AYODHYA CONT...

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Discoveries at the site II: the Hari-Vishnu inscription

The demolition on December 6, 1992 changed the picture dramatically,

providing further support to the traditional accounts - both Hindu

and

Muslim. Some of the kar-sevaks, no doubt influenced by all the

publicity about history and archaeology, went on to pick up more than

two hundred pieces of stone slabs with writing upon them. These

proved

to belong to extremely important inscriptions, more than a thousand

years old. In effect, the kar-sevaks had done what archaeologists

should have done years ago; they had unearthed important inscriptions

- in howsoever a crude form - something that should have been done

years ago by professional historians and archaeologists. The

inscriptions, even the few that have been read so far, shed a great

deal of light on the history of not only Ayodhya and its environs,

but

all of North India in the early Medieval, and even the late ancient

period.

 

In any other society, these inscriptions and other archaeological

artifacts would not only be greeted with glee - as Biblical scholars

did the Dead Sea Scrolls - but there would also be a mad scramble

among researchers to see what new discoveries they could make. But

the

Secularists' reaction was the exact opposite of this: they wanted the

whole thing suppressed. They claimed, without examination, that all

the two-hundred and fifty odd pieces of epigraphical records were

forgeries planted during the demolition, and demanded a police

investigation. This is a point worth noting: they wanted not an

investigation of artifacts by scholars, but a police investigation.

They were acting like the Pope and other Church officials who wanted

the Dead Sea Scrolls suppressed. By no stretch of the imagination can

such conduct be called scholarly.

 

This brings up an interesting issue. It is now a well worn cliche

that

the Hindus had no sense of history. While this may have been true in

the Medieval period, it is certainly not true today; of all the

people

that I am personally familiar with, the Hindus, especially the

younger

generation, have the most acute sense of their history and culture.

(This of course is what the Secularists want to see destroyed.)

 

More to the point, the conduct of mainstream historians and their

allies in the media and the government suggests that they have left

an

enormous wealth of sources untouched. If a single accidental episode

like the Ayodhya demolition could yield such a bonanza, it does not

take much imagination to see how much more remains to be discovered.

To take just one example, the famous Taj Mahal in Agra has more than

twenty rooms that have been sealed off. Opening them to scholars

would

go a long way towards settling disputes about the Taj - whether it

was

built by Shah Jahan, or if it is an older Rajput palace as some

scholars maintain.

 

Through sloth or incompetence - or a combination of both - the

Secularist scholars that dominate the history establishment in India

are enjoying the perks and privileges of a pampered group despite

their abysmal contributions to scholarship. Considering that their

scholarly accomplishments lag well behind their political activism

(and opportunism), they seem more like courtiers and political

hangers-on than true scholars.

 

To return to the inscriptional finds, it will be years before

scholars

can come up with a complete picture, but they have already yielded

much valuable information. Here is what S.P. Gupta found upon

examining the two-hundred and fifty or so stone pieces with writing

upon them:

 

Not all were ancient, since scores of them, generally rectangular

marble tiles, bore the dedicatory inscriptions in the Devanagari

script of the 20th century. However, at least three dozens of them

were certainly ancient, belonging to the period bracketed between

10th

and 12th centuries AD. (In The Ayodhya Reference: pp 117-18)

 

The most important of these deciphered so far is the Hari-Vishnu

inscription that clinches the whole issue of the temple. It is

written

in 12th century AD Devanagari script and belongs therefore to the

period before the onslaught of the Ghorids (1192 AD and later). Gupta

tells us:

 

This inscription, running in as many as 20 lines, is found engraved

on

a 5 ft. long, 2 ft. broad and 2.5 inches thick slab of buff

sandstone,

apparently a very heavy tablet ... Three-fourths of the tablet is

found obliterated anciently. The last line is also not complete since

it was anciently subjected to chipping off. A portion of the central

part is found battered, maybe someone tried to deface it anciently.

The patination [tarnishing including wearout] is, however, uniform

all

over the surface, even in areas where once there were inscriptions.

(op. cit. pp 118-19)

 

This is a massive slab that must weigh not less than 400 pounds. And

this was the object with a large inscription written in a thousand

year old script that the Secularists were clamoring was a modern

forgery - planted during the demolition! There are probably not more

than a dozen experts in the world - none from the Secularist camp -

who can even read the inscription, let alone compose one. This should

give an idea not only of their values and priorities, but also the

content of their scholarship. So I was not being uncharitable when I

called them more poltical hangers-on than scholars.

 

Gupta is an archaeologist and not an epigraphist trained to read

ancient inscriptions. It was examined by Ajay Mitra Shastri, Chairman

of the Epigraphical Society of India. Shastri gave the following

summary. What the inscription tells us is of monumental significance

to the history of Medieval India.

 

The inscription is composed in high-flown Sanskrit verse, except for

a

very small portion in prose, and is engraved in chaste and classical

Nagari script of the eleventh-twelfth century AD. It has yet to be

fully deciphered, but the portions which have been fully deciphered

and read are of great historical significance and value ... It was

evidently put up on the wall of the temple, the construction of which

is recorded in the text inscribed on it. Line 15 of this inscription,

for example, clearly tells us that a beautiful temple of Vishnu-Hari,

built with heaps of stones ... , and beautified with a golden spire

.... unparallelled by any other temple built by earlier kings ... This

wonderful temple ...

was built in the temple-city of Ayodhya situated in Saketamandala.

....

Line 19 describes god Vishnu as destroying king Bali ... and the ten

headed personage (Dashanana, i.e., Ravana). (op. cit. 119; emphasis

mine. I have left out the original Sanskrit quotes given by Shastri.)

 

Need we say more - a temple for Hari-Vishnu who killed the ten-headed

Ravana, in the temple city of Ayodhya? So Ayodhya was known as a

temple city even then; Saketa was the ancient name of the district.

The inscription confirms what archaeologists Lal and Gupta had

earlier

found about the existence of a temple complex. And yet the

Secularists

and their allies have been telling the world that there was no temple!

 

Shastri also tells us: "Line 20 contains an allusion to the serious

threat from the west (paschatya-bhiti), apparently posed by Sultan

Subuktugin and his son Mahmud of Ghazni, and its destruction by the

king." This, as I earlier pointed out, is echoed in some of the

Puranas also.

 

This last fact is interesting - that Subuktugin and Mahmud Ghaznavi

were stopped by an eastern ruler, the one who had the inscription

made, probably Sallakshana known also as Sallakshanavarman. This

shows

there is probably a great deal more that remains to be discovered by

archaeologists and historians. Most important of all for our purposes

here, the existence of the temple at Janmasthan and of the temple

complex are established beyond all doubt. The Ayodhya demolition has

demolished more than the Babri Masjid - it has demolished also any

claims to honest scholarship on the part of the JNU-AMU Secularists.