heritage, op. cit., p. 309.

8 Epigraphia Indica, Vol. XXXII (1957-58), New Delhi, Reprint, 1987, p. 206.

9 Ibid., p. 208.

10 Ibid., pp. 208-209.

11 Epigraphia Indica, Vol. I (1892), New Delhi, Reprint, 1983, p. 287.

12 Ibid., p. 288.

13 Ibid., 289.

14 Quoted by Jadunath Sarkar, op. cit., p. 186.

15 Ibid., pp. 186-89.

16 Quoted by Ibid., pp. 193-94. The Jat rebellion is dealt with in detail by Girish Chandra Dwivedi in his book, The Jats: Their Role in the Mughal Empire, New Delhi, 1979.

17 The Hindu case is presented in two publications of Voice of India - Ram Janmabhoomi Vs. Babri Masjid, by Koenraad Elst (1990) and History Versus Casuistry: Evidence of the Ramajanmabhoomi Mandir presented by the Vishva Hindu Parishad to the Government of India in December-January 1990-91 (1991).

18 See Appendix 4 for the Marxist proposition of placing Hinduism on the same level as Islam.

SPREADING THE BIG LIE


According to the Marxist professors “what is really required is an investigation into the theory that both the Dera Keshav Rai temple and the Idgah were built on the site of a Buddhist monastery which appears to have been destroyed.” Thank God, they have suggested it only as a theory; elsewhere in their writings they have not been that cautious. In fact, they have gone out of their way in spreading the Big Lie that the Hindus destroyed many Buddhist and Jain temples and monasteries in the pre-Islamic past. They have never been able to cite more than half-a-dozen instances of dubious veracity. But that has sufficed for providing a vociferous plank in the “progressive” party line. “If the descendants of Godse,” writes the executive editor of a prestigious Marxist monthly, “think that every medieval mosque has been built after demolishing some temple, why should we stop at the medieval period? After all, Hindu kings had also got a large number of Jain and Buddhist temples destroyed. The KrishNa temple at Mathutã rose on the ruins of a Buddhist monastery. There are hundreds of such places (that is, Hindu temples built on the ruins of Buddhist and Jain places of worship) in Karnataka, Rajasthãn, Bihãr and Uttar Pradesh.”1 The author of the article did not think it necessary to quote some instances. The proposition, he thought, was self-evident. Herr Goebbles, too, never felt the need of producing any evidence in support of his pronouncements.


It is unfortunate that some Buddhist and Jain scholars have swallowed this lie without checking the quality and quantity of the evidence offered. Some of these “scholars” are known for their “progressive” inclinations. But there are others who have become victims of a high-powered propaganda. The happiest people, however, have been the Christian missionaries and the apologists of Islam. Does it not, they say, blow up the bloody myth that Hinduism has a hoary tradition of religious tolerance and that all religions coexisted peacefully in this country before the advent of Islam and Christianity? We shall examine this canard exhaustively at a later stage in this study. For the present we are confining ourselves to the “evidence” offered in the context of the Kešavadeva temple. We reproduce below the relevant reports of the Archaeological Survey of India.


“In 1853,” writes Dr. J. Ph. Vogel, “regular explorations were started by General Cunningham on the KaTrã and continued in 1862. They yielded numerous sculptural remains; most important among them is an inscribed standing Buddha image (height 3’6”) now in the Lucknow Museum. From the inscription it appears that this image was presented to the Yašã-Vihãra in the Gupta year 230 (AD 549-50)…2


“The last archaeological explorations at Mathura were carried out by Dr. Fuhrer between the year 1887 and 1896. His chief work was the excavation of the Kañkãlî Tîlã in the three seasons of 1888-91. He explored also the KaTrã site. Unfortunately, no account of his researches is available, except the meager information contained in his Museum Reports for those years… The plates of which only a few are reproductions of photographs and the rest drawings, illustrate the sculptures acquired in the course of Dr. Fuhrer’s excavations but do not throw much fight on the explorations themselves ...3


