We learn from
literary and epigraphic sources, accounts of foreign travellers in medieval
times, and modern archaeological explorations that, on the eve of the Islamic
invasion, the cradle of Hindu culture was honeycombed with temples and
monasteries, in many shapes and sizes. The same sources inform us
that many more temples and monasteries continued to come up in places where
the Islamic invasion had yet to reach or from where it was forced to retire
for some time by the rallying of Hindu resistance. Hindus were great
temple builders because their pantheon was prolific in Gods and Goddesses
and their society rich in schools and sects, each with its own way of worship.
But by the time we come to the end of the invasion, we find that almost
all these Hindu places of worship had either disappeared or were left in
different stages of ruination. Most of the sacred sites had come
to be occupied by a variety of Muslim monuments-masjids and îdgãhs
(mosques), dargãhs and ziãrats (shrines), mazãrs and
maqbaras (tombs), madrasas and maktabs (seminaries), takiyãs and
qabristãns (graveyards). Quite a few of the new edifices had
been built from the materials of those that had been deliberately demolished
in order to satisfy the demands of Islamic Theology. The same materials
had been used frequently in some secular structures as well-walls and gates
of forts and cities, river and tank embankments, caravanserais and stepwells,
palaces and pavilions.
Some apologists
of Islam have tried to lay the blame at the door of the White Huns or Epthalites
who had overrun parts of the Hindu cradle in the second half of the fifth
century A.D. But they count without the witness of Hiuen Tsang, the famous
Chinese pilgrim and Buddhist savant, who travelled all over this area from
630 A.D. to 644. Starting from Karashahr in Northern Sinkiang, he passed
through Transoxiana, Northern Afghanistan, North-West Frontier Province,
Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, North-Eastern Rajasthan, Uttar
Pradesh, Bihar, Nepal, Bengal, Assam, Orissa, Mahakosal and Andhra Pradesh
till he reached Tamil Nadu. On his return journey he travelled through
Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Bharat, Sindh, Southern Afghanistan
and Southern Sinkiang. In most of these provinces he found in a flourishing
state many Buddhist establishments consisting of vihãras
(monasteries), chaityas (temples) and stûpas (topes),
besides what he described as heretical (Jain) and deva (Brahmanical) temples.
The wealth of architecture and sculptures he saw everywhere confirms what
we learn from Hindu literary sources. Some of this wealth has been
recovered in recent times from under mounds of ruins.
During the course
of his pilgrimage, Hiuen Tsang stayed at as many as 95 Buddhist centres
among which the more famous ones were at Kuchi, Aqsu, Tirmiz, Uch Turfan,
Kashagar and Khotan in Sinkiang; Balkh, Ghazni, Bamiyan, Kapisi, Lamghan,
Nagarahar and Bannu in Afghanistan; Pushkalavati, Bolar and Takshasila
in the North-West Frontier Province; Srinagar, Rajaori and Punch in Kashmir;
Sialkot, Jalandhar and Sirhind in the Punjab; Thanesar, Pehowa and Sugh
in Haryana; Bairat and Bhinmal in Rajasthan, Mathura, Mahoba, Ahichchhatra,
Sankisa, Kanauj, Ayodhya, Prayag, Kausambi, Sravasti, Kapilvastu, Kusinagar,
Varanasi, Sarnath and Ghazipur in Uttar Pradesh; Vaishali, Pataliputra,
Rajgir, Nalanda, Bodhgaya, Monghyr and Bhagalpur in Bihar; Pundravardhana,
Tamralipti, Jessore and Karnasuvarna in Bengal; Puri and Jajnagar in Orissa;
Nagarjunikonda and Amaravati in Andhra Pradesh; Kanchipuram in Tamil Nadu;
Badami and Kalyani in Karnataka; Paithan and Devagiri in Maharashtra; Bharuch,
Junagarh and Valabhi in Gujarat; Ujjain in Malwa; Mirpur Khas and Multan
in Sindh. The number of Buddhist monasteries at the bigger ones of these
centres ranged from 50 to 500 and the number of monks in residence from
1,000 to 10,000. It was only in some parts of Eastern Afghanistan
and the North-West Frontier Province that monasteries were in a bad shape,
which can perhaps be explained by the invasion of White Huns. But so were
they in Kusinagar and Kapilavastu where the White Huns are not known to
have reached. On the other hand, the same invaders had ranged over
Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and most of Uttar Pradesh where
Hiuen Tsang found the monasteries in a splendid state. They had even
established their rule over Kashmir where Hiuen Tsang saw 500 monasteries
housing 5,000 monks. It is, therefore, difficult to hold them responsible
for the disappearance of Buddhist centres in areas where Hiuen Tsang had
found them flourishing. An explanation has to be found elsewhere. In any
case, the upheaval they caused was over by the middle of the sixth century.
Moreover, the temples and monasteries which Hiuen Tsang saw were only a
few out of many. He had not gone into the interior of any province, having
confined himself to the more famous Buddhist centres.
What was it that
really happened to thousands upon thousands of temples and monasteries?
Why did they disappear and/or give place to another type of monuments?
How come that their architectural and sculptural fragments got built into
the foundations and floors and walls and domes of the edifices which replaced
them? These are crucial questions which should have been asked by students
of medieval Indian history. But no historian worth his name has raised
these questions squarely, not to speak of finding adequate answers to them.
No systematic study of the subject has been made so far. All
that we have are stray references to the demolition of a few Hindu temples,
made by the more daring Hindu historians while discussing the religious
policy of this or that sultan. Sir Jadunath Sarkar2
and Professor Sri Ram Sharma3 have given more
attention to the Islamic policy of demolishing Hindu temples and pointed
an accusing finger at the theological tenets which dictated that policy.
