Hinduism and its 33 million deities – Nanditha Krishna

April 19, 2024VOI

Sri Ram's Padukas

It is said that there are 33 million deities in India. Yet every deity is a singular manifestation of the Supreme and the most important deity of the region. – Dr. Nanditha Krishna

The Rigveda enumerates 33 devas or ‘shining ones’, representing primarily the forces of nature. Of these, three were important: Agni or fire, Indra or rain, and Soma, a plant. The popular deities today are two Vedic gods—Vishnu combined with a non-Vedic Narayana, and Rudra combined with a non-Vedic Shiva—and the many forms of Shakti, the supreme goddess. Agni, Indra and Soma, along with 28 others, became ‘minor deities’. Later, more minor deities were added to the Hindu pantheon: ashtadikpalas (the eight guardians of directions), navagrahas (nine planets), vasus (eight attendant deities), adityas (12 forms of the sun), rudras (11 forms of Shiva), avataras (10 incarnations of Vishnu), along with river goddesses, lesser-known forms of the main deities, village gods and goddesses and demi-gods of Buddhism and Jainism.

The original major deities of the Vedas became minor over time, while the minor deities are today among the most important deities all over India. Of the avatars, only Rama and Krishna attained cult status, while Shiva is worshipped in different forms. This is how Indian religions were made inclusive and expanded their pantheons to absorb everyone’s religious beliefs. Adi Shankara recognised six cults in his time: Vaishnava, Shaiva, Shakta, Ganapatya, Saura (Sun) and Kaumara (Kartikeya). While the six deities remain, Surya, once the ruling deity of temples in Khajuraho, Modhera, Martand and Gwalior, has been demoted to a mere navagraha.

Recently, the C. P. Ramaswami Aiyar Institute of Indological Research in Chennai organised a seminar on minor deities in Indian art. Scholars from various parts of India gathered to share the plurality and syncretism of Indian religious and social traditions, as represented in visual language. Religious syncretism is the blending of different belief systems, incorporating other beliefs into an existing tradition. This occurs when such traditions exist in proximity to each other and are catholic enough to accept each other’s belief systems. Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism have made many adaptations over millenniums, assimilating elements of several religious traditions both in India and Southeast Asia.

Today’s Hinduism is a combination of different forms of beliefs and practices. It is no longer exclusively Vedic—it is the common people’s religion. Every village in India has a village deity, usually associated with fertility, rains, disease and so on. Shitala, a medicinal deity who cooled the body, became a dreaded goddess of disease in North India. Jvara, the deity of fever, who is propitiated as Jvarahareshwara in South India, is feared as the demon Jvarasura in Bengal. Mari originally meant rain and the pearl-like raindrops were called muthu-mari. Unfortunately, their resemblance to smallpox boils made Mariamman of Tamil Nadu into a dreaded goddess of disease. Thus, popular deities could change their character as social problems arose.

Village deities are generally made of terracotta, stucco or wood, and painted in brilliant colours. They may be situated in a wooden temple as in Kerala and Karnataka, or inside a simple brick-and-mortar shrine. Later, they were incorporated into exquisite stone sculpture. Each has a unique iconography. For example, Shitala in Rajasthan and Gujarat carries a broom and winnowing basket, and rides an ass. In Tamil Nadu, most village goddesses carry Durga’s weapons. But Ponni, the rice goddess, is depicted as a mere head: the earth on which the head is placed forms her body.

Folk deities may be grouped as gods of fertility, protector deities, fetishes (like stones and trees) and hero stones. The famous Ayyanaar is a protector, while goddesses protect children, combat disease and assure fertility. The popular Ayyappa of Kerala was originally a forest deity. Indian deities are associated with nature and natural resources like sacred groves and water bodies, the rain, a good harvest, disease and safety. By invoking the sanctity of rivers and lakes, animals and health, people protected the environment, controlled disease and ensured sustainable lifestyles for themselves and other creation.

What is amazing is the similarity among rural and tribal traditions across the country at a time when there was no easy communication. For example, votive offerings of terracotta horses to the deities of the sacred groves include the horses of Ayyanaar in Tamil Nadu and Bankura in Bengal. Every state shares this tradition, yet in no two states are the horses alike: that is the greatness of the Indian potter.

The minor deities were as important as the Vedic gods. A villager would never call his local goddess minor. She is all-important for him. Sometimes, the deity gets upgraded, such as Kamakshi of Kanchipuram, whose cult expanded when Rajasimha Pallava built a new temple and a new icon. Meenakshi, originally a goddess of fisherfolk, became the reigning deity of the new Pandya capital, Madurai. New mythologies were created, but old attributes were retained. They became aspects of Shakti or Vishnu or Shiva. This is how village deities were integrated into an all-Indian pantheon. The speakers at the seminar gave us a view of the many deities of their respective states, of dance forms like theyyam in Kerala and bhuta kola in Karnataka that are used to invoke gods.

No wonder it is said that there are ‘33 million deities’ in India. Yet every deity is a singular manifestation of the Supreme and the most important deity of the region. They are a reminder of a time when gods were invoked to protect people and the environment, and when religion was catholic enough to absorb other gods within an all-embracing belief system. That was syncretism, when the world was too small for more than one supreme deity, and all the gods and goddesses were merely different forms of the same Supreme Being and religious tradition. – The New Indian Express, 7 April 2024

› Dr. Nanditha Krishna is an author, historian, and environmentalist based in Chennai.

Soulmates: Gandhi and Kallenbach – Shimon Lev

March 26, 2024March 26, 2024VOI

This excerpt from an article by Dr. Shimon Lev of Hadassah Academic College, Jerusalem, is based on the public lecture he delivered on the occasion of the unveiling of the monument to Gandhi and Kallenbach in Vilnius, Lithuania, on 1 October 2015. – Admin

The story of Gandhi and Kallenbach, in my opinion, is a deeply intimate and personal story. But it also has historical and academic importance. This story is fascinating for yet another reason, as it proves and emphasizes the possibility of cross-cultural influences which can cause much greater outcomes, as was manifested in Gandhi’s impact on the world’s history.

The cross-culture aspects of this story involve Lithuania, South Africa, India and Israel. It involves a young and successful architect named Hermann Kallenbach, as well as an ambitious young Indian lawyer named Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who at that time was perhaps unaware he was to become the future Mahatma. Both Gandhi and Kallenbach were searching for their identities while living as unwelcome immigrants in South Africa.

But this story also involves Leo Tolstoy, the prophet of non-violence, who was among the main critics of Western civilization. It involves Hindus, Christians, Jews, Muslims, alongside with staunch Tolstoians and Theosophists as well as white racism. It also involves two ancient Asian nations on the process of a national revival, struggling for freedom in the age of the collapse of imperialism. But it also contains the most catastrophic event of the 20th century—World War II and the Holocaust. Gandhi on one hand, Hitler on the other—probably the two most famous figures of their time, but what a difference! And in-between there was Kallenbach, who was on the one hand a believer in non-violence, as a disciple of Gandhi, but on the other hand, shared the fears of the fate of his Jewish brothers in Europe, and particularly tried at the very last moment in 1939 to rescue his brother Simon Kallenbach’s family, as well as his other relatives, from the Nazi-occupied Klaipėda (Memel) in Western Lithuania.

Rarely can a historian come across such a story. But even if he does, he faces the risk of “destroying” it with the instrumentation of dry, boring academic facts and references. It is a true challenge to manage this risk, while at the same time giving due credit to the importance of this relationship in a broader historical perspective. … FULL ARTICLE HERE ›››

› Dr. Shimon Lev is an Israeli multidisciplinary artist, writer, photographer, curator and researcher in the fields of Indian Studies. He is the author of “Soulmates: The Story of Mahatma Gandhi and Hermann Kallenbach” and teaches at the Hadassah Academic College, Jerusalem.

Elihu Yale and the Indian Ocean slave trade – Geeta Pandey

March 15, 2024March 16, 2024VOI 1 Comment

Yale University has recently issued a formal apology for the links its early leaders and benefactors had with slavery. – Geeta Pandey

Since then, one name that has come under intense scrutiny in India is that of Elihu Yale, the man after whom the Ivy League university is named.

Yale served as the all-powerful governor-president of the British East India Company in Madras in southern India (present-day Chennai) in the 17th century and it was a gift of about £1,162 ($1,486) that earned him the honour of having the university named after him.

“It’s equivalent of £206,000 today if you adjust it for inflation,” historian Prof Joseph Yannielli, who teaches modern history at Aston University in Birmingham and has studied Yale’s links with the Indian Ocean slave trade, told the BBC.

It was not an enormous sum by today’s standards, but it helped the college construct an entire new building.

Often described as a connoisseur and collector of fine things and a philanthropist who generously donated to churches and charities, Elihu Yale is now in focus as a colonialist who plundered India and—worse—traded in slaves.

The university’s apology comes after more than three years of investigation into its dark past. Led by Yale historian David Blight, a team of researchers delved into the “university’s history with slavery, role of slaves in construction of a Yale building or whose labour enriched prominent leaders who made gifts to Yale”, the university said in a statement.

