Praful Goradia Quotes

What however is of interest to us is the unusual shuddhi that the temple undervent inside the outer wall of the fortress. This historical event took place in 1948 on the morrow of the police action by the Government of India during the takeover of the Nizam' s Hyderabad. There had been a great deal of local pressure for the restitution of the temple. Leaders like Sardar Val1abhbhai Patel as well as Shri Kanhaiyalal Munshi were also aware that it was a Jain mandir which had been forcibly converted into a masjid by Alauddin Khilji.

The Department of Archaeology, Gwalior, 1952, has in a special book dealt on the Cultural Heritage of Madhya Bharat, which, in 1956, amalgamated with the Central Provinces and came to be known as Madhya Pradesh. This book Dhar and Mandu reiterates what Major C.E. Luard,34 the official gazeteer of Dhar, had said in 1912. The carved pillars used all over the building and the delicately carved ceilings of the prayer hall seem to have belonged to the original Bhojshala. On the pavement of the prayer hall are seen numerous slabs of black slate stone the writings on which were also scraped off. From a few slabs recovered from another part of the building and now exhibited there, which contain the texts of the poetic works of Parijatamanjari and Kurmastotra, it appears that the old college was adorned with numerous Sanskrit and Maharashtri Prakrit texts, beautifully engraved on such slabs.

Bhojshala was a college. The District Gazetteer says that Raja Bhoj school is a mosque, a part of which was converted from a Hindu institution of the 11th century, the Saraswati temple or school. According to the publication, this shrine of Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of learning, is described in the Sanskrit play of Arjunavarma Paramara, 1210-16 as the ornament of the eightyfour squares of Dharanagari. Two slabs were discovered behind the mehrab, one bearing the Prakrit odes of the 11th century (supposed to have been composed by Raja Bhoj himself) and the other the Sanskrit play mentioned above, which praises Arjunavarma. These slabs stand on the north side of the building and are beautiful specimens of the stone cutter's work.

Mukhlis and Khalis were in tum governors of Jaunpur under Ibrahim Naib Barbak, who was anxious to build an edifice for the residence of a celebrated saint named Saiyid Usman ofShiraz, who had fled from Delhi during Timur's invasion. In 1908, when the gazetteer was published by Nevill, the descendants of the saint still resided near the mosque. The style of architecture is not very different from that of the Jhanj hari masj id. The roof stands on ten rows of Hindu temple pillars. According to the gazetteer; the mandir had been built by Raja Vijaya Chandra. The river Gomti flows through the city of Jaunpur and there is an impressive bridge across the river. It is a massive stone structure built in the 1560s. The bridge does not rise towards its centre but is flat. It is an original construction. The only feature that mars its originality is a colossal stone lion standing over a small elephant. According to Nevill, it bears the stamp of ancient Hindu workmanship and must have adorned the gateway of some building erected by the Raja ofKannauj. To the west of the northern end of the bridge is the big fort of Jaunpur, built in the time of Ibrahim. But Firoz Shah Tughlaq is credited with having rebuilt the fortress on an old structure inherited from the Hindu era. Evidence of the legacy. is the masjid inside the fort, built on temple pillars of various shapes and designs. Nevill has remarked that some of the pillars are upside down which supports the theory that a number of temples in Jaunpur were destroyed in order to provide stones required to build the fort; the inner face of almost every stone bore carvings, which had decorated Hindu temples.

A few masjids have undergone shuddhi, whether in full or part, while others are still unattended and deserve a change. For example, the Gobind Dev mandir at Vrindavan was returned to the Hindus by the British some 130 years ago. While Sultan Ghari at Delhi became a place of worship for all people; when, no one really knows. The saga at Ayodhya is incomplete. While the Nand and Rohini temple palace at Mahaban is believed to have been redeemed in the wake of independence. The edifices at Kannauj and Etawah have not undergone any stage of shuddhi. Since the cities are situated in Uttar Pradesh, the Waterloo of Aryavrat is a part of the series in the area. Quwwatul Islam at Delhi and the Adhai Din Ka Jhopra at Ajmer tell the tale of vandalism so eloquently that the viewer is shocked as he enters these masjids. The Krishnajanmabhoomi as well as Kashi Vishwanath are making do with pathetic alternatives for no shuddhi whatsoever has taken place. So also Ataladevi at Jaunpur and Bhojshala at Dhar. At Vidisha, all worship has been suspended while a great deal of the Rudra Mahalaya complex remains buried. The Adina masjid. at Maida has fallen into disuse as a place of worship, whereas Jungle Pir Baba as well as the shrine at Pavagadh are in full use as dargahs. Daulatabad is a case of redemption which took place on the morrow of the police action in 1948 against the Nizam of Hyderabad.

Lest the author sound antagonistic towards either Bangladesh or Pakistan, let him begin with the destruction that has taken place in the Kashmir Valley since 1990. He is quoting from a book called Kashmir: Wail of a Valley by R .N. Kaul, Sterling Publishers, New Delhi.46 Amongst the prominent temples to be set on fire was the Dashnami Akhara in Srinagar. It is the mandir from where the annual summer pilgrimage to Amamath begins. Ganpatyar temple has been attacked again and again including by bombs. It has a lso been subjected to two separate rocket attacks. The Shiva temple at Jawahir Nagar, a well known locality of Srinagar, was yet another object of attack. At Anantnag, the targets of violence were the Raghunath as well as the Gautam Nag mandirs and the triple temple ofLok Bhawan. The Wanpoh mandir which had been almost completely demolished in 1986, was again desecrated on 21st February, 19~2. The Mattan mandir was instantly converted into a Muslim shrine by namaz, being said. In all, some 70 Hindu places of worship have been desecrated.

