“In
the southern section of the city the fort of Rãjã Bisãl
is by far the most important ruin… South-west of it stands an old brick
Stûpa, now converted into a Dargãh… The name of the saint
who is supposed to have been buried there was given to me as Mîrãn-Jî…”16
Gaur and Pandua (Bengal)
“In order to erect
mosques and tombs the Muhammadans pulled down all Hindu temples they could
lay their hands upon for the sake of the building materials…
“The oldest and
the best known building at Gaur and Pandua is the Ãdîna Masjid
at Pandua built by Sikandar Shãh, the son of Ilyãs Shãh.
The date of its inscription may be read as either 776 or 770, which corresponds
with 1374 or 1369 A.D… The materials employed consisted
largely of the spoils of Hindu temples and many of the carvings from the
temples have been used as facings of doors, arches and pillars…”17
Devikot (Bengal)
“The ancient city
of Kotivarsha, which was the seat of a district (vishaya) under
Pundra-vardhana province (bhukti) at the time of the Guptas… is
now represented by extensive mounds of Bangarh or Ban Rajar Garh… The
older site was in continuous occupation till the invasion of the Muhammadans
in the thirteenth century to whom it was known as Devkot or Devikot. It
possesses Muhammadan records ranging from the thirteenth to the sixteenth
century…18
“The Rajbari mound
at the South-east corner is one of the highest mounds at Bangarh and. must
contain some important remains. The Dargah of Sultan Pir is a Muhammadan
shrine built on the site of an old Hindu temple of which four granite pillars…
are still standing in the centre of the enclosure, the door jambs having
been used in the construction of the gateway.
“The
Dargah of Shah Ata on the north bank of the Dhal-dighi tank is another
building built on the ruins of an older Hindu or Buddhist structure… The
female figure on the lintels of the doorway now, fixed in the east wall
of the Dargah appears to be Tara, from which it would appear that the temple
destroyed was Buddhist…”19
Tribeni (Bengal)
“The principal
object of interest at Tribeni is the Dargãh of Zafar Khãn
Ghãzî. The chronology of this ruler may be deduced from the
two inscriptions of which one has been fitted into the plinth of his tomb,
while the other is inside the small mosque to the west of the tomb. Both
refer to him and the first tells us that he built the mosque close to the
Dargãh, which dates from A.D. 1298; while the second records the
erection by him of a Madrasah or college in the time of Shamsuddîn
Fîroz Shãh and bears a date corresponding to the 28th April,
1313 A.D. It was he who conquered the Hindu Rãjã
of Panduah, and introduced Islam into this part of Lower Bengal… The tomb
is built out of the spoils taken from Hindu temples…20
“The eastern portion
of the tomb was formerly a maNDapa of an earlier Krishna temple
which stood on the same spot and sculptures on the inner walls represent
scenes from the RãmãyaNa and the Mahãbhãrata,
with descriptive titles inscribed in proto-Bengali characters… The other
frieze… shows Vishnu with Lakshmî and Sarasvatî in the centre,
with two attendents, and five avatãras of VishNu on both
flanks… Further clearance work has been executed
during the year 1932-33 and among the sculptures discovered in that year
are twelve figures of the Sun God, again in the 12th century style and
evidently reused by the masons when the Hindu temple was converted into
a Muslim structure…”21
Mandu (Madhya Pradesh)
“MãNDû
became the capital of the Muhammadan Sultãns of Mãlvã
who set about buildings themselves palaces and mosques, first with material
pilfered from Hindu temples (already for the most part desecrated and ruined
by the iconoclastic fury of their earlier co-religionists), and afterwards
with their own quarried material. Thus nearly
all the traces of the splendid shrines of the ParamAras of MAlvA have disappeared
save what we find utilized in the ruined mosques and tombs…22
“The date of the
construction of the Hindola Mahall cannot be fixed with exactitude… There
can, however, be no doubt that it is one of the earliest of the Muhammadan
buildings in MãNDû. From its outward appearance there is no
sign of Hindu workmanship but the repairs, that have been going on for
the past one year, have brought to light a very large number of stones
used in the structure, which appear, to have been taken from some pre-existing
Hindu temple. The facing stones, which have been
most accurately and smoothly cut on their outer surfaces, bear in very
many cases on their inner sides the under faced images of Hindu gods, or
patterns of purely Hindu design, while pieces of Hindu carving and broken
