Guest guest Posted June 16, 2004 Report Share Posted June 16, 2004 1. Sacredness of the site The Ram Janmabhoomi site has been a sacred site for crores of Hindus since time immemorial, and was kept alive as a focus of Ram devotion even in the face of the forcible Muslim occupation of the site during more than four centuries. Why this is a sacred site, is beyond the limits of the dispute, firstly because the Government of India had asked us for evidence for the pre-existence of the Mandir on the Babri Masjid site, no more, no less; and secondly because we do not have to prove and justify the sacredness of our sacred sites, anymore than the Muslims have ever been asked to prove that, against all available indications, the Kaaba was built by Abraham. Many dozens of Sanskrit texts from the first millennium BC and the first millennium AD attest the veneration for Ram, and put to rest recent allegations that the Ram cult became popular only in the last few centuries. There is multiple archaeological and iconometrical evidence for Ram worship since at least the 15th century AD. 2. Archaeological evidence for the temple Archaeological excavations have brought to light the remains of an 11th century building on the disputed site. This was already clear from the first brief report of the excavations led by Prof. B.B. Lal in 1975-80 (though motivated "eminent historians" have tried first to conceal and later to deny this pertinent fact), but recently more details have been made public, especially the rows of pillar-bases, aligned with the pillars of the present structure. Datable pottery remains indicate that the building was in use till at least the late 15th century. Nothing points to a period of disuse between this building's demolition and the Masjid's erection. But the "robbers trench" around the pillar-bases indicates that the materials of the demolished building had been taken for use in a new building, probably the Masjid. That the pre-existing building was a Mandir, is coherent with all the evidence so far, and requires no special assumptions or ad hoc hypotheses. More importantly, it is positively indicated by the 14 black pillars of schistose used in the masjid. Documentary evidence from the 18th century as well as common sense dictate that, in conformity with a general pattern, these were materials of the demolished temple incorporated in the masjid built over it. The disfigured sculptures on the black pillars all belong to Hindu religious iconography. Some of the motifs are common to different traditions, including Buddhist and Shaiva, but some are specifically Vaishnava. All indications converge easily, without any artificial theoretical assumptions, on the hypothesis that a Vaishnava temple stood on the janmabhoomi site until it was forcibly replaced with the Masjid. That it was specifically a Ram temple, is indicated by a wealth of documentary evidence. 3. Documentary evidence for the temple tradition There are plenty of authentic documents available that unanimously prove two things: everyone agreed, and no one ever doubted, that the site on which the Babri Masjid was built, was taken from the Hindus; and the Hindu devotees kept coming back to the site for worship. Some sources suggest that in some periods the Hindus even used the Masjid itself. At any rate they set up Ram Chabootra just outside the Masjid, and in the 18th century they also built a make-do Janmasthan temple just nearby. Among the most remarkable of the Muslim testimonies, we may mention the Chapel Nasaiah, written by Aurangzeb's granddaughter around 1700, in which she exhorts Muslims to assert their presence in the "place of worship of the Hindus situated at Mathura, Banaras and Awadh etc., in which the Kafirs have great faith - the birthplace of Kanhaiya, the place of Rasoi Sita, the place of Hanuman... were all destroyed for the strength of Islam, and at all these places mosques have been constructed". Ten other testimonies of local Muslims confirm that the Babri masjid had replaced the Ram Janmasthan temple. That Hindus kept coming for worship as nearby the site as possible, and that they kept claiming the site, is attested by a number of these same sources, as well as by a Faizabad Qazi in 1735. Among the European records, the most remarkable is probably Josef Tieffenthaler's (1767), who describes in detail how Hindus kept on worshipping in the masjid courtyard, with a big celebration on Ram Navami day, and how everyone believed that the pre-existent Ram Mandir had been forcibly replaced with the masjid, though opinions differed on whether this had been done by Babar or Aurangzeb. All the British surveyors, archaeologists and Gazetteer-writers, as well as the District Judge of Faizabad in 1886, saw no reason at all to doubt the unanimous local tradition that the Masjid had been built on the forcibly demolished temple marking Rama's birthplace. Revenue records show that the disputed site has always been known as Janmasthan. Recent attempts to manipulate these records cannot change that, just like recent attempts to conceal or even obliterate pieces of testimony by local Muslims cannot change the facts to which these uncalculating witnesses testified. 4. Evidence must be coherent All the authentic testimonies of various kinds converge, without exception, on the following scenario. A Ram Mandir standing on the now-disputed site since the 11th century was demolished and replaced by a Muslim ruler, probably Babar or his aide Mir Baqi, who flaunted the victory over Paganism by using and displaying some of the temple pillars in his Masjid. But because the place was so sacred to them, the Hindus kept on trying to continue the worship on the site, or as close to it as possible. This scenario, which is confirmed by all the available evidence of every kind, is moreover in perfect consonance with well-attested behaviour patterns of people in general (who built castles or temples on elevated and central places), of Muslim rulers (who destroyed thousands of temples to replace them with mosques, and often visibly displayed the iconoclastic origin of their Masjid), and of Hindu devotees (who in many cases kept on revering the desecrated site) 5. The AIBMAC non-evidence In contrast to our own collection of coherent testimony for one precise