The apology was accompanied by the release of a 448-page book—Yale and Slavery: A history—by Prof. Blight that gives an insight into just how much Elihu Yale profited from slavery.

“The Indian Ocean slave trade, which eventually matched the Atlantic [slave trade] in size and scope, did not become so extensive until the 19th century. But on the Indian subcontinent, the trade in human beings along its coasts as well as inland and to islands was very old,” he writes, adding that Yale “oversaw many sales, adjudications, and accountings of enslaved people for the East India Company”.

Prof. Yannielli says the Atlantic trade saw 12 million slaves sold over 400 years. The Indian Ocean trade, he believes, was bigger as it covered a much larger geographical area, linking South East Asia with the Middle East and Africa—and went on for much longer.

The investigation of this past is important. Founded in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1701, Yale is the third-oldest institution of higher learning in the United State and counts a number of US presidents and other eminent people among its alumni.

And it’s well documented that starting in 1713, Elihu Yale sent hundreds of books on theology, literature, medicine, history and architecture, a portrait of King George I, fine textiles and other valuable gifts to the Collegiate School of Connecticut. The money raised by selling them was used to construct a new three-storey building which was named Yale College in his honour.

Historian and family member Rodney Horace Yale who wrote a biography of Elihu Yale in the 19th century says his “donation made the precarious existence of Yale college a blessed certainty”.

It also bought Yale immortality—even though there are no direct descendants of his, the Ivy League university perpetuates his name.

In its apology, the university said it would “work to enhance diversity, support equity and promote an environment of welcome, inclusion, and respect” and undertake work to “advance inclusive economic growth in New Haven” where 30% of the population is Black. But it did not say that a name change was on the cards – and it has rejected calls in the past to do so.

Born in Boston in April 1649, Elihu Yale moved with his family to England when he was three. He arrived at Fort St. George, the White colony in Madras, as a young man in 1672 with a clerical job with East India Company.

The salaries offered by the company were “notoriously and ludicrously small—from the governor’s at £100 a year down to the apprentices’ at £5”, Rodney Horace Yale wrote. He and other historians say its employees engaged in all sorts of trading of their own for private profit.

Over a quarter of a century, Yale rose through the ranks, finally being appointed the governor-president in 1687—a job he did for five years until 1692, when he was sacked for “using company funds for private speculation, arbitrary government and neglecting duty”.

In 1699 when he returned to England, the 51-year-old was a hugely wealthy man. He built “a stately home” in Queen’s Square on Great Ormond Street and filled it with arts and artefacts of great value.

Upon his death in July 1721, British papers described him as “a gentleman known for his extensive charity”. But historians say he was also known during his time in Madras for his cruelty and greed.

His successors accused him of corruption and unusual deaths of several of the council members when he was governor and, on one occasion, he was accused of ordering the hanging of one of his stable grooms “for riding a favourite horse of his without his permission”, Rodney Horace Yale wrote.

The historian says there’s some doubt about the evidence in the case, but adds that it does not “disagree with his character”.

“His surroundings must be his most effective defence for a record of arrogance, cruelty, sensuality and greed while in power at Madras,” he wrote.

But Rodney Horace Yale glosses over his ancestor’s role in the slave trade—something that many other biographers of Elihu Yale and recent historians are also accused of doing.

Prof. Yannielli, who’s combed through the colonial records of Fort St. George, says “it’s all there in black and white” and there’s no denying that “Elihu Yale was an active and successful slave trader”.

Prof. Yannielli wouldn’t hazard a guess on how much money Yale made from slavery because it “ebbed and flowed” and also because he traded in other things such as diamonds and textiles which made “it hard to disentangle the profits he made from each trade”. But, he believes, it was quite a substantial chunk of his fortune.

“I can say his capacity to make money was enormous. He was in charge of directing the Indian Ocean slave trade. In the 1680s, a devastating famine [in southern India] led to a labour surplus and Yale and other company officials took advantage of it, buying hundreds of slaves and shipping them to the English colony on Saint Helena,” he told me.

Yale, he adds, “participated in a meeting that ordered a minimum of 10 slaves sent on every outbound European ship. In just one month in 1687, Fort St. George exported at least 665 slaves. As governor-president of the Madras settlement, Yale enforced the 10-slaves-per-vessel rule”.

A former student at Yale, Prof. Yannielli first started digging into Elihu Yale’s association with slave trading over a decade ago when he came across an image of the governor being waited upon by a collared slave.

That famous painting, he says, is one of the most damning pieces of evidence that connects Yale to slavery. Dated between 1719 and 1721, it shows Yale with three other white men being served by a “page”—a term that generally means a servant but in this case, a euphemism for a slave.

“Slavery was ubiquitous in England at the time. It’s not clear whether he owned the slave himself or was it a member of his family [who was the owner]. But the presence of the child in the frame, serving him and others wine, shows that slavery was integrated into his day-to-day life.”

Prof. Yannielli says the reason why some of Yale’s earlier biographers have underplayed his links to slavery could be because of a lack of access to historical material in the past.

But since detailed minutes of East India Company’s meetings are now available digitally, the more recent scholars who have chosen to overlook the evidence is “because either they didn’t want to see it or may not have considered it important in the pre-Black Lives Matter era”.

Prof. Yannielli also rubbishes claims that Yale was an abolitionist who ordered prohibiting slave trade from Madras when he was governor.

“Saying that he actually ended slavery is an attempt to burnish his image. If you look at the original documents, it was India’s Mughal ruler who told the company to shut it. But Yale was back at it soon, ordering transport of slaves from Madagascar to Indonesia a year later.

“Resistance to slavery and imperialism started in the 15th century and there were abolitionists. But Yale definitely wasn’t one.” – BBC, 13 March 2024

› Geeta Pandey writes for BBCIndia in New Delhi.

A reasonable date for Adi Shankara – Venu Gopal Narayanan

March 7, 2024March 15, 2024VOI

We see that there is nothing in Shankara’s works which contradict his dating to the 6th century BCE, nor historical evidence to either support or disprove a belief that Bimbisara, the Buddha, and Mahavira were his contemporaries. – Venu Gopal Narayanan

Historians have spent a century trying to determine when Adi Shankaracharya lived. Thus far, a total lack of archaeological evidence has frustrated their efforts. Instead, many have employed linguistic tools to assume that he lived sometime in the 8th to 9th centuries of the common era (CE).

While these arguments may appear convincing to the lay reader, they are all no more than inconclusive guesstimates; the simple truth is that we do not yet know when this remarkable mind bound our sacred land together using the logic of Advaita.

On the other hand, the Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham at Kanchipuram, in Tamil Nadu, maintains a list of head seers which says that it was founded by Shankara in 509 BCE. That is about 1500 years earlier than modern guesstimates. The lineage list of the Govardhana Matha in Puri, Odisha, starts in 484 BCE. Similarly, the Dwaraka Matha in Saurashtra, Gujarat, maintains that it was established in 475 BCE.

The natural response for a Left Liberal thinker would be to declare a date of 6th century BCE as preposterous, and instantly dismiss it out of hand as some hoary tradition with no scientific basis. But the dharmic approach would be to test this thesis: what would be the impact on our history as we know it, if Shankara had indeed lived in the time of King Bimbisara of Magadha, Gautama the Buddha, and Mahavira the Tirthankara?

The most important test is whether such a date clashes with the dates of those texts referred to by Shankara in his works. Let us take the main ones:

One, the Brahma Sutra of Rishi Badarayana, which encapsulates the essence of the Upanishads—the concept of Brahman, and Vedanta—into dense aphorisms. Its opening line is, athato brahma jignyasa (then, therefore, the enquiry into Brahman). The basis of Shankara’s Advaita is his commentary on this work, called the Brahma Sutra Bhashya.

In the absence of any evidence, historians have dated this text with “great accuracy” to either the 5th or 2nd centuries BCE, or the 5th century CE.

Two, the Purva Mimamsa Sutra of Rishi Jaimini, who was an older contemporary of Rishi Badarayana. It aphoristically condenses the essence of the Brahmanas, Vedic texts detailing rituals and the concept of Dharma. Its opening line is, athato dharma jignyasa (then, therefore, the enquiry into Dharma). According to some legends, Shankara bested Mandana Mishra, the greatest proponent of Mimamsa, in a debate once, to establish the validity of Advaita with the ritualists.

Dating this text with any degree of assurance is an absolute non-starter because of nil epigraphical evidence till the medieval period. All we know is that it was composed in the same time period as the Brahma Sutra, since one cross-references the other.

Three, the Bhagavad Gita, and by extension, the two Epics. Shankara interpreted this celestial song using the logic of Advaita to demonstrate that it is the epitome of Vedic thought.

Once again, certain schools of historiography have gone to great pains to try and peg the Gita to a time after the Buddha, all without evidence of course. Assumptions chase conjectures through hoops of linguistics and philology to emerge as fact on the stages of academia.