parts of images are found indiscriminately mixed with the rubble, of which
the core of the walls is made.”23
Dhar (Madhya Pradesh)
“…The mosque itself
appears from local tradition and from the numerous indications and inscriptions
found within it to have been built on the site of, and to a large extent
out of materials taken from, a Hindu Temple, known to the inhabitants as
Rãjã Bhoja’s school. The inference
was derived sometime back from the existence of a Sanskrit alphabet and
some Sanskrit grammatical forms inscribed in serpentine diagrams on two
of the pillar bases in the large prayer chamber and from certain Sanskrit
inscriptions on the black stone slabs imbedded in the floor of the prayer
chamber, and on the reverse face of the side walls of the mihrãb.24
“The
Lãt Masjid built in A.D. 1405, by Dilãwar Khãn, the
founder of the Muhammadan kingdom of Mãlvã… is of considerable
interest not only on account of the Iron Lãt which lies outside
it… but also because it is a good specimen of the use made by the Muhammadan
conquerors of the materials of the Hindu temples which they destroyed…”25
Vijayanagar (Karnataka)
“During the construction
of the new road-some mounds which evidently marked the remains of destroyed
buildings, were dug into, and in one of them were disclosed the foundations
of a rectangular building with elaborately carved base. Among the debris
were lumps of charcoal and calcined iron, probably the remains of the materials
used by the Muhammadans in the destruction of the building. The stones
bear extensive signs of having been exposed to the action of fire. That
the chief buildings were destroyed by fire, historical evidence shows,
and many buildings, notably the ViThalaswAmin temple, still bear signs,
in their cracked and fractured stone work, of the catastrophe which overtook
them…26
“The most important
temple at Vijayanagar from an architectural point of view, is the ViThalaswãmin
temple. It stands in the eastern limits of the ruins, near the bank of
the TuNgabhadra river, and shows in its later structures the extreme limit
in floral magnificence to which the Dravidian style advanced… This building
had evidently attracted the special attention of the Muhammadan invaders
in their efforts to destroy the buildings of the city, of which this was
no doubt one of the most important, for though many of the other temples
show traces of the action of fire, in none of them are the effects so marked
as in this. Its massive construction, however,
resisted all the efforts that were made to bring it down and the only visible
results of their iconoclastic fury are the cracked beams and pillars, some
of the later being so flaked as to make one marvel that they are yet able
to bear the immense weight of the stone entablature and roof above…”27
Bijapur (Karnataka)
“No ancient Hindu
or Jain buildings have survived at Bijapur and the only evidence of their
former existence is supplied by two or three mosques, viz., Mosque No.
294, situated in the compound of the Collector’s bungalow, Krimud-d-din
Mosque and a third and smaller mosque on the way to the Mangoli Gate, which
are all adaptations or re-erections of materials obtained from temples. These
mosques are the earliest Muhammadan structures and one of them, i.e., the
one constructed by Karimud-d-din, must according to a Persian and Nagari
inscription engraved upon its pillars, have been erected in the year 1402
Saka=A.D. 1324, soon after Malik Kafur’s conquest of the. Deccan.”28
Badami (Karnataka)
“Three stone lintels
bearing bas-reliefs were discovered in, course of the clearance at the
second gateway of the Hill Fort to the north of the Bhûtnãth
tank at Badami… These originally belonged to a temple which is now in ruins
and were re-used at a later period in the construction of the plinth of
guardroom on the fort.
“The
bas-reliefs represent scenes from the early life of KRISHNA and may be
compared with similar ones in the BADAMI CAVES…”29
The Theology of
Islam divides human history into two periods-the Jãhiliyya or the
age of ignorance which preceded Allah’s first revelation to Prophet Muhammad,
and the age of enlightenment which succeeded that event. It follows that
every human creation which existed in the “age of ignorance” has to be
converted to its Islamic version or destroyed. The logic applies to pre-Islamic
buildings as much as to pre-Islamic ways of worship, mores and manners,
dress and decor, personal and place names. This is too large a subject
to be dealt with at present. What concerns us here is the fate of temples
and monasteries that existed on the eve of the Islamic invasion and that
came up in the course of its advance.
