Ayodhya: Dance of Shiva

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By Sandhya Jain

>vaidika1008

>Subject:Ayodhya: Dance of Shiva

>Wed, 24 Sep 2003 06:29:23 -0700 (PDT)

>

>Pioneer 23rd September 2003

>Ayodhya: the dance of Shiva

>By Sandhya Jain

>

>According to a popular Puranic story, Shiva once emerged from deep samadhi

>and uttered the single word: 'Rama.' Surprised, Parvati asked what this

>meant, as she had never heard the word before. Shiva replied that this was

>hardly surprising, as the time had not come to bring it to the surface of

>his consciousness. He then tells the bemused goddess the story of the

>coming avatarhood of Rama.

>

>Now that the Ayodhya excavations have yielded evidence of a certifiable

>Rama temple, Shiva has again come to the fore to rescue Vishnu's avatar

>from Marxist calumny and legal obfuscation. Many Indians will recall the

>country's historic battle for the return of a Chola Nataraja bronze that

>surfaced in London some decades ago. The Government of India filed a case

>in the London High Court claiming the Nataraja as a property of a ruined

>Chola temple at Pattur, Tanjore district, and the murti made a triumphant

>return during the premiership of late Rajiv Gandhi.

>

>An expert involved in recovering the Nataraja, Dr. R. Nagaswamy, former

>Director of Archaeology, Tamil Nadu, has suggested that the London High

>Court's verdict regarding the legal right of a ruined temple has a bearing

>on the Ayodhya case. This is pertinent as the Hindu community struggled

>for the site for centuries and made a valiant attempt through the legal

>process in the British period as well (discussed in previous articles).

>The colonial judges upheld the justice of Hindu claims to the Janmabhoomi,

>but refused to rule in their favour on grounds of law and order.

>

>In the Nataraja case, however, Dr. Nagaswamy points out, the London High

>Court upheld that: "As long as even a single slab belonging to the ancient

>ruined temple is found in the site, the temple continues to exist in the

>eye of law and has its right to claim its possession." This temple had

>remained without worship for a long period, but the keynote of the Indian

>Government's argument was "once a temple, it remains always a temple." The

>London judges conceded the rights of the temple, which was respectively

>upheld by the Appeal Court in London, the Privy Council and the apex

>court. Thus, the official view of the Indian Government under Prime

>Minister Rajiv Gandhi, as argued in the London court, was that the

>existence of ruins at the original site entitled the temple to be treated

>as an existing entity in the eyes of the law, regardless of the fact that

>it was not under worship.

>

>The implications for Ayodhya are breathtaking. Apart from the discovery of

>three distinct temples in the recent excavation, the site has a deity

>under worship (Ramlalla Virajman), which clearly establishes its status as

>a temple. What is more, during Muslim rule itself, the Hindus had secured

>a Ram chabutra and Sita ki Rasoi as token recognition of their original

>claim to the site. They further managed to install the deity in 1948 and

>had secured public puja from 1986 onwards.

>

>Dr. Nagaswamy says the London High Court accepted the claim that a Hindu

>temple comprises the temple building and enshrined image, as well as the

>consecrated space around it. Well, the Ram chabutra and Sita ki Rasoi at

>Ayodhya fall within the consecrated space of the old temple. Moreover, as

>temples have often been destroyed by disuse (migration of population),

>fire, floods, earthquakes or invasions, the London court decided, on

>examining the ritual and historical position, that "any ruined temple

>could be brought back to worship at any point of time by purificatory

>rites."

>

>Clearly this sets a valuable precedent for Ayodhya, and claimants to the

>title suit would do well to apprise the Allahabad High Court of this

>judgement. Further, the Archaeological Survey of India should end its

>public silence and facilitate public study of the evidence by publishing

>the reports of its archaeologists, along with drawings, photographs and

>stratification plans. It should also seek court permission to combat the

>dubious scholarship of those casting aspersions on the findings and

>questioning the personal integrity of its staff.

>

>Meanwhile, given the unending savage ferocity with which the ASI report is

>being vilified in sections of the media, it may be pertinent to look at

>some preliminary views formulated by reputed but retired archaeologists,

>who spoke out on behalf of serving colleagues at a public function in the

>capital on 13 September 2003. Dr. K.N. Dikshit asserted that the placement

>of the excavated pillars conclusively established the structure found was

>a temple. He said the building was consistent with temple plans associated

>with the Gupta era.

>

>Dr. Dikshit observed that certain findings, such as amalak (circular stone

>used in temple shikars) were exclusive to temples and never existed in

>masjids in any part of the world. Ridiculing the contention that the

>circular Shiva temple discovered was a tomb, he said the pranala (chute

>for exit of abhishek water and milk) exists only in a temple and has no

>place in an Islamic structure. Moreover, no Islamic tomb is round from the

>base; it is always octagonal and has vertical walls.

>But the most exciting aspect of the Ayodhya excavations, according to Dr.

>Dikshit, is that they establish human habitation at Ayodhya from 1500 BC,

>which is seven hundred years earlier than previously thought. This has

>settled the controversy about the antiquity of the Ramayana vis--vis the

>Mahabharata. Prior to this, archaeologists had seriously begun to wonder

>if the Mahabharata was the older epic, in opposition to the Hindu

>tradition that the Ramayana was older. This is an important vindication of

>Hindu civilizational memory.

>

>Dr. Swaraj Gupta, beloved bete noire of Marxist intellectuals, said the

>temple complex built at the site around the tenth century AD was probably

>swept away by Saryu floods, and that the controversial round Shiva temple

>belonged to this period. The grand temple at the site was built in the

>twelfth century, of which fifty pillar bases and a 150 feet long and

>six-foot wide wall have been excavated. The distance and alignment of the

>pillars clearly suggest a temple. Dr. Gupta pointed out that during the

>apocalyptic events of 6 December 1992, a shilalekha (inscription) was

>found in the Nagari script, which clearly stated that King Govind Chand of

>Kanauj had built and dedicated a temple to Vishnu Hari, who had slain Bali

>and Dashanan (Ravana). This is irrefutable evidence that the temple was a

>Ram Mandir, as Rama alone killed Ravana.

>

>Dr. Jagatpati Joshi, former Director General of the ASI, said the

>excavations showed that the materials of the old temple that was flooded

>were reused in the new twelfth century temple, along with niches and the

>retaining wall. Rejecting the Marxist claim that the red surkhi floor

>indicated an Islamic structure (the mosque-over-mosque theory mentioned in

>my last article), he said the practice of crushing bricks for road

>materials existed in India from the time of Mohenjodaro, and was found at

>several sites since then. More pertinently, the stratification clearly

>showed that the Babri Mosque cut into the pillar bases of the earlier

>temple. Dr. Joshi averred that nowhere in the world had evidence surfaced

>of a mosque being erected over a mosque, though there were several

>instances of a mosque being built over a temple.

>

>

>

 

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