There is a central reason why so much futile effort is expended: the date of the Vedas has to be held to 1500 BCE. Only then can horse-riding Aryans move from the steppes of Central Asia to the subcontinent. Only then can a yawning gap be created between the Vedic age and the supposedly earlier, supposedly different-in-every-way, Harappan/ Sindhu-Saraswati era.

Only then can Videgha Madhava of the Satapatha Brahmana carry Agni eastwards from the Saraswati River, around 1000 BCE, clear the forests along the Gandak, and settle his steppe folk in the Gangetic Plains. Now, in a tearing rush, the civilization can take root, compose the Upanishads, give birth to kingdoms, dynasties, legends, and initiate a lengthy intellectual journey which leads some millennia later to Shankara and Advaita.

However, if Shankara can be dated to the 6th century BCE, this elaborately fabricated historiography goes for a toss. Instead, and to the horror of our Marxist brethren, the date of Agni’s eastward journey gets pushed back by a thousand years at least, to well before the date they set for the Rig Veda, and bang in the middle of the Harappan era.

What Aryan invasion or migration theory then? This is what happens when our history is written for us by others, and what will persist if we allow that nefarious process to continue blithely forth without rigorous, scholarly contestation.

But mindsets are rapidly changing. The old assumptions are being hotly questioned, on merit. New data and new research show that Sanskrit is older than the Indus Valley Civilization, and, that Pali had evolved as a separate language by 4000 years ago. The discovery of the Sinauli chariot is both a new chapter of our ancient history waiting to be written, and the rewriting of conventional historiography; and one which points towards a far older date for Vidhega Madhava’s eastward passage.

Thus, we see that there is nothing in Shankara’s works which contradict his dating to the 6th century BCE, nor historical evidence to either support or disprove a belief that Bimbisara, the Buddha, and Mahavira were his contemporaries. But if this is so, then it turns some preconceived notions on their heads.

Rather than someone who contested the metaphysical intricacies of Buddhism only when it was deep into terminal decline in the subcontinent, which is how Shankara is popularly portrayed in modern scholarship, it means that he could have been there at the start, when the proliferation of heterodox sects began.

A date of 6th century BCE actually makes a lot more sense than one of 8th to 9th CE, because the motivations become a lot clearer, for bringing Brahman and Dharma—in essence, knowledge and action—together under one philosophical roof, for reinforcing the supremacy of the Vedas, and, for logically establishing with clear deductions, the umbilical Vedantic linkages between the Vedas, the Upanishads, and the Bhagavad Gita. It is all the philosophical protection Sanathana Dharma has ever needed to fend off the vagaries of history, and to preserve our way of life in our sacred land.

We may probably never know for sure which era Shankara lived in, but it feels good to imagine that a Malayalee sannyasi from Kaladi may have met and conversed with some great Biharis, in Sanskrit, in Uttar Pradesh, at a time of tremendous intellectual churn. – Swarajya, 25 February 2024

› Venu Gopal Narayanan is an independent upstream petroleum consultant who focuses on energy, geopolitics, current affairs and electoral arithmetic.

Hindu temples existed before the 5th century CE – Monidipa Bose Dey

February 27, 2024March 7, 2024VOI

A narrative that keeps appearing in the media is the claim that there were no Hindu temples before the 5th century CE. This claim is false, a myth, and the propaganda is aimed at postulating that most pre-Gupta temple structural ruins were Buddhist in nature – Monidipa Bose Dey

A favourite narrative of the Left scholars that keeps appearing regularly in media is the claim that “there were no Hindu temples before the 5th century CE.” This claim is nothing but a myth, and the propaganda is primarily aimed at postulating that most pre-Gupta temple structural ruins were Buddhist in nature, and Hinduism, Hindu gods/murtis, and Hindu temples are a later development, with the concept of Hinduism and Hindu gods starting from around the Kushana period (1st century). This fake narrative has been force-fed to Indians through constant repetitions of the claim in academia, school and college textbooks, and the publishing of articles on this topic in various journals and media platforms written by so-called scholars.

Unfortunately, many gullible Indians growing up with this constant brainwashing believe this fake claim, thinking Hindus did not have any temples as such before the Gupta period. Recently, in an article, a slightly modified claim was made that large Hindu temples did not exist before the 5th century CE. From “no Hindu temples before 5th century CE” to “no large Hindu temples before 5th century CE,” the shift in narrative is noteworthy.

The standards of civilisation are often measured, among other things, by the then available scientific planning, longevity of structures built, aesthetic appeal, and successful completion of buildings that range from religious to military to residential structures. Seeing the antiquity and the advanced nature of Indian civilisation, it is not surprising to find Indian writers from ancient times quite taken up with the subject of architecture, and this obsession is evident in all forms of literature ranging from the Vedas to the Epics, Puranas, Buddhist texts, Jain texts, Agamic literature, and various historical and even political treatises. With such a vast spectrum of knowledge compiled in books, and India being a country that has always been deeply religious, it is completely illogical to think ancient Indian civilisation would have no Hindu temples.

This article will take a look at the various evidences that clearly show Hindu temples existed in ancient times and did not start from the 5th century CE, as Marxist scholars have always claimed.

Evidence from texts

Texts from ancient India help us to understand the nature of the worship of gods in India and the temples built for them. In the Astadhyayi (around the 4th century BCE), Panini gives names of Vedic deities, such as Agni, Indra, Varuna, Bhava, Sarva, Rudra, Mrda, Aryama, Tvasta, Súrya, Sóma, Indrani, Varunani, Agnayi, Usha, Prthivi, who were worshipped. Bhakti or theistic form of devotion was present in Panini’s time, which is clear by his reference to devotion to Vasudeva and Arjuna, while names like Varunadatta and Aryamadatta indicate sons were named after gods like Varuna and Aryama, to show devotion.

Panini also mentioned the use of images for worship (arcas), which indicate the existence of shrines where these arcas were worshipped.

Patanjali’s Mahabhasya (2nd century BCE), which is a detailed commentary on Panini’s work, mentions the worship of Vasudeva-Krishna as a deity; and specifically mentions temples of Dhanapati (Kubera), Rama (Balarama), and Kesava (Vasudeva), where worship would occur with various elaborate rituals, accompanied by music and dance. From around the same time, there have been found murtis of Kupiro yakho (Kubera yaksa) from Bharhut, and of Balarama from Mathura. A murti with the inscription of four-armed Vasudeva-Visnu carrying gada and chakra in his upper hand and holding a sankha (broken) in the lower hand, from Malhar (Bilaspur in Madhya Pradesh), is dated to the 2nd century BCE. These murtis would all be worshipped in temples of their own.

Kautilya’s Arthasastra refers to various temples within a fortified city that enshrined Shiva, Vaisravana, Asvinikumãras, Sri (Laksmi), and Madeira (a fertility goddess associated with the Mother Goddess sect). The Arthasastra mentions images of Aparajita (Durga), Apratihata (Visnu), and Jayanta (Kumara), which were worshipped by King Bhagabhadra (131 BCE, the fifth Sunga ruler); and Vaishnava shrines erected by Gautamiputra Bhagavata, the ninth Sunga ruler, in his 12th year.

Evidence from inscriptions

Three inscriptions from Nagar (Chittorgarh, Rajasthan), refer to the construction of a stone wall that enclosed a place for worship of Sankarsana and Väsudeva by King Sarvatata of the Kanva dynasty (250-300 BCE). The Nanaghat (Pune) inscription of Naganika of the 1st century BCE refers to Vedic sacrifices by the Satavahana royal family and starts with homages to divinities such as Dharma, Indra, Sankarsana-Vasudeva, Chandra-Surya, and the Lokapalas (Yama, Varuna, Kubera, and Vasava). An inscription from Mora (Mathura) during the reign of Mahaksatrapa Sodasa (10-25 CE) records the installation of murtis of the five Vrsni heroes in a stone temple. Another Mathura inscription of the same time, found engraved on a door-jamb, records the construction of a temple with torana and vedika for Vasudeva.

An inscription from Nandsa (Udaipur, Rajasthan, 226 CE), records the performance of Vedic sacrifices after the construction of temples dedicated to Brahma, Indra, Prajapati, and Visnu.

Structural evidence from Mauryan periods

From the time of Ashoka Maurya (272-232 BCE) to the early Kusana period, various pieces of evidence from rock-cut shrines and from surviving foundations of temples suggest that in those times, temples were built in circular (vitta), elliptical (vettäyata), and apsidal (capakara) forms. The Ajivika caves at Barabar (Gaya, Bihar) of Mauryan times, preserve both circular and elliptical shrines in hut forms with domed or vaulted roofs.

Belonging to the Mauryan period is a circular brick-and-timber shrine (plinth) of the 3rd century BCE, located at Bairat (Jaipur). Temple No. 40 at Sanci was originally an apsidal stone temple of the Mauryan period, raised on a high rectangular plinth, the superstructure likely built of wood that no longer exists.

Structural forms prevalent during the Mauryan period continued into later periods, as found recorded in many bas-reliefs from Sanchi, Mathura, Amaravati, etc. The apsidal plan for temples was more popular than the circular or elliptical plan during this period. Three stone apsidal shrines from the 1st century CE are known from Taxila (Takshasila), while Temple No. 18 at Sanchi was also an apsidal shrine, datable to the 2nd century BCE.

