{"id":20531,"date":"2024-01-30T01:52:24","date_gmt":"2024-01-30T01:52:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/?p=20531"},"modified":"2024-01-30T01:52:25","modified_gmt":"2024-01-30T01:52:25","slug":"the-temple-that-aurangzeb-razed-evidence-from-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2024\/01\/30\/the-temple-that-aurangzeb-razed-evidence-from-history\/","title":{"rendered":"The Temple That Aurangzeb Razed: Evidence From History"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>NEW DELHI, INDIA, January 27, 2024 (Indian Express): The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has concluded that \u201cthere existed a large Hindu temple prior to the construction of the existing structure\u201d at the Gyanvapi mosque site in Varanasi. The ASI has said it has relied on \u201cscientific studies and observations&#8221; and that there is also ample textual evidence that supports its conclusion. A temple that stood adjacent to the existing Kashi Vishwanath temple is thought to have been razed on the orders of the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, and the Gyanvapi mosque erected on its ruins.<br><br>The most popular primary source cited for this is Saqi Mustaid Khan\u2019s Maasir-i-Alamgiri, a Persian-language chronicle written shortly after Aurangzeb\u2019s death in 1707. The ASI report refers to historian Jadunath Sarkar\u2019s 1947 translation of the text. \u201cHis Majesty [Aurangzeb], eager to establish Islam, issued orders to the governors of all the provinces to demolish the schools and temples of the infidels, and with the utmost urgency put down the teaching and the public practice of the religion of these misbelievers,\u201d says the Maasir-i-Alamgiri. The royal farmaan (decree) issued in Aurangzeb\u2019s twelfth regnal year on April 9, 1669 led to the destruction of both the Vishwanath temple in Kashi and the Keshavdev temple in Mathura.<br><br>Read more of this history at source.<br><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/explained-history\/the-temple-that-aurangzeb-razed-evidence-from-history-9129714\/\n\">https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/explained-history\/the-temple-that-aurangzeb-razed-evidence-from-history-9129714\/<br><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NEW DELHI, INDIA, January 27, 2024 (Indian Express): The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has concluded that \u201cthere existed a,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20552,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20531"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20562,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20531\/revisions\/20562"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}