scenario, our AIBMAC friends have just given a pile of papers, without adding even an attempt to show the coherence, the proof value, or even just the relevance of this pile. Their documentation consists of: 1. casual statements of opinion by 20th century writers supporting all kinds of conflicting scenarios (most of them not even concerning the pre-existence of the Mandir), including outright crank theories; 2. a large number of documents relative to judicial disputes, which all emanate from the unjust situation created by the forcible Muslim takeover, and are therefore irrelevant to the question under consideration, viz. what was there just before the Masjid was built; 3. exactly three documents relevant to the historical question under consideration, of which one has the relevant pages missing (Babar's diary), one is not a matter of dispute between us (the inscriptions on the Masjid declaring that it was built by Mir Baqi on Babar's orders), and one is a proven forgery (Babar's testament). There is absolutely nothing in our AIBMAC friends' documentation that proves their point or disproves our evidence. It is in fact not even collected or presented as evidence for something. Any statement by any crackpot or secularist is included as long as it disagrees with the well-established consensus for which we have presented a mass of corroborating evidence, and regardless of mutual contradictions. One example out of a dozen: while disputing the belief that Ram was born on the Janmabhoomi site; they do not build up coherent evidence that he was born at a specific other site. instead, they give "evidence" that Ram was born in Nepal, in Punjab, in Afghanistan, in Egypt, in Varanasi, in Ayodhya on a different site, in an unknowable other place, or not at all. So, each of these 8 "evidences" is contradicted by 7 other pieces of "evidence" in the AIBMAC's own pile. Obviously, they did not even attempt to build a case for an alternative scenario to the one for which we have given evidence. They just wanted to make us dissipate our energy on disproving all manners of inconsistent and spurious contentions. And they counted on the sloppiness, ignorance or bias of the press, to present their quantity of worthless arguments as a genuine counter-weight to our coherent body of evidence. 6. The rebuttal In our rejoinder, we have dealt with all the AIBMAC documents relevant to the historical question, but the AIBMAC has not replied to our own evidence. Their only reply was yet another set of the same kind of documents, again containing not a trace of evidence that the masjid was built on something else than a forcibly destroyed Mandir. They have not given any rebuttal whatsoever to our evidence. Since they have not challenged our evidence, not even in this round of Government-sponsored scholarly contest, they must be considered as having accepted our evidence. 7. This debate is now closed Since our AIBMAC friends have not disproven nor even denied the validity of the evidence we have given, the way we have demonstrated the utter inadequacy of their bulky but incoherent and irrelevant documentation, our evidence stands. it should now count as a proven proposition, i.e. supported by all the evidence available, not disproven and not even challenged, that the Babri masjid was built on a Hindu sacred place, forcibly replacing a Mandir. All the Babri polemists and secularist intellectuals who were so cocksure in lambasting us for clinging on to "myths", spreading "distortions" and denying "history", now have to face the fact that it is we who have given conclusive evidence, while they have merely given politically motivated opinions and swearwords, apart from erudite considerations on issues beside the point. From now on (as until a few years ago), the established historical opinion is that the Babri masjid has forcibly replaced a Ram Mandir built on a specially sacred Hindu site. In our opinion, any Government decisions should from now on honour this established position of historical science, without giving in to further distraction anoeuvres such as calls for "non-partisan" arbitration. Since our evidence has not even been challenged by the AIBMAC, there is no need for any arbitration. The historical facts themselves are the only competent and non-partisan arbitrator, and they have spoken through the authentic and unchallenged testimonies, which we have collected and submitted, to the Government. 8. Our request Since it is now firmly established, and no longer being competently challenged, that the disputed site was one of the Hindu sacred places, we would like to ask our Muslim friends and fellow-countrymen the following questions: 1. In the Middle Ages, theologians and conquerors told you it was all right to destroy and occupy other communities' sacred places. Now in this age of secularism, do you still insist on continuing this occupation, or do you opt for "equal respect for all religions"? We are not occupying your Kaaba or Al-Aqsa mosque, so is it not time you renounce the occupation of our most sacred places? 2. The last few years, motivated politicians and anti-Hindu propagandists, both communalist and communist, have concocted the theory that there was no temple at this site, that the masjid was innocently built on empty land. Given the pretentious titles they flaunted, like "protectors of Islam" and "eminent historians", we can understand that you were misled into believing their made-up story. But now, scientific research has firmly established that this theory was indeed a concoction, and that the masjid was built on a Hindu sacred site. Even the AIBMAC has not challenged the evidence, which re-establishes that the Masjid has replaced a Hindu temple by force. in view of the renewed certainty that this Masjid was willfully located on a Hindu sacred site in order to disturb and humiliate the religious practices of your Hindu fellow-countrymen, do you still insist on resuming the occupation of our Ram Janmabhoomi site, or do you agree to leave this Hindu sacred site to the Hindus? Footnotes: 1 The Summary was released to the press on 10 January, 1991 by the Vishva Hindu Parishad headquarters in New Delhi. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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