“He [Cunningham] proposes to identify Kesopura, the quarter in which the KaTrã is situated, with ‘the Klisobora or Kaisobora of Arrian and the Calisobora of Pliny.’ It is, however, evident that the Mohalla Kesopura was named after the shrine of Keso or Kesab (Skt. Kešava) Dev. This temple stood, as we noticed above, on the ruins of a Buddhist monastery which still existed in the middle of the sixth century. It is, therefore, highly improbable that the name Kesopura goes back to the days of Arrian.4


“All we can say from past explorations is the following: The KaTrã must have been the site of a Buddhist monastery named the Yašã-Vihãra which was still extant in the middle of the sixth century. It would seem that in the immediate vicinity there existed a stûpa to which the Bhûtesar railing pillars belong. Dr. Fuhrer mentions indeed in one of his reports that, in digging at the back of Aurangzeb’s mosque, he struck the procession path of a stûpa bearing a dedicatory inscription.”5


Dr. Vogel returned to the theme in 1911-12. He wrote:


“The Keshab-Dev temple, of which the foundation can still clearly be traced stood again on earlier remains of Buddhist origin. This became at once apparent from General Cunningham’s explorations on this site in the years 1853 and 1862, which opened the era of archaeological research at Mathurã. Among his finds was a standing Buddha image (4’3.5”), now in the Lucknow Museum, bearing an inscription, which is dated in the Gupta year 230 (AD 549-50) and records that the image was dedicated by the Buddhist nun JayabhaTTã at the Yašã-Vihãra.


“Several Buddhist sculptures, mostly of the KushãNa period have since been discovered in the KaTrã mound. So that there can be little doubt, that it marks the site of an important monastic establishment. It was particularly ‘one’ find which seemed to call for further investigation. Dr. Fuhrer while describing his last exploration of the year 1896 on the KaTrã, says the following, ‘About 50 paces to the north of this plinth [of the Kešavadeva Temple] I dug a trail trench, 80 feet long, 20 feet broad and 25 feet deep, in the hope of exposing the foundations and some of the sculptures of this Kešava temple. However, none of the hoped for Brahmanical sculptures and inscriptions were discovered, but only fragments belonging to an ancient stûpa. At a depth of 20 feet I came across a portion of the circular procession-path leading round this stûpa. On the pavement, composed of large red sandstone slabs, a short dedicatory inscription was discovered, according to which this stûpa, was repaired in samvat 76 by the Kushana King Vasushaka; unfortunately, I was unable to continue the work and lay bare the whole procession-path, as the walls of the brick structure, adjoining the Masjid are built right across the middle of this stûpa.’


“Unfortunately, the inscription referred to by Dr. Fuhrer was never published, nor were estampages of it known to exist. Since the discovery of the inscribed sacrificial post (yûpa) of Isãpur had established the fact that between Kanishka and Huvishka there reigned a ruler of the name of Vãsishka, it became specially important to verify the particulars given by Dr. Fuhrer in the above quoted note.


“The endeavours made by Pandit Radha Krishna to recover Dr. Fuhrer’s inscription were not crowned with success. It is true, however, that on the spot indicated the remains of a brick stûpa honeycombed by the depredations of contractors came to light. This monument, however, cannot be assigned a date earlier than about the sixth century of our era. Of the circular procession path of red stone slabs mentioned in Dr. Fuhrer’s report, no trace was found, but at a much higher level there was a straight causeway of stone referable to about the 12th or 13th century AD. Evidently it has nothing whatsoever to do with the stûpa. The causeway in question, which is 48’ long, 4’ 6” wide, runs straight from north to south and is constructed of large sandstone slabs roughly dressed and apparently obtained from different quarries. The size of these stones shows considerable variations, one measuring 6’6” by 1’6” by 9” and another 4’ 7” by 1’7” by 9”. The causeway consists of a double layer of these slabs laid three by three, the whole being very irregular. The slabs were bound with iron clamps, some of which still remain. Five of the stones are marked with a trident (trišûl).