Remains of temples from pre-Shunga and Shunga era

The apsidal temple at Sonkh (Mathura, dated 1st century BCE) was one of such early temples. The Ghosundi inscription (1st century BCE, near Chittorgarh) talks of a temple complex named Narayana-vatika dedicated to Samkarshana-Vāsudeva; foundations of an elliptical structure, dated 2nd century BCE, found at the site of Besnagar in Vidisha is that of a Vaishnava temple; an identical structure discovered at Nagar (Chittorgarh) by Bhandarkar is dated to 350-300 BCE; while the Mora well inscription (1st century CE) refers to a temple in Mathura.

Hindu temple architecture from the post-Mauryan era is known from the remains of the temple foundations, pertaining to their ground plans, found during various archaeological excavations. Unfortunately, the superstructures of these ancient temples were not preserved, because they would often be built of wood or bricks.

One such example of a temple from ancient India is the Vasudeva shrine from the 3rd century BCE (approximately dated 200 BCE), found close to the Heliodorus pillar in Besnagar, near Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh. From a study of the archaeological report of the excavation of this site by D.R. Bhandarkar (ASI Annual Report 1913-14), it is very clear the temple which belonged to the Sunga period was by no means a small one. In fact, the word prasadottoma was found in an inscription on a pillar stump from the site, meaning the temple was the best among the ones in Vidisha, clearly indicating the Heliodorus Garuda pillar was built in front of the most celebrated temple of Vasudeva of that time. Thus, we find archaeological evidence of a large Hindu temple from the 3rd-2nd century BCE.

Another example of a Hindu temple from ancient India is the Vasudeva-Sankarshana temple found in Nagari, Rajasthan. Here, a stone enclosure for a Vasudeva-Sankarshana shrine is mentioned in an inscription which belonged to 300-250 BCE. The site preserves a massive stone enclosure and the plinth of an elliptical brick temple. Below the surface level of this stone enclosure, archaeologists found the remains of an earlier building that dated to 350-300 BCE. The Vasudeva-Sankarsana shrine structure was elliptical in shape with a puja-sila-prakara built around it, and only the lower moulding of the superstructure had survived which was 2 feet high, showing the temple was a large one. The shrine remained an active place for Vaishnava worship until the 7th century CE.

A series of apsidal temples from ancient India were excavated at Sonkh, dating to the 1st century BCE. The apsidal Temple No. 2 at Sonkh had a large stone railing surrounding the shrine that had engravings on both sides. On the southern side of the railing, carved ruins of a stone entrance were found that had two pillars supporting a superstructure of three architraves with voluted ends. An architectural piece from the bottom lintel of the doorway showed carvings depicting a naga and a nagin sitting on thrones, surrounded by attendants and devotees, thus denoting the temple as a Naga shrine.

Numismatic evidence of Hindu temples in 200 BCE

Numismatically speaking, ancient Hindu temple architecture was found depicted on coins and coin moulds marked by the Yaudheyas. The Yaudheyas were a martial republican clan, who were at the peak of their power between 200 BCE to 400 CE, in areas of what is now Haryana, Punjab, and Rajasthan. Being a martial clan, most of the Yaudheya coins depicted the war-god Karttikeya (Brahmanyadeva). Among the many temples seen on Yaudheya coins, one structure with a dome-shaped roof and square plan stands out. It stood on an elevated adhishthana, consisting of four mouldings. The object of worship would have stood in the centre. Double domes were a popular design at that time, as evident from the many coins depicting them, while there are examples of even triple-domed temples. The third image clearly shows a Shiva temple with the Shiva linga at the centre of the sanctum. The existence of Shaiva shrines is confirmed by a four-pillared double-domed structure surmounted by a trident, which is the established emblem of Shiva. The trident on top of a four-pillared double-domed structure also confirms the Shaivite affiliation of such shrines.

Sometimes temples on Yaudheya coins show a dome marked by vertical divisions, which indicate wooden beams on the sanctum roof. A double or triple-domed structure having a square plan shows that the domes would have been covered by slanting slabs giving the sikhara a triangular look. One Yaudheya coin also depicts a structure topped with a vajra-like motif, clearly indicating a shrine dedicated to Indra Deva.

Thus, from the above-presented evidence (texts, archaeological, and numismatics), it is quite clear that Hindu temples were indeed present much before the 5th century CE, and they were often large shrines dedicated to various gods. – News18, 18 February 2024

› Monidipa Bose Dey is a well-known travel and heritage writer.

James Prinsep: The Englishman who mapped the Adi Vishwanath Temple in Kashi – Yudhajit Shankar Das

February 8, 2024February 27, 2024VOI

James Prinsep first served in Calcutta and then in Benaras for ten years. Prinsep’s stay in Varanasi—from 1820 to 1830—is what is of interest and importance against the backdrop of what is unfolding today. – Yudhajit Shankar Das

At a walking distance from Kolkata’s Eden Gardens is the Prinsep Ghat on the banks of the River Hooghly. One gets a close view of the Vidyasagar Setu and can take a boat ride on the Hooghly from Prinsep Ghat.

The ghat is named after James Prinsep, a British numismatist and archaeologist, who made significant contributions to India’s historiography. He came to India when he was 28 and was the youngest fellow of the British Asiatic Society.

It was Prinsep who deciphered the Brahmi and Kharosthi scripts and helped the world know about Emperor Ashoka’s reign. It was he who established that King Devanampriya Piyadasi, who is mentioned in several inscriptions from Sri Lanka to Afghanistan, was none other than Emperor Ashoka.

The ghat in Kolkata was named after Prinsep as a way to recognise his contributions after he passed away in London in 1840 at the young age of 41.

James Prinsep and his ‘Benares Illustrated’

James Prinsep first served in Calcutta (now Kolkata) and then in Benaras (now Varanasi) for ten years. Prinsep’s stay in Varanasi (from 1820 to 1830) is what is of interest and importance against the backdrop of what is unfolding now.

Prinsep built Varanasi’s underground sewage system, which is still operational, restored the Alamgir Mosque, built by Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb in 1669, and drew the city’s maps. He also brought out a book, Benares Illustrated, A Series of Drawings, in 1831.

That book and the map will be used as part of evidence by the Hindu side in the legal battle for the Gyanvapi complex, IndiaToday has been told.

In Benares Illustrated, James Prinsep used lithography to engrave every scene on paper and present information with evidence. Chapters and illustrations include Munikurnika Ghat, Bruhma Ghat, Procession of the Tazeeas and Hindoo Nach Girls.

Most importantly, James Prinsep, in Benares Illustrated, discussed the architecture of the old Vishweshwar Temple, and how the original place of worship was converted to the present Gyanvapi Mosque. Vishweshwar or Lord of the Universe is another name for Lord Shiva.

Prinsep on Auranzeb’s bigotry

In Benares Illustrated, Prinsep details how Aurangzeb’s men used the material from the destroyed Kashi Vishweshwar Temple to build the Gyanvapi Mosque.

“The bigotry of Aurungzeb did not allow many vestiges of this more ancient style to remain. In 1660, for some trifling resistance to the imposition of a capitation tax, he took occasion to demolish the principal Shiwalas, and constructed Musjids or mosques with the same materials and upon the same foundations, leaving portions of the ancient walls exposed here and there, as evidence of the indignity to which the Hindoo religion had been subjected,” Princep writes.

The Kashi Vishweshwar Temple is of immense significance in Hinduism as it is one of the 12 Jyotirlingas or temples where Lord Shiva is said to have appeared as a column of light. Lord Shiva is said to have created a water-producing spot there hence the name Gyanvapi (well of knowledge).

The Adi Vishveshwara Temple was destroyed by Qutb ud-Din Aibak, the general of Muhammad Ghori, in 1194 but was rebuilt. It was Aurangzeb who razed the Kashi Vishweshwar Temple again in 1669 and built the Gyanvapi Mosque using the same foundations and materials.

It is very similar to the use of materials from the destroyed 12th-century temple that was used to build the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. The Babri Masjid was constructed in 1528 by Babur’s commander, Mir Baqi.

Babur was the first Mughal ruler in India, while Aurangzeb was the last of that family to hold sway.

Prinsep’s 200-year-old map of Gyanvapi Temple

Prinsep then went on to reveal the old plan of the Vishweshwar Temple by drawing a map and marking on it how the Aurangzeb-built mosque stood on it.

But how could Prinsep, who came to Varanasi in the 19th century, come up with the map of the old Kashi Vishweshwar Temple, which was destroyed by Aurangzeb in the 17th Century, after a gap of about 160 years?

Prinsep explains in Benares Illustrated how he exactly managed to draw the map of the old Vishweshwar temple.

“Antiquarians will be well pleased that the Moosulmans, in their zeal for the triumph of their own religion, discovered a method of converting the original structure into a capacious Musjid, without destroying above one-half of its walls; so that not only the ground plan but the entire architectural elevation, may still be traced out,” he writes.