The new temple was built at the behest of Rani Ahilyabai Holkar long after Aurangzeb's desecration . As already explained by Sherring, all the temples built during the Mohammaden rule in Benares had to be diminutive in size. It transpires that the demolition of temples was not inspired merely by a hatred for idolatory or by greed for loot. It was also driven by a desire to humiliate the Hindus. Or, else, how does one explain that the masjid built by Aurangzeb had to be bang next to the Gyan Vapi or the well of knowledge.

Mind you, the ASI has done nothing to excavate or salvage anything in the complex since independence. With the passing of the Protection of National Monuments Act, 1951 (see Annexure II), all archaeological activities have been frozen. The credit for the excavations goes to Cunningham and Dr. D R Bhandarkar; during the first half of the 20th century by the latter.

To paraphrase William Shakespeare, not all the scents of Arabia would suffice to wash away the sins of Ghazni and Alamgir at Mathura. And since it is not possible to claim back what was destroyed long ago, the return of the Idgaah and the shuddhi of Krishnajanmabhoomi or the birth place of Krishna, is the only alternative.

Cunningham called it a masjid which was made up of Hindu materials. It is difficult to agree with Cunningham. The author feels that a Hindu building was converted into a masjid and not made up or rebuilt with Hindu materials. If it had been rebuilt, its Muslim builder would have excluded the inscription of Raja Ajaya as well as all the statuettes on the pillars and walls. The fact that they have been mutilated is a clear indication that the then existing Hindu edifice was quickly converted into a masjid. Apart from the factor of quickness, there must have been the lack of readily available architects and artisans familiar with Islamic architecture. Hence, a great deal of the early Muslim buildings in Hindustan were conversions of Hindu temples. A distinctly Islamic style did not emerge until about the advent of the Lodis in the course of the 15th century.

Aurangzeb, 1658-1707, was the last of the iconoclasts who had a go at this edifice which was then known as the Vijay Mandir from which the successor mosque was known as Bijamandal. He celebrated the visit by renaming Vidisha as Alamgirpur. Despite some excavations between 1971 and 1974 which clearly showed that Bijamandal was originall y a temple, namaz at Eid time continued right until 1965 when Dr. Dwarka Prasad Mishra's government banned worship in, what was, a protected monument. Mishra earned the gratitude of most Vidishans and many others in Madhya Pradesh.

Sultan Bahadur Shah of Gujarat, 1526-37, was the iconoclast of Vidisha, preceding Aurangzeb. He captured the town and about the first thing he did was to desecrate the Vijay Mandir claiming that the conquest ofBhilsa was in the service of Islam. The episode is recorded in Mirat-I -Sikandri. About 200 years earlier, Sultan Alauddin Khilji, 1293, had also enjoyed the 'devout' pleasure of damaging Vijay Mandir. The honour of being the first iconoclast, however, went to Sultan Shamsuddin Iltutmish, 1234, yet another half a century earlier. This episode is described with relish in Tabqat-I-Nasiri.

According to Luard,35 the inscriptions on the eastern and northern _gates indicate that the mosque was inaugurated by Amid Shah Daud Ghori, also known as Dilawar Khan, on January 17, 1405. The word "inaugurated" has been intentionally used, instead of Luard's use of "erected" because, evidently, the edifice is a mandir converted into a masjid. Incidentally, Emperor Jehangir called it Jami masjid. The Lat masjid has no minarets nor the traditional hauz in which the devotee can wash his hands and feet before performing namaz. It is a large rectangular pavilion with a great deal of open space in the centre. The four sided pavilion originally stood on some 300 square shaped stone pillars. On conversion by Dilawar Khan, the spaces between the outermost row of pillars were evidently filled with a wall somewhat thinner than the pillars. The entire scene is reminiscent of a temple rather than a mosque. However, such a feeling is not evidence enough of conversion by Dilawar Khan. Any number of pillars, however, on the eastern or the end opposite to where the mehrab and the mimbar are, have at their lower end, defaced carvings of murtis reminiscent of Vishnu. Every effort has been made on most such pillars to erase the statuettes but the outline of the murti is clearly seen. For example , the pillar at the corner of the eastern and the northern end has two statuettes on two faces of the pillar. Similarly, on the next pillar. Then coming to the south-eastern corner, every pillar bears Vishnu's image outline. All this shows that the Lat masjid is a blatant case of conversion from a mandir. It is not like several thousand mosques which were built with stones and statues, taken from demolished mandirs.

Hardly had on e walked a few steps after entering the main gate, when one noticed, on the wall outside, distinct remnants of Hindu deities. They are carved on solid stone which on the outside mingles quite naturally with the tile work of the same stone. One stone slab displays Ganesh by the side of his consort. There are several others including the crests of doorways at the entrance of the northern as well as the eastern face. Inside the mosque, the stone work is equall y convincing that the original building was a temple.

The National Minorities Commission has influenced governments, both at Delhi and at Gandhinagar into freezing the excavation work that was begun by the ASI in 1979. The details are available across 38 pages in the commission's Fourth Annual Report dated 1983. Improvement of the environments of the masjid was first conceived in 1959 in response to a complaint repeatedly made by the local Muslims that the ASI had been neglecting the repair and upkeep of the masjid. Yet, after 1983, the commission has not only ensured that the work was frozen but also that all the excavations made should be covered up. And this has been done despite what came out. The author was able to see a stone Nandi bull in a mutilated condition. The rest of the relics were covered up.