“In course of excavation numerous sculptural fragments came to light mostly of a late date and apparently decorative remains of the Kesab Deb temple destroyed by Aurangzeb. Among earlier finds I wish only to mention a broken fourfold Jaina image (pratimã sarvato bhadrikã) with a fragmentary inscription in Brãhmî of the Kushan period.”6


A persual of these reports yields the following facts and conclusions:

1. General Cunningham’s surmise about a Buddhist monastery being buried in the KaTrã mound was no more than a mere speculation. The speculation was based on the discovery of a loose sculpture and not on the laying bare of any foundations or other remains of a monastery. Can the subsequent discovery of a Jain sculpture at the same site be relied upon to say that a Jain monastery also lies buried there? It has to be noted, that in Mathura many Brahmanical sculptures and architectural fragments have been found on sites such as the Jamãlpur and Kañkãlî mounds which are definitely known as Buddhist and Jain sites on the basis of foundations of monasteries etc., discovered there. No one has ever speculated that the Buddhist and Jain monuments at these sites were built on the ruins of Brahmanical temples.7


2. Dr. Vogel rejected General Cunningham’s identification of the KaTrã site with Kesopura on the basis of the latter’s speculation that a Buddhist monastery was buried under the Kešavadeva temple. This was tantamount to proving what he had already assumed. With equal logic, he could have rejected General Cunningham’s speculation about a Buddhist monastery and confirmed his identification of the KaTrã site with Kesopura. It seems that a pro-Buddhist and anti-Brahmanical bias, which was as dominant in his days as it is in our own, was responsible for his arbitrary choice from two equally plausible speculations on the part of the same explorer, namely, General Cunningham.


3. That a stûpa existed in the vicinity of the Kešvadeva temple is clear from the findings of Dr. Fuhrer as well as Pandit Radha Krishna. But Dr. Fuhrer’s discovery of a circular procession path belonging to the stûpa and passing under the KaTrã mound was not confirmed by the digging undertaken by Pandit Radha Krishna. It seems that the large sandstone slabs which Dr. Fuhrer construed as belonging to the procession path of the stûpa belonged in fact to the causeway which was uncovered by Pandit Radha Krishna and which had nothing whatsoever to do with the stûpa. Obviously, Dr. Fuhrer was misled into another speculation because of his reliance on the earlier speculation by General Cunningham.


4. Dr. Fuhrer had surmised that the stûpa was repaired in the reign of Vãsishka, that is, in the first decade of the second century AD. This he had done on the basis of an inscription he claimed to have read on a slab in what he thought to be the circular procession path of the stûpa. He is not known to have copied the inscription, nor has it ever been published. Pandit Radha Krishna who excavated in 1911-12 with the specific purpose of discovering that inscription failed not only to find it but also the circular procession path. What is more, the stûpa which was the same as that seen by Dr. Fuhrer could not be assigned to a date earlier than the sixth century AD, that is, four centuries after the reign of Vãsishka!

That is the picture which emerges from the explorations and excavations undertaken at the KaTrã site by General Cunningham in 1853 and 1862, Dr. Fuhrer in 1896, and Pandit Radha Krishna in 1911-12. There is no positive evidence about the existence of a Buddhist edifice in the KaTrã mound. All that can be said is that a Buddhist stûpa was built in the vicinity of the site some time in the sixth century.