Shiva linga found in a well in Gyanvapi Mosque. According Muslims it is a wazukhana fountain (though there is no water connection and the top nozzle is added recently).

Women doing abhishek to lingam in the Adi Vishwanath Temple (Peter Mindy 1632).

The word ‘spolia’ hides too many humiliations – Reshmi Dasgupta

February 2, 2024February 5, 2024VOI

For medieval European builders who used temple rubble in their churches, the older Pagan faith was totally snuffed out in the former Roman Empire, so no one was left to protest against the deliberate insult to the ancient Gods. But in India there are many left to seethe about temple ‘spolia’ in mosques. – Reshmi Dasgupta

‘Spolia’ is an interesting word. Taken from Latin, it means “spoils” (of war) but archaeologists and academics use it to describe stones and architectural elements retrieved from older structures and re-used in new constructions, as masonry or decoration, either in the same place or elsewhere. Many of those who use the word prefer it because ‘spolia‘ sounds passive, because most people do not know the real meaning, with its vivid allusions to violence and destruction.

Debris and rubble are the better known words that imply destruction and hence are less used as they give rise to uncomfortable questions. More so when certain sections of them are reused intact, so that their original purpose juxtaposed with their new ‘repurposed’ existence remains clear to those looking at it. Hindu and Jain temple ‘spolia’—pillars—used in the cloisters of the 12th century Quwwat-ul-Islam Mosque in New Delhi’s Mehrauli is one such example in India.

Of course, an entire wall of an older structure retained intact in a subsequent construction—one example of which is currently in the news here—cannot be called ‘spolia’ in the classical sense as technically, it is not in bits and pieces. But its impact on those who see it is far sharper than, say, statues of Pagan or forbidden gods embedded in walls or on stairs, of which there are many examples in the areas of the erstwhile Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empires.

In this connection, it may be remembered that remains of old statues and columns which were used in later constructions in the Acropolis in Athens have been widely interpreted as a deliberate device to forever remind Athenians about the destruction wrought by Persian emperor Xerxes I in 480 BCE after the battle of Thermopylae. Only certain spolia were used, so as to ensure Athenians resolve to never let it happen again. This is called ‘purposeful memorialisation’.

The ‘spoliate colonnades’ of Rome, however, are even more apt in the context of Mehrauli as intact pre-Christian Roman pillars were deliberately re-used in churches. In Spolia Churches of Rome: Recycling Antiquity in the Middle Ages, Maria Fabricius Hansen writes how from the 4th century CE to the 13th century CE, Christians “re-used” columns, pediments and other spolia of ancient (Pagan) Rome prominently in churches. It even became an architectural style.

The assertion of Christianity over the earlier faith prevalent there was implicit in this exercise since the new churches not only used old material but were also eventually built on the very sites of Roman temples. Fortunately for those medieval church builders, the older faith was totally snuffed out in the former Roman Empire, so no one was left to protest against the deliberate insult to their ancient gods. But in India there are many left to seethe about ‘spolia’.

The term ‘purposeful memorialisation’ can be used to describe the use of ‘spolia’ in India too, but the intention was rather different. Although contemporary left-leaning historians have tried hard to find a continuity in terms of violence and destruction in India before and after the advent of Islamic rulers, there is little proof of wilful debasing. There is no evidence of Buddhist ‘spolia’, for example, being deliberately used in Hindu temples to humiliate and disparage.

On the contrary, the great Buddhist university or mahavihara at Nalanda (then in Magadha and now Bihar) was built by the Hindu emperor Kumaragupta in the 5th century and flourished under successive Hindu rulers and non-royal Hindu donors. It was destroyed in the 12th century by ‘Turks’ (almost certainly Bakhtiyar Khilji’s army) corroborated by contemporary accounts of monks. The site of another mahavihara Odantapur that Khilji razed became Bihar Sharif.

Many reused ‘older’ building materials in India without any idea of what the original structures were, of course. Bricks and pillars of the 2ndcentury BCE Amaravati mahachaitya buried for more than a millennia were reused by a local zamindar Raja Vesireddy Nayudu to build his new capital in the late 18th century. Bricks from the then-undiscovered Harappa were also used by the British as track ballast for the Lahore-Multan railway in the late 19th century.

The Indus-Saraswati civilisation was still unknown when the railway was being built and Amaravati was just a grassy mound of bricks. They both could just as well have belonged to abandoned settlements of relatively recent provenance, that too not of known importance. So, whether knowing the origin of the bricks and ‘spolia’ would have really made a difference in these two cases remains moot. But all use of ‘spolia’ in India has not been that unwitting.

Which explains why there has been a concerted effort to project that destruction of places of worship and use of ‘spolia’ in India predated the Islamic period. One example cited is of the Pallava king Narasimhavarman I’s Brahmin general Paranjothi who took away a Ganesha idol from the Chalukyan capital Vatapi (now Badami in Karnataka) after the defeat of Pulakeshin II in 642 AD and installed it in his village Tiruchenkattankudi in Tiruvarur district of Tamil Nadu. But those who cite it omit the fact that the razing of Vatapi exempted temples.

Not only did Paranjothi install the Ganesha idol with great devotion and respect in his village but there is an inscription by Narasimhavarman I in the Mallikarjuna Temple at Vatapi, proving that destruction of Chalukyan temples—much less raising another structure on the site to rub it in—was not on the agenda. Carrying away idols did not indicate contempt as they were not melted down, unlike those taken from southern temples by Alauddin Khilji’s general Malik Kafur.

Another example given is of Rajadhiraja Chola who defeated the Chalukyas and plundered their capital Kalyani, taking away a large black stone dwarapala. But the inscription on that dwarapala, now installed at the Darasuram Temple in Kumbakonam, attributing its presence there to Rajadhiraja, proves it was not demeaned or destroyed but respectfully given place in another temple. If this could be called ‘spolia’ at all, it had been given a dignified new home.

The actions of warring southern Hindu rulers were a marked contrast to the attitude of the invading Islamic armies from the north, especially the expeditions of Alauddin Khilji’s favourite general Malik Kafur. The many stories of idols hidden to prevent destruction and mutilated stone carvings of figures in the great temples of south India bear witness to the fury and intentions of these invaders, going beyond just plundering their gold, gems, horses and elephants.

This is conveyed in almost fawning detail by the admired 14th century bard Amir Khusrau (who was witness to many of those pillaging wars) in Tarikh-i-Alai. One description goes: “The holy places of the Hindus, which the Malik Kafur dug up from its foundations with the greatest care. … The stone idols called ling, which had existed for a long time and until now, the kick of the horse of Islam hadn’t attempted to break … the Mussalmans destroyed all the idols”.

In most cases though, the ‘spolia’ used by idol-breaking armies are not as evident as, say, at the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque and certainly Gyanvapi. But the question is when (if at all) will India’s historians and intelligentsia take a cue from their counterparts (who have noted the same phenomenon around the Mediterranean) face up to the truth? They need to not only call a spade a spade but also disseminate the real meaning and purpose of ‘spolia’ in history. – FirstPost, 14 August 2023

› Reshmi Dasgupta is an editor at the Times of India, New Delhi.

Significance of Sri Ram Temple for women of Bharat – Tulika Saxena

January 25, 2024February 3, 2024VOI

The Sri Ram Temple in Ayodhya has far reaching implications of which we are not yet aware. Though it may not seem evident now, reinstating our temples and the spontaneous, organic, and emotional response for homecoming of Prabhu Sri Ram is connected with addressing violence against women in Bharat. According to Dr. Tulika Saxena, here is why:

The nationwide enthusiasm around the Prana Pratishtha event on 22nd January in Ayodhya is unprecedented. The way people have come together from all parts of Bharat for this event is serving as a strong rebuttal to those who were sceptical and prioritized hospitals or universities over temples. The rapid progress and development in Ayodhya city highlight the transformative impact of the Sri Ram Lalla Temple. This cultural revival extends beyond Ayodhya, contributing to a resurgence of Sanatan Dharma across Bharat. The impact is already noticeable, signalling a larger movement that continues to gain momentum with the opening of the Sri Ram Temple.

It is yet very early to analyse and speculate on the various fruits this renaissance will yield. However, estimates are being made that this will result in the economic and cultural revival of Sanatan civilisation. But hardly anyone is discussing what it could mean for violence against women in Bharat. An issue for which Bharat has earned quite a bad reputation in past.

Even feminists, leftist groups and self-proclaimed liberals, are not connecting this to women. They are analysing this development with evident anxiety, frustration, anger, and a sense of hopelessness. They perceive it as a rise of majoritarianism, the resurgence of a fascist state, a decline in democracy, loss of secularism, worsening of women’s status and the suppression of minority rights. They will hardly relate the temple in Ayodhya as a potential solution to issues such as violence against women.

But as someone who has worked in the area of violence against women for the last 20 years, I can see the potential of this event in Bharat and it will pave the way to find solutions to tackle violence against women.

Feminists globally are grappling with the search for a solution to combat violence against women, which consists of domestic violence and sexual violence. Unfortunately, with each passing year, the menacing spectre of violence against women persists, as the figures either remain stagnant or increase.