But their treatment of the subject is brief and their enumeration of temples
destroyed by Aurangzeb and the other Mughal emperors touches only the fringe
of a vast holocaust caused by the Theology of Islam, all over the cradle
of Hindu culture, and throughout more than thirteen hundred years, taking
into account what happened in the native Muslim states carved out after
the British take-over and the formation of Pakistan after partition in
1947.
Muslim historians,
in India and abroad, have written hundreds of accounts in which the progress
of Islamic armies across the cradle of Hindu culture is narrated, stage
by stage and period by period. A pronounced feature of these Muslim histories
is a description-in smaller or greater detail but always with considerable
pride-of how the Hindus were slaughtered en masse or converted by
force, how hundreds of thousands of Hindu men and women and children were
captured as booty and sold into slavery, how Hindu temples and monasteries
were razed to the ground or burnt down, and how images of Hindu Gods and
Goddesses were destroyed or desecrated. Commandments of Allah (Quran)
and precedents set by the Prophet (Sunnah) are frequently cited
by the authors in support of what the swordsmen and demolition squads of
Islam did with extraordinary zeal, not only in the midst of war but also,
and more thoroughly, after Islamic rule had been firmly established. A
reference to the Theology of Islam as perfected by the orthodox Imams,
leaves little doubt that the citations are seldom without foundation.
The men and women
and children who were killed or captured or converted by force cannot be
recalled for standing witnesses to what was done to them by the heroes
of Islam. The apologists for Islam-the most dogged among them are some
Hindu historians and politicians-have easily got away with the plea that
Muslim “court scribes” had succumbed to poetic exaggeration in order to
please their pious patrons. Their case is weakened when they cite the same
sources in support of their owns speculation or when the question is asked
as to why the patrons needed stories of bloodshed and wanton destruction
for feeding their piety. But they have taken in their stride these
doubts and questions as well.
There are, however,
witnesses who are not beyond recall and who can confirm that the “court
scribes” were not at all foisting fables on their readers. These are the
hundreds of thousands of sculptural and architectural fragments which stand
arrayed in museums and drawing rooms all over the world, or which are waiting
to be picked up by public and private collectors, or which stare at us
from numerous Muslim monuments. These are the thousands of Hindu temples
and monasteries which either stand on the surface in a state of ruination
or lie buried under the earth waiting for being brought to light by the
archaeologist’s spade. These are the thousands of Muslim edifices, sacred
as well as secular, which occupy the sites of Hindu temples and monasteries
and/or which have been constructed from materials of those monuments.
All these witnesses carry unimpeachable evidence of the violence that was
done to them, deliberately and by human hands.
So far no one
has cared to make these witnesses speak and relate the story of how they
got ruined, demolished, dislocated, dismembered, defaced, mutilated and
burnt. Recent writers on Hindu architecture and sculpture-their tribe
is multiplying fast, mostly for commercial reasons-ignore the ghastly wounds
which these witnesses show on the very first sight, and dwell on the beauties
of the limbs that have survived or escaped injury. Many a time they
have to resort to their imagination for supplying what should have been
there but is missing. All they seem to care for is building their
own reputations as historians of Hindu art. If one
draws their attention to the mutilations and disfigurements suffered by
the subjects under study, one is met with a stunned silence or denounced
downright as a Hindu chauvinist out to raise “demons from the past”4
with the deliberate intention of causing “communal strife.”
We, therefore,
propose to present a few of these witnesses in order to show in what shape
they are and what they have to say.
Tordi (Rajasthan)
“At Tordi there
are two fine and massively built stone baolis or step wells known
as the Chaur and Khari Baoris. They appear to be old Hindu structures repaired
or rebuilt by Muhammadans, probably in the early or middle part of the
15th century… In the construction of the (Khari)
Baori Hindu images have been built in, noticeable amongst them being an
image of Kuber on the right flanking wall of the large flight of steps…”5
Naraina (Rajasthan)
“At Naraina… is
an old pillared mosque, nine bays long and four bays deep, constructed
out of old Hindu temples and standing on the east of the Gauri Shankar
tank… The mosque appears to have been built when Mujahid Khan, son of Shams
Khan, took possession of Naraina in 840 A.H. or 1436 A.D… To
the immediate north of the mosque is the three-arched gateway called Tripolia
which is also constructed with materials from old Hindu temples…”6
Chatsu (Rajasthan)
“At Chatsu there
is a Muhammadan tomb erected on the eastern embankment of the Golerava
tank. The tomb which is known as Gurg Ali Shah’s chhatri is built
out of the spoils of Hindu buildings… On the inside of the twelve-sided
frieze of the chhatri is a long Persian inscription in verse, but
worn out in several places. The inscription does
not mention the name of any important personage known to history and all
that can be made out with certainty is that the saint Gurg Ali (wolf of
Ali) died a martyr on the first of Ramzan in 979 A.H. corresponding to
Thursday, the 17th January, 1572 A.D.”7
SaheTh-MaheTh (Uttar Pradesh)
“The
ruined Jain temple situated in the western portion of MaheTh… derives the
name ‘Sobhnãth’ from Sambhavanãtha, the third TîrthaMkara,
who is believed to have been born at Šrãvastî…8
“Let
us now turn our attention to the western-most part of Sobhnãth ruins.
It is crowned by a domed edifice, apparently a Muslim tomb of the Pathãn
period…9
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