No trace of a Buddhist monastery or any other Buddhist monument was found in the extensive exploration and excavation undertaken by the Archaeological Survey of India at the KaTrã site during 1954-55, 1973-74, 1974-75, 1975-76 and 1976-77. None of the archaeologists who undertook the diggings has subscribed to the theory propounded earlier by General Cunningham, Dr. Fuhrer and Dr. Vogel and now by the Marxist professors. “Thirty eight sculptures,” wrote R.C. Sharma in 1984, “saw their way to the Mathurã Museum in July 1954 when Sri K.D. Vajpeyi (later Professor) was the Curator. They were unearthed as a result of levelling and digging of the KaTrã site for renovating the birthplace of Lord KRSNa and were made over to the Museum by the Janmabhûmi Trust. Some other objects which were casually picked up by others from KaTrã site were also acquired. The finds include terra-cottas from Mauryan to Gupta periods, a few brick panels with creeper designs and several Brãhmanical objects ranging from Gupta to early Medieval age. The number of fragments of ViSNu figures is quite considerable and this suggests that a big VaiSNava or Bhãgvata complex once stood on the site.”8


The controversy should stand closed with what Professor Heinrich Luders, the great expert on Mathura, has to say on the subject. “Considering the well-known untrustworthiness of Dr. Fuhrer’s reports,” he writes, “there can be no doubt that the VasuSka inscription is only a product of his imaginations.”9 Steven Rosen has accused Dr. Vogel of “attempted forgery” in editing the Morã Well inscription discovered by Cunningham in 1882. “Many early archaeologists in India,” he writes, ‘were Christian - and they made no bones about their motivation.”10 He adds, “Dr. Vogel in attempting to distort the Morã Well inscription was right in the line with many of his predecessors in the world of Indology and archaeology.”11


II


It is welcome that the professors are prepared for an investigation for finding whether the KaTrã mound hides the remains of a Buddhist monastery under the remains of the Kešavadeva temple. Only a thorough excavation of the site on which the Îdgãh stands can settle the question. But it must be pointed out that the excavation may not stop at the Buddhist monastery if it is uncovered at all. If it is true, as they say, that Hindus and Buddhists were at daggers drawn in the pre-Islamic period, they should be prepared for the possibility that the Buddhist monastery itself was built on the ruins of an earlier Hindu temple. After all, the most ancient and prolific Indian literature associates Mathura with the birth and youth of Šrî KrishNa, while the Buddhist associations with Mathura do not go beyond Greek and KushãNa times. We have already quoted Romila Thapar regarding the Kešvadeva tradition going back to the Mauryan period. It is quite plausible on the hypothesis of the professors that some Greek or KushãNa patron of Buddhism destroyed a Hindu temple which stood at Šrî KrishNa’s place of birth before he raised a Buddhist monastery on the site. Of course, we do not subscribe to this story of Hindu-Buddhist conflict. There is no evidence that the Hindus ever destroyed a Buddhist place of worship or vice versa. We are only proposing a test for the Marxist hypothesis.


It is intriguing indeed that whenever archaeological evidence points towards a mosque as standing on the site of a Hindu temple, our Marxist professors start seeing a Buddhist monastery buried underneath. They also invent some Šaiva king as destroying Buddhist and Jain shrines whenever the large-scale destruction of Hindu temples by Islamic invaders is mentioned. They never mention the destruction of big Buddhist and Jain complexes which dotted the length and breadth of India, Khurasan, and Sinkiang on the eve of the Islamic invasion, as testified by Hüen Tsang. We should very much like to know from them as to who destroyed the Buddhist and Jain temples and monasteries at Bukhara, Samarqand, Khotan, Balkh, Bamian, Kabul, Ghazni, Qandhar, Begram, Jalalabad, Peshawar, Charsadda, Ohind, Taxila, Multan, Mirpurkhas, Nagar-Parkar, Sialkot, Srinagar, Jalandhar, Jagadhari, Sugh, Tobra, Agroha, Delhi, Mathura, Hastinapur, Kanauj, Sravasti, Ayodhya, Varanasi, Sarnath, Nalanda, Vikramasila, Vaishali, Rajgir, Odantapuri, Bharhut, Champa, Paharpur, Jagaddal, Jajnagar, Nagarjunikonda, Amravati, Kanchi, Dwarasamudra, Devagiri, Bharuch, Valabhi, Girnar, Khambhat Patan, Jalor, Chandravati, Bhinmal, Didwana, Nagaur, Osian, Ajmer, Bairat, Gwalior, Chanderi, Mandu, Dhar, etc., to mention only the more prominent ones. The count of smaller Buddhist and Jain temples destroyed by the swordsmen of Islam runs into hundreds of thousands. There is no dearth of mosques and other Muslim monuments which have buried in their masonry any number of architectural and sculptural pieces from Buddhist and Jain monuments.