Colonisation, temples, and women

To understand how the Ayodhya temple can help address violence against women, we must explore how colonisation, temples and women are connected.

For most part of the world, colonisation or invasion had a pattern. Wherever it happened, it destroyed the indigenous population’s connection to their own culture and religious practises. This was replaced with the coloniser’s values, beliefs, and religion. For example, in Iran where Zoroastrianism, and in Afghanistan where Buddhism and Hinduism, were wiped out.

However, Bharat is an exception as even more than a thousand years of colonisation did not result in the dismantling of Sanatan culture. Invasions and the colonisation happened in Bharat in multiple phases—Turkish, Mongol, Persian, British, Portuguese, Danish, Dutch, French—over a prolonged period of more than thousand years and was met with strong resistance. Though Sanatan Dharma survived, it was left significantly weak and its societal fabric severely damaged.

Rampant desecration, destruction, and plunder of temples in Northern India was aimed at shaking the very core of the civilisational heritage of Bharat. It is a well known fact that for about eight hundred years, during Islamic and Mughal rule in Delhi, there was no temple left standing and no attempts to restore or build new temples was possible till 1939 when Birla’s Laxminarayan Temple was constructed.

The other impact was on the status of women and their experience of violence. To give this statement a context, American historian Will Durant has described Islamic conquest of India as one of the bloodiest stories of human history. It is evident that during those times violence against women in Bharat was at a scale unimaginable. Rape, abductions, sex slavery, forced conversions were rampant. It is said that lakhs of women were abducted and sold in markets the world over.

Colonisation has a two-pronged impact, direct and indirect. Not only it directly exerts violence against indigenous communities including severe violence against women, but it also breaks the protective factors that exist in the indigenous cultural practises that protects and supports freedom of women. Traumatised, perplexed and helpless victim indigenous communities often respond to make their women safe by curbing liberties that women otherwise had. And limiting freedom and liberties of women then itself becomes violence, a violence that is not committed by invaders or colonisers, but by their own indigenous community.

With the passage of time, it seeps into society in such a way that the underlying causes of violence are forgotten. It seems that the indigenous culture itself sanctions violence. The examples of these in Bharat are son preference—celebrating birth of a son more than a daughter—female infanticide which with the advent of technology evolved into female foeticide, child marriages, veiling of women, restrictions on mobility and education of women and girls, etc.

So here is how temples and women are connected. Both temples and women remained unsafe in public, vulnerable to loot, plunder, and rape. To save Sanatan practises and Dharma, during very violent phases of invasion, coercion, and destruction, to keep our connection with our Gods safe, our temples were brought inside the home and so were the women.

Resurgence of Sanatan Dharma and restoring status of women

Colonisation is not meant to protect indigenous culture, indigenous women, and indigenous wisdom. It happened elsewhere also in Africa, America, Canada, and Australia. The coloniser state does not act as a protector, so the systems and structures of the colonisers are not aligned for the protection and well-being of the colonised population.

Take the example of Australia, within two hundred years of colonisation, the Aboriginal Australians were uprooted completely from their culture of thousands of years. Currently Aboriginal women experience more violence than the non-indigenous population of Australia. In the process of reconciliation and healing, Australia accepts that violence against women that exists within Aboriginal communities is the result of colonisation and the broken connection to their culture. Violence was not part of the culture prior to colonisation. One important way to address this violence is that Aboriginal communities build their broken connection to their culture back.

As part of finding solutions for violence against women, connecting to the culture of ancestors and highlighting that it was not sanctioned by culture is extremely critical.

And connecting back with the civilisational culture is happening currently in Bharat, a process of decolonisation resulting in resurgence of Sanatan Dharma. Prime Minister Modi made five resolutions for twenty-five years leading up to one hundred years of independence.

The second resolution is to remove any trace of colonial mindset and, third, is to resolve to take pride in our roots. This way, for the very first time, a blueprint towards a decolonisation process was proposed by the government in Bharat. And having our temples back is a very key step in the decolonisation process. And with decolonisation will come solutions that only Bharat can provide to the entire world along with violence against women.

Significance of Sri Ram and the Ayodhya temple

To prevent violence against women, there is a need to reach masses and engage with them. This engagement needs to be strong enough, needs to appeal and make people reflect on their values especially in relation to women. This is where the whole world is struggling, and prevention programs are not yet yielding results. These programs are focussed on creating a culture of respect for women. However value systems that are deeply embedded in culture cannot be rebuilt in a few years. Especially sanctions around these value systems that are deeper than just asking to respect women.

And here is why Sri Ram and the Sri Ram Lalla Temple has a huge significance. Sri Ram and Ram Rajya highlights that violence was never part of Sanatan culture, though in the past there has been attempts to tarnish what Sri Ram and the Ramayana signifies. Leftist historians, feminists and certain political groups did not leave any stone unturned to establish Sri Ram as misogynist and chants of Jai Sri Ram as a manifestation of aggression and violence.

However, the spontaneous and organic response to the Pran Pratishtha event shows that those groups failed. The deep emotional connection that Sanatanis are showing all over Bharat and around the world is astonishing and unexpected. This shows that there will be much greater implications of this event than what we can imagine. When more and more people will connect with Sri Ram, who is not just Sri Ram but Maryada Purushottam Sri Ram, a God who is the embodiment of pure character, discipline, fairness and justice, there is bound to be positive changes. Sri Ram stood for dignity of women and moved mountains and crossed seas to avenge the disrespect towards his wife Sita. If men in Bharat take inspiration from Sri Ram, with the passage of time it will directly result in reduction of violence against women. Further, Ram Rajya symbolises a perfect governance where there is rule of law. When law and order thrive, women’s safety increases.

Though worldwide Bharat is looked down on as a country leading in violence against women, there is a past record of successfully addressing various malpractices. For example child marriage, dowry, female infanticide and foeticide. Bharat has stringent laws for rape and provides women protection towards domestic violence. Through affirmative action it is being ensured that women participate in public and political life meaningfully in local governance and in parliament. The latest women’s reservation in parliament, Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, will put women’s leadership at the forefront. All the attempts that are being done in Bharat are not ornamental but have thousands of years of civilisational backing, where feminine divinity always was revered and respected as Prakriti, Shakti, Lakshmi, Saraswati, Durga, Kali and Devi.

To sum up, when a beautiful painting due to years of mistreatment and negligence gathers thick layers of dust, it looks ugly. This is what invasion and colonisation did to beautiful Sanatan civilisation. But if the dust is wiped off, and marks are repaired through the process of decolonisation, then the same beautiful painting will again emerge. A painting in which women are respected and are free of violence.

› Dr. Tulika Saxena is based in Canberra and has worked for women issues, especially violence against women for more than 20 years in India and Australia. She has PhD from Australian National University, Canberra on impact assessment of Indian Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act.

Searching for Rama – Nanditha Krishna

January 21, 2024January 25, 2024VOI 1 Comment

If Ram did not exist, neither did Buddha, Mahavir, Moses, Jesus or Mohammed—none of whose lives can be proven by archaeology or inscriptions. So why are only Ram and Krishna put to the test? – Dr. Nanditha Krishna

Ram has finally found his home. A great king of ancient India was tossed around by 20th century politicians till justice was done to him in this century by the Supreme Court of India. Ram’s divinity is a matter of faith. His existence is a matter of fact. If Ram did not exist, neither did Buddha, Mahavir, [Moses], Jesus Christ or Prophet Mohammed—none of whose lives can be proven by archaeology or inscriptions. So why are only Ram and Krishna put to the test? To doubt the existence of Ram is to doubt all literature. Ram was not a god.

The original story appears in Canto I of the Ramayana. Valmiki asks Narad (a generic name) who was the greatest man who ever lived. In a few terse lines, Narad narrates the story of Ram, son of Kausalya, of Ikshvaku lineage, and dutiful son of Dasharath of Ayodhya. There is nothing about Sita’s birth, the swayamvara or Shiva’s bow. The third wife Sumitra, Shatrughna, and the hunchback Manthara are not mentioned.

Kaikeyi wants the throne for her son Bharat, and Dasharath, bound by his oath, exiles Ram, who leaves for the forest with his brother Lakshman and his newly-wedded spouse Sita, daughter of Janak of Mithila. The Nishada chief Guha takes them across the Ganga and the three reach Chitrakoot. Bharat refuses to accept the throne, implores Ram and returns with his sandals. Ram kills several marauding Rakshasas in the forest and disfigures Shoorpanakha. Nothing about Lakshman chopping off Shoorpanakha’s nose.

Ravan causes the two princes to be removed by a fellow Rakshasa named Marich, not a golden deer, and steals Ram’s spouse. Ram meets Sabari and the Vanar chief Hanuman, and kills Vali on the battlefield, as an ally of Sugriva, not hiding behind a tree. Then Hanuman crosses a “brackish sea”, meets Sita, sets Lanka on fire and returns to Ram.

Ram asks Nala to build a bridge, reaches Lanka and kills Ravan. Ram speaks harshly to Sita, who enters the fire, but Agni vouches that she is sinless—apparently, the fire did not burn her. Ram returns to rule over his kingdom. There is nothing about banishing Sita, a part of the Uttarakanda, which is a known later interpolation.

