Acharya Kishore Kunal Quotes

It appears that this worship in the Baburi mosque started in 1720 A.D. when Girdhar Bahadur was the all-powerful Governor of Oudh at Ayodhyā. Thus, the worship of the Hindus in the disputed shrine started 13 years after the death of Aurangzeb and sixty years after the demolition of the temple and the construction of the mosque and both the puja and Namaz continued until the proclamation of the British rule in August 1858. The take-over of the shrine by the Sikhs from the Punjab in November 1858 was the expression of the prevailing Hindu resentment.

Therefore, all the three temples Janma-sthāna, Svargadvāra and Treta Ka Thakur were demolished by the same group of iconoclasts.

The very fact that Sardar Nihang Singh forcibly occupied the Janma-sthāna mosque on 15th December, 1858 A.D. and wrote राम,राम on its walls shows that the Sikhs had been associated with the Janma-sthāna shrine for long.

Now, after such a detailed discussion it is clear that there is a world of unimpeachable evidences which testify to the fact that there existed a definite birth-site of Rāma. It was located in the disputed shrine which was constructed after demoli-shing a temple of Rāma. Despite all these testimonies, if any historian clings to his old stand that there is no evidence showing the existence of any birthplace of Rāma at the disputed site, then one is reminded of the famous line of Voltaire: “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”

In this book I have coined two words ‘established’ and ‘enthusiastic’. By ‘established’ historians I mean self-proclaimed secular, progressive or left historians who have established an academic empire and try to stifle any voice of dissent or truth. At times, they obfuscate matters. Similarly, I have called the historians of the opposite group as ‘enthusiastic historians’ in place of nationalist or conservative historians. In this camp the standard of historians’ writing history except that of a few of them is far from satisfactory because they lack the skill of sifting the grain from husk. This is the reason that they, too, have failed to do justice to the history of Ayodhyā, and hence the difference on Ayodhyā between the two groups of historians is very thin. The first group asserts that the victorious Babur built the mosque on a barren plot, whereas the other group claims that Babur erected the mosque after demolishing a temple. Thus, both groups claim that it was a creation of Babur or his Governor Mir Baqi!

Thus, there is ample evidence in the Rudrayāmala, Skanda-purāna, Satyopākhyāna and Avadha-vilāsa to conclude that the birth-site of Rāma has been regarded as a sacred spot for more than a thousand years.

However, the most surprising and shocking part is that modern historians of all shades have quoted and confirmed this without any scrutiny. Thus, History has been overtaken by myths and fiction.

In view of the communal riots between the Hindus and the Muslims in 1855 the British Government took an arbitrary decision and deprived the Hindus of the worship in the disputed shrine and made an arrangement for the worship outside the mosque. It generated widespread resentment and a Nihang Sikh with 25 followers from the same sect from Punjab came to Ayodhyā and forcibly occupied the mosque. They did puja and homa inside it and placed an idol therein. Thereafter, they prayed to Guru Govind Singh and pitched a nishan outside the shrine. They wrote राम राम throughout the mosque with coal.

Fedai Khan, who was Aurangzeb’s foster brother and favourite on account of Fedai’s unflinching support to him in the war against Dara and his worthy son Sulaiman Shukoh, was made Governor of Ayodhyā in August 1658 and it was Fedai Khan who demolished all the three temples at Ayodhyā, viz. Svargadvārī, Tretā Kā Thākura and Rāma-janma-bhūmi temples and built mosques at all the three places. Svargadvari temple’s demolition by Aurangzeb has been mentioned by Joseph Tieffenthaler, C. Mentelle, Mirza Jan and many subsequent Muslim authors. The demolition of Rāma-janma-bhūmi temple by Aurangzeb has been mentioned by Tieffenthaler (1670 A.D.), Mentelle (1800 A.D.) and J.R. M’culloch (1842 A.D.). The perception that Aurangzeb demolished Rāma-janma-bhūmi temple was prevalent during the visit of Buchanan also.

Thus, on the Rāmanavamī Ayodhyā has been attracting a large number of pilgrims ranging from four lakhs to one million for centuries and they have been performing pūjā at the Rāma-janmabhūmi site and even then, self-proclaimed impartial historians postulate that there is no evidence. It is ridiculous.

P. Carnegy has written that Ayodhyā is to the Hindus what Mecca is to the Mahomedon and Jerusalem to the Jews. R.T. Griffith, the celebrated translator of Vālmīki Rāmayana, was of the opinion that ‘Ajudhyā is the Jerusalem or Mecca of the Hindus’.

Even then, Prof. Habib makes this fanciful observation which is totally unsupported by any direct or indirect historical evidence. One must salute the superb sophistry.

The report to the nation is a beautifully written document with a lot of distorted and misleading statements.

The scholarly Professor Panikkar should go through the text thoroughly before making such comments or stop misleading readers deliberately.

It is an irony that though there are indigenous literary sources, foreign travellers’ accounts, a detailed inscription and archaeological excavation reports, all supporting the existence of a temple at the birthplace of Lord Rāma at Ayodhyā, yet established historians have been misleading the nation by spreading unsubstantiated propaganda incessantly that there is not an iota of evidence to prove the claim that the disputed site was the birthplace of Lord Rāma and a temple existed thereon.