It is not so long ago that Western scholars, even Christian missionaries, used to credit the Hindus at least with one virtue, namely, religious tolerance. Hindus had received universal acclaim for providing refuge and religious freedom to the Jews, the Christians, and the Parsis who had run away from persecutions at the hands of Christian and Islamic rulers in West Asia and Iran. It was also conceded that though Brahmanical, Buddhist and Jain sects and subsects had had heated discussions among themselves and used even strong language for their adversaries, the occasions when they exchanged physical blows were few and far between. The recent spurt of accusations that Hindus also were bigots and vandals like Christians and Muslims, seems to be an after-thought. Apologists who find it impossible to whitewash Christianity and Islam, are out to redress the balance by blackening Hinduism. Till recently, the Marxists were well-known for compiling inventories of capitalist sins in order to hide away the crimes committed in Communist countries.


The professors see some retributive justice in the destruction of the Kešavadeva temple by Aurangzeb because they believe that the temple was built on the ruins of a Buddhist monastery destroyed by the Hindus in the pre-Islamic past. It does not speak very highly of whatever moral sense the professors may possess that they should justify or explain away the wrong done by someone during one period in terms of another wrong done by someone else at some distant date. The whole argument is tantamount to saying that the murder of A by B is justified or should be explained away because the great-great-great grandfather of A had murdered C!


But after all is said about the Marxist professors, we must admit the merit of their last point, namely, “the question of limits to the logic of restoration of religious sites.” Our plea is that the question can be answered satisfactorily only when we are prepared to face facts and a sense to proportion is restored. That is exactly what this study intends to do.


Footnotes:

1 Gautama Navalakhã, ‘Bhakti Sãhitya kã Durupayoga’, HaMsa, Hindi monthly, New Delhi, June 1987, p. 21. Emphasis added.
2 Archaeological Survey of India, Annual Report 1906-07, p. 137.

3 Ibid., p. 139.

4 Ibid., p. 140.

5 Ibid., pp. 140-41.

6 Ibid., Annual Report 1911-12, pp. 132-33.

7 How much mistaken General Cunningham could be in his speculations sometimes is shown by Dr. R.C. Sharma who has been a Curator of the Museum at Mathura. “Sir Alexander Cunningham,” he writes, “during his first exploration in 1853 found some pillars of a Buddhist railing at the site of KaTra Keshavadev renowned as birthplace of Lord KRSna. Later he recovered a gateway from the same spot and a standing Buddha figure from a well recording the name of the monastery as Yasã Vihãra. He remarks, ‘I made the first discovery of Buddhist remains at the temple of Kesau Ray in January 1853, when, after a long search I found a broken pillar of a Buddhist railing sculptured with the figure of Mãyã Devî standing under the Sãla tree’. Cunningham was mistaken when he identified the lady on railing as Mãyã Devî. Since it was the first discovery he thought the representation conveyed some special event. Now we know that the lady under tree was a common representation on the rail posts of KuSãNa period and it does not specifically represent Mãyã Devî” (R.C. Sharma, Buddhist Art of Mathurã, Delhi, 1984, p. 51).

8 R.C. Sharma, op. Cit. PP. 83-84.

9 Heinrich Luders, Mathura Inscriptions, Gottingen, 1961, p. 30.

10 Steven Rosen, Archaeology and the Vaishnava Traditions: The Pre-Christian Roots of Krishna Worship, Calcutta, 1989, pp. 25-26.

11 Ibid., p. 28.