Valmiki says that the three wandered through Dandakaranya, a land of Rakshasas, hunter-gatherers inimical to the expansion of food producers and their religion of fire-worship. Tribals still inhabit these forests. The trio reached Nashik and Panchavati, where Ravan abducted Sita. Kishkinda, where Ram met Sugriva and Hanuman, is a major Ramayan site, where every rock and river is associated with the the epic: Anjanadri, the birthplace of Hanuman (Anjaneya) and Rishyamukha, Sugriva’s capital. Valmiki made the Vanars into monkeys, but the word means forest-dwellers, vana-nara, and is confirmed by the Jaina Ramayan. Monkey in Sanskrit is kapi.

Ram and the Vanar army reached Rameshwaram, where the Vanars built a bridge from Dhanushkodi to Talaimannar. A NASA satellite has photographed an underwater bridge in the Palk Strait. On his return from Lanka, Ram worshipped Shiva at Rameshwaram, where Sita prepared a lingam out of sand. The lingam at Rameshwaram temple is still made of sand, in a state where nearly every religious icon is made of stone. The places visited by Ram everywhere retain memories of his visit in commemorative temples and local folklore.

The epic is a zoologist’s delight. The trees and animals described in each of the four forests—Chitrakoot, Dandakaranya, Kishkinda and Ashokavana—are still found in the same forests. The important animal species—langur (Hanuman and Sugriva), bear (Jambavan) and vulture (Jatayu)—were totems of tribes who lived and were recorded by early British officials posted in these areas. Nishadas and Savaras (Sabari’s tribe) still retain ancient memories of Ram visiting their land.

Valmiki was an adikavi, a poet who inserted exotica like flying monkeys and flying machines. Some of these have vestiges of the past, like the four-tusked elephants who guarded Ravan’s mansion in Lanka. The Gomphothere, a four-tusked proboscidean related to modern elephants, lived in South Asia and went extinct only 12,000 years ago.

Rakshasas are described by the Rig Veda as demons and deceitful enemies of the Devas. But several Rakshasas were scholars and kings, like Ravan and Vibhishan. The prime minister of the Nandas was the renowned historical Rakshas, retained as prime minister by Chandragupta Maurya on Chanakya’s advice, and immortalised in Vishakhadatta’s Mudrarakshasa. Bhima’s wife Hidimba and Sharmishtha, wife of Yayati, belonged to this clan.

The Ramayan is geographically correct. Every site on Ram’s route is still identifiable and has continuing traditions or temples to commemorate Ram’s visit. Thousands of years ago, no writer could travel around the country inventing a story, fitting it into local folklore and building temples for greater credibility.

Sri Lanka retains memories of the Ramayan. Ravan is believed to have inhabited the region of the Ella Falls. Hasalakawas, the site of Lankapura where Sita was held captive before she was moved to Ashokavana, is where a Sitai Amman Temple is situated. There is a statue of Ravan, king of Lanka, at the Koneswaram Temple at Trincomalee. One school of thought places Lanka on the Godavari in Central India. But Lanka, say both Narad and Valmiki, was across the “brackish” sea.

Ram’s memory lives on because of his extraordinary life and his wonderful reign, a period of peace and prosperity, making Ramrajya a yardstick for successful rule. People only remember the very good or the very bad. So popular is the story of Ram and his reign that it has travelled to Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Philippines, Japan, China and Mongolia—in fact, throughout Asia. – The New Indian Express, 7 January 2024

› Dr. Nanditha Krishna is an author, historian, and environmentalist based in Chennai.

The K.K. Muhammed Interview – TNIE Team

January 16, 2024January 16, 2024VOI

Archaeologist Dr. K.K. Muhammed, 71, was part of the Archaeological Survey of India team that excavated the Babri Masjid site in Ayodhya in 1976 where the Ram Temple now stands. While stating the demolition of Babri Masjid did shock him as an archaeologist, Dr. Muhammed is of the view Muslims must willingly hand over Gyanvapi and Mathura mosques to Hindus. He thinks that will heal many wounds. While stressing the Congress Party should have decided to participate in the inauguration of the Ram Temple on January 22, Dr. Muhammed terms the BJP rule under Narendra Modi a dark age for the ASI. Excerpts from his conversation with the New Indian Express Interrogation Team

Q : You were part of the ASI team that excavated Babri Masjid/Ram Janmabhoomi in 1976. What were your findings?

A : It was a team led by Professor B.B. Lal that carried out the excavation and I was part of it. We came across pillars of a Hindu temple, with poornakalasa engraved on them. Forms of defaced gods and goddesses were also discovered. Terracotta statues traditionally associated with temples, too, were unearthed. We will never find statues of humans in mosques, as these are haram for Muslims. That’s how we concluded that a temple had stood there before the mosque was constructed.

Q : But some, like Professor Syed Ali Rizvi of AMU, allege you were not part of the excavation team?

A : I was a postgraduate diploma student then at ASI’s School of Archaeology. Ten of us went as a team, including senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh’s wife Jaisree Ramanathan. I was engaged in the excavation of Trench B.

Q : Have the findings of these studies been published in any academic journal?

A : Yes. It’s there in the Indian Archaeological Review. But ASI, especially Professor Lal, never wanted to make it an issue. It was more of an academic nature.

Q : ASI excavations found structures to prove that there was a temple. … But was there any proof of it being a Ram Temple?

A : Yes. They got an inscription—Vishnuharisila Phalakam—after the masjid was demolished in 1992. It clearly states that this temple is dedicated to the Mahavishnu who killed Bali.

Q : So the crucial evidence was discovered during demolition, not during excavation?

A : Yes. They got this evidence after the Masjid demolition, not during excavation. The critics first said it was an 18th-century inscription. Later they backed out. In reality, it’s a 12th-century inscription. There was also an allegation that such evidence was planted there. So, we checked with the Lucknow Museum. They confirmed that the inscription they possess remains with them.

Q : The popular narrative is that Babar demolished a temple and constructed a masjid. But do we have evidence to prove that Babar had demolished the temple?

A : Babar’s military commander Mir Baqi (Baqi Tashqandi) had led the demolition of the temple. There was an inscription in Persian which said Mir Baqi had demolished the temple. It could also have been a dilapidated structure.

Q : But there is a huge difference between demolishing a temple to build a masjid and constructing a masjid on the ruins of a dilapidated temple….

A : Many temples were demolished in medieval India. If you visit Delhi you can see Quwwat-ul-Islam Mosque near Qutub Minar (the mosque was built over the site of a temple). Some pages of Babar Nama have gone missing. Pages describing the activities of three months are missing. But there was an inscription that Mir Baqi had constructed the masjid. The demolition was part of a war and the Muslims of the current generation are in no way responsible for the act. But at the same time, Muslims should not defend the demolition of temples by some invaders. Christians do not justify what the Portuguese did in Goa.

Q : What were the findings of the 2003 excavations?

A : In 2003, a team led by B.R. Mani carried out an excavation using the Ground Penetrating Radar and found out there was a structure underneath. During the excavation, 12 pillars and more than 50 brick bases were discovered. The excavation team had experts from JNU/AMU in addition to the Waqf committee’s lawyers, VHP people and members of the judiciary. It was fully recorded. About one-fourth of the workers were Muslims.

Q : Going by what you say, there was a 12th-century temple, and later a masjid was built on top of it in the 16th century. As an archaeologist do you agree with the demolition of a structure to unearth another one?

A : No archaeologist would agree to the demolition of any historical structure. In this case, it had already been demolished. We now need to think about what’s the way forward.

Q : As an archaeologist, what did you feel when Babri Masjid was demolished in 1992?

A : We were all shaken. Senior IAS officer I. Mahadevan had stated that we should not do wrong to correct a historical mistake that happened centuries ago. We were all against the demolition. It shouldn’t have happened.

Q : And as an Indian Muslim?

A : An archaeologist can never be a Muslim or a Hindu. We look at such matters objectively. I have faced stiff opposition from the Muslim community and Hindu groups on various occasions.

Q : Similar demands are now being made about Gyanvapi and Mathura?

A : The Muslim community should be ready to willingly hand over its rights (to the structures at) Varanasi and Mathura, too, to the Hindus. Tension is bound to be there. But from a historic perspective, there cannot be a lasting solution to the whole issue without handing these two over. I always remind the Muslims that India, even after Partition, remains a secular country because of its Hindu majority.

Q : But won’t it lead to more tension?

A : Ayodhya, Kashi and Mathura are three places as important to Hindus as Mecca and Medina are to Muslims. Hence, Muslims should be ready to willingly hand over these places.

Q : Is there sufficient evidence in Gyanvapi to support claims of a temple there?

A : Yes. There may be Islamic inscriptions, but in totality, it is a Hindu structure. Also, there are many literatures which support this. This issue has created a major divide between the Hindus and the Muslims. So, handing it over to Hindus is the only lasting solution.

Q : Gyanvapi is an 18th century structure. As an archaeologist, do you support demolishing such an old structure?