What happened
to many “abodes of the infidels” is best described by a historian of Vijayanagar
in the wake of Islamic victory in 1565 A.D. at the battle of Talikota.
“The third day,” he writes, “saw the beginning of the end. The victorious
Mussulmans had halted on the field of battle for rest and refreshment,
but now they had reached the capital, and from that time forward for a
space of five months Vijayanagar knew no rest. The enemy had come to destroy,
and they carried out their object relentlessly. They slaughtered the people
without mercy; broke down the temples and palaces, and wreaked such savage
vengeance on the abode of the kings, that, with the exception of a few
great stone-built temples and walls, nothing now remains but a heap of
ruins to mark the spot where once stately buildings stood. They demolished
the statues and even succeeded in breaking the limbs of the huge Narsimha
monolith. Nothing seemed to escape them. They broke up the pavilions standing
on the huge platform from which the kings used to watch festivals, and
overthrew all the carved work. They lit huge fires in the magnificently
decorated buildings forming the temple of Vitthalswamin near the river,
and smashed its exquisite stone sculptures. With fire and sword, with crowbars
and axes, they carried on day after day their work of destruction. Never
perhaps in the history of the world has such havoc been wrought, and wrought
so suddenly, on so splendid a city: teeming with a wealthy and industrious
population in the full plenitude of prosperity one day, and on the next
seized, pillaged, and reduced to ruins, amid scenes of savage massacre
and horrors beggaring description…30
The Muslim victors
did not get time to raise their own structures from the ruins of Vijayanagar,
partly because the Hindu Raja succeeded in regrouping his forces and re-occupying
his capital and partly because they did not have the requisite Muslim population
to settle in that large city; another invader, the Portuguese, had taken
control of the Arabian Sea and blocked the flow of fresh recruits from
Muslim countries in the Middle East. What would have happened otherwise
is described by Alexander Cunningham in his report on Mahoba. “As Mahoba
was,” he writes, “for some time the headquarters of the early Muhammadan
Governors, we could hardly expect to find that any Hindu buildings had
escaped their furious bigotry, or their equally destructive cupidity. When
the destruction of a Hindu temple furnished the destroyer with the ready
means of building a house for himself on earth, as well as in heaven, it
is perhaps wonderful that so many temples should still be standing in different
parts of the country. It must be admitted, however, that, in none of the
cities which the early Muhammadans occupied permanently, have they left
a single temple standing, save this solitary temple at Mahoba, which doubtless
owed its preservation solely to its secure position amid the deep waters
of the Madan-Sagar. In Delhi, and Mathura, in Banaras and Jonpur, in Narwar
and Ajmer, every single temple was destroyed by their bigotry, but thanks
to their cupidity, most of the beautiful Hindu pillars were preserved,
and many of them, perhaps, on their original positions, to form new colonnades
for the masjids and tombs of the conquerors. In Mahoba all the other
temples were utterly destroyed and the only Hindu building now standing
is part of the palace of Parmal, or Paramarddi Deva, on the hill-fort,
which has been converted into a masjid. In 1843, I found an inscription
of Paramarddi Deva built upside down in the wall of the fort just outside
this masjid. It is dated in S. 1240, or A.D. 1183, only one year before
the capture of Mahoba by Prithvi-Raj Chohan of Delhi. In the Dargah of
Pir Mubarak Shah, and the adjacent Musalman burial-ground, I counted 310
Hindu pillars of granite. I found a black stone bull lying beside the road,
and the argha of a lingam fixed as a water-spout in the terrace
of the Dargah. These last must have belonged to
a temple of Siva, which was probably built in the reign of Kirtti Varmma,
between 1065 and 1085 A.D., as I discovered an inscription of that prince
built into the wall of one of the tombs.”31
No comments:
Post a Comment