Gyanvapi Mosque
The Gyanvapi Mosque is a mosque located in Varanasi, in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. The site was originally an ancient Hindu temple of Shiva or Kashi Vishwanath, one of the twelve sacred Jyotirlingas. The mosque was constructed in CE during the reign of the Muslim Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, a decade after he issued a royal decree in 1669 ordering the destruction of the ancient Hindu temple.
A comprehensive ASI survey found that the mosque was constructed on the remains of a pre-existing large Hindu temple. The present structure incorporates architectural components of the previous temple, with visible Hindu motifs and sculptures on its pillars. However, both Hindus and the Muslims claim the right to the land, and ownership is currently disputed.
Vishweshwar temple
The site originally had a Vishweshwar temple devoted to the Hindu deity Shiva. It was built by Todar Mal, a premier courtier and minister of Akbar, in conjunction with Narayana Bhatta, a pre-eminent Brahmin scholar of Banaras from Maharashtra, during the late 16th century.The temple contributed to the establishment of Banaras as a vaunted center of Brahminic assembly, drawing scholars across the subcontinent esp. Maharashtra, for adjudicating a spectrum of disputes concerned with Hindu religious law. Architectural historian Madhuri Desai hypothesizes that the temple was a system of intersecting iwans —a borrowing from Mughal architecture— with prominent pointed arches; it had a carved stone exterior.
Pre-temple history
What was on the site prior to the temple is debated by scholars and has been extensively contested by the local Hindu and Muslim populations. Desai said these multiple histories of the original temple and tensions arising out of the location of Gyanvapi fundamentally shaped the sacred topography of the city.Popular claims
21st-century accounts of the history of the mosque, as purveyed by Hindus, centre around a litany of repeated destruction and re-construction of the original temple which is situated in contrast to the timelessness of the lingam. The original temple was allegedly uprooted by Ghurids in 1193/1194 CE, upon the defeat of Jayachandra of Kannauj; the Razia Mosque was constructed in its place, a few years later. The temple would be rebuilt by a Gujarati merchant during the reign of Iltutmish at today's site — in what used to be Avimukteshwara's precincts — only to be demolished by Hussain Shah Sharqi of the Jaunpur Sultanate or Sikandar Lodi of the Delhi Sultanate.Historicity
The earliest manuscripts of Skanda Purana describe Banaras to be the kshetra of Avimukteshwar; there is no mention of Vishweshwar. The slightly later Matsya Purana, too, attests the supremacy of Avimukteshwar and does not mention Vishweshwar; however, certain corrupt manuscripts include it, suggesting a late interpolation. Krtyakalpataru, an encyclopedia of traditional Hindu law, written during the reign of Govindachandra quoted a detailed description of Banaras — including an enumeration of all religious sanctuaries — from the Linga Purana; Kedareshwur was the only linga that was recorded to have been housed in a temple, Avimukteshwara was mentioned to be in the north of a sacred well, and of the two references to Vishweshwar, one is a literal reference to Shiva being the "Lord of the Universe" while the other is a linga. None of the extant Gahadavala inscriptions refer to a Vishveshwar shrine. Seals, excavated from Rajghat, mention Vishveshwar for the first time only in the first decade of the twelfth century; however, they soon become extremely abundant esp. as the Avimukteshwara seals, prevalent for centuries, die out.Desai said it appears unlikely that there existed any prominent-enough Vishweshwar temple in Banaras, during the Ghurid raids — or even during Razia Sultana's reign —, to have attracted particular attention in conflicts. She said that Hindu traditions were not timeless but fluid in time and space — they shared a dialogical relationship with popular practice as well as patronage. The Vishweshwar lingam received prominence only between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries with the Kashikhand being the first text to attempt establishing Vishweshwar as the guardian deity of the city.
In contrast, Hans T. Bakker largely agrees with the popular narrative; he said the pre-history of the site is one of " bigotry and stubbornness". Bakker said that a temple, located at the current-day Gyanvapi precincts and devoted to Avimukteshwara, was indeed destroyed in 1194 CE; he cites Hasan Nizami's chronicling of wanton temple-demolition during Qutb ud-Din Aibak's raid on Banaras in support. At that time, Vishweshwar only occupied the adjacent hill-top that still bears an eponymous name. Soon Razia Sultana had a mosque constructed atop the hill-top forcing the Hindus to reclaim the vacant Gyanvapi site for a temple of Vishweshwar. This new temple of Vishweshwar was destroyed by the Jaunpur Sultanate to supply building materials for mosques at their new capital. Diana L. Eck agreed; other scholars have critiqued Eck's non-contextual usage of medieval sources.
Beginning around the late-thirteenth century, a temple for Vishweshwar/Vishvanath finds mentions in both literary and inscriptional records — an inscription issued by Narasimha III in 1279 CE endowed the revenue of a village for payment toward taxes by the inhabitants of Banaras and for services at the Visvesvar Temple; an inscription from 1296, used as spolia in the Lal Darwaza Mosque, refers to a temple for Vishweshwar; and, Bhatta's Tristhalisetu mentions about how at times, "though there may be no Vishweshwar lingam due to mlechhas or other evil kings", yet pilgrimage must go on. Richard G. Salomon and others read this as a proof of the existence of a desecrated temple of unknown antiquity, before Todar Mal's construction.
For centuries, the Vishweshwar was one among the many sacred sites in the town; it would become the principal shrine of the city only after sustained patronage of Mughals, beginning from the late sixteenth century.
Establishment
In September 1669, Aurangzeb ordered the demolition of the temple; a mosque was constructed in place, perhaps by Aurangzeb, in CE. The façade was modeled partially on the Taj Mahal's entrance; the