A : The same issue had come up about Babri Masjid too. We can transplant these structures as such, without demolishing them. So far only four such transplants have been carried out in India. Of these, two were led by me—the Kurudi Mahadeva Temple and the Chaubis Avatar Temple in Madhya Pradesh.

Q : Whether Babri Masjid or Gyanvapi Mosque, these structures came into being as part of some historical moments. If we start correcting such historical errors, where would it lead us to?

A : That’s right. It’ll go on without any beginning or end. In Kerala itself, there are many such Buddhist temples and Jain temples that have later become Hindu temples. But if we take these three places as an exception—Ram Janmabhoomi, Krishna’s birthplace and Siva temple—that could prove to be the only and lasting solution to this issue. I think, if these two are handed over, all religious groups together can resolve this issue once and for all.

Q : Isn’t that just wishful thinking? The RSS-VHP reportedly has a list of close to 2,000 temples that were demolished to construct mosques….

A : There won’t be any end if we go on like this. But unlike Semitic religions, the Hindu mind will not approve of such aggressiveness. You have to remember that many Hindus have stood with the Muslims in the fight against the Ram Mandir movement. Can you remember one instance where the Muslims stood for the cause of the Hindus?

Q : Isn’t Ayodhya more of a political issue than an archaeological or historical issue?

A : Yes, correct. It’s a political issue. It’s a fact that the BJP and the RSS try to use it with a motive to make political gains. At the same time, we need to understand the pain of lakhs of ordinary Hindu devotees. It would have been better if the Muslims could understand the pain of the Hindus.

Q : But aren’t these emotions created by politicians?

A : I accept there were attempts to whip up emotions. But even during my visit to Ayodhya in 1976-77, I could understand the heart-wrenching agony of the poor Hindus. Had it been Mecca or Medina, how many bombs would have exploded by now? Hindus allowed that structure to remain there for 500 years. We have to understand this magnanimity of Indian culture and Hinduism.

Q : A 16th century structure has been demolished and a huge structure built using modern technology. Do you think justice has been served?

A : The issue is not whether the act is justified or not. The structure has been demolished. If it was not demolished, ASI would not have allowed the construction of another structure within 300 metres from the structure. The disputed structure has gone and the new building has been constructed considering the requirements of the current time. It is an issue of faith and we have to make some compromises.

Q : Do you think the Ram Temple issue had been a pan-India issue at any point of time?

A : It was not a pan-India issue. But now it is growing to such levels. I accept that it is a political project.

Q : You say the Hindus were magnanimous. Where can we see such large-hearted Hindus now?

A : Compared to (followers of) other religions, Hindus are far better even now. They may react recklessly, playing with emotions, but they will think and correct themselves later. The Semitic religions will never be ready to compromise on their faith.

Q : Do you think there is an attempt to Semiticise the Hindu religion?

A : Yes. The Semitic religions have started influencing Hinduism. But it is a temporary phenomenon and will not be sustained. I am more concerned about the false scientific claims of Pushpaka Vimana, surgery, and stem cells mooted by even educated people who are inspired by the Hindu revival. The king of Saudi Arabia will not present the claims of Arab mythology in a science congress. But PM Modi had presented the claims of Indian sages who pioneered surgery. This has created concerns that Hinduism is losing its values.

Q : The lock of Babri Masjid was opened, allowing pooja, during the term of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. How significant was that move?

A : Opening the lock of the Masjid, in 1986, was the first important decision. Later, in 1989, he allowed pooja at the disputed structure. There was an unwritten agreement between renowned Islamic scholar Abdul Hassan Ali Nadwi and Rajiv Gandhi to solve the issue. The agreement was that if the Muslims allowed the opening of Babri Masjid, the government would bring a bill to overcome the Shah Bano case verdict.

Q : What happened then?

A : The Waqf committee, including Syed Shahabuddin, had favoured the agreement. But once the Shah Bano bill was passed, all except Abdul Hassan Ali Nadwi changed their stance. After Rajiv Gandhi’s death, the agreement was forgotten.

Q : It is rumoured that historian Irfan Habib played a role in scuttling the agreement. Is it true?

A : I don’t know about his role. I will not be objective while speaking about Irfan Habib, because I have personal enmity with him. He is my teacher but I have no respect for him.

Q : Do you think the stand of Kerala CPM in the Babri Masjid issue is inspired by arguments of the Marxist historians?

A : Irfan Habib plays a prominent role in influencing the stand of the Communists. Besides, the CPM took it as a political stand to win the support of Muslims. I found the stand of the Muslim League more acceptable.

Q : How do you see Congress’ decision not to attend the consecration ceremony?

A : Congress should have come forward in these things because Rajiv Gandhi took the initiative to open the lock of Babri Masjid. Congress should have understood the feelings of Hindus, but those who control Congress do not think along those lines.

Q : Do you mean to say the Congress failed to understand the north Indian Hindu psyche?

A : That’s what I feel. And they are also scared of the consequences. If Congress becomes irrelevant, who else is remaining? BJP has become a group that can stoop to any level. We feel sad in seeing the misuse of the agencies like the ED.

Q : But many consider you a BJP person?

A : That’s what people think. I didn’t attend their (BJP’s) meeting though they invited me. I can be considered a Congressman because I share their liberal ideology.

Q : Your book Njanenna Bharatheeyan has created a controversy because you stated that the ASI is in a dead state during the BJP rule?

A : Yes. The ASI has become a dead organisation and 10 years of BJP rule is a dark age of the organisation. I had undertaken the renovation of 80 temples that were destroyed in the earthquake in the Chambal area. We expected they (BJP) would be in the forefront of the renovation efforts. But not a single temple has been renovated in the last nine years.

Q : According to you, Modi has not shown any interest in renovating other temples, but was keen on Ayodhya temple. So, Modi’s interest in Ayodhya is not religious, but political?

A : They (BJP) themselves admit that it was a political project (laughs out). It is a mix of both (smiles).

Q : You are a person familiar with different archaeological structures. In your opinion, which are the most amazing structures in India?

A : Hampi and Halebidu in Karnataka. If they were renovated properly, they would be more beautiful than Rome.

Q : Have heard you saying that the collection of books that Hiuen Tsang took from India was the basis for China’s development?

A : (Hiuen Tsang) carried 751 books on the back of 20 horses to China. I-tsing carried with him 400 manuscripts. They translated these works and used them for their future growth. But our knowledge collections were destroyed by invaders.

Q : But isn’t it a usual practice for kings and emperors to destroy temples or mosques as part of the conquests? Do you think there is a religious undertone to it?

A : Damage is indeed a part of subjugation, but there is a religious undertone too in the case of Semitic religions. But in the case of Indian conquests of other countries, like Indonesia or Malaysia, you will not see this kind of destruction.

Q : But Marathas also ransacked many temples during their raids. … Similarly, Pandya king is said to have torched the Kanthaloor Sala in Thiruvananthapuram….

A : Yes … they ransacked temples, but they did not destroy them like Semitic invaders. Semitic religions think only they are correct.

Q : Is there any archaeological proof for the happenings in Ramayana and Mahabharata?

A : Yes. Events in Mahabharata must have happened after iron ore was discovered. As per our estimate, it happened between 1200 BC and 1300 BC. Ramayana happened in 1500 BC. There are archaeological findings in the regions between Kurukshetra and Mathura where events in Mahabharata may have unfolded.

Q : So, Ramayana and Mahabharata are not mythology but history?

A : Communists will say these are mythologies while right-wingers say it happened two lakh years before. Archaeologists will not accept any of these. Truth is actually in between. Mahabharata war must have been a tribal warfare, and not a world war as it has been made out (smiles).

Q : What are the changes that you have observed in Indian society since the day you joined ASI in 1976?

A : People in general have become more religious. This change is more evident in the case of Hindus. I would say Hindus are in a way being forced to be more organised like the Semitic religions.

Q : Upanishads are your favourite books?

A : Yes. I am a follower of Vivekananda (smiles).

Q : Heard you received many threats after the Ayodhya verdict?

A : Yes, there were threats. I had police security for three years. Even now I don’t go out frequently.

Q : Have you received an invitation for the consecration of the Ram Temple?

A : Yes. I have received an invitation. But I may not go due to health reasons. – The New Indian Express, 14 January 2024

Voice of India

History Politics Science Religion

Author VOI

Hinduism and its 33 million deities – Nanditha Krishna

Soulmates: Gandhi and Kallenbach – Shimon Lev

Elihu Yale and the Indian Ocean slave trade – Geeta Pandey

A reasonable date for Adi Shankara – Venu Gopal Narayanan

Hindu temples existed before the 5th century CE – Monidipa Bose Dey

James Prinsep: The Englishman who mapped the Adi Vishwanath Temple in Kashi – Yudhajit Shankar Das

The word ‘spolia’ hides too many humiliations – Reshmi Dasgupta

Significance of Sri Ram Temple for women of Bharat – Tulika Saxena

Searching for Rama – Nanditha Krishna

The K.K. Muhammed Interview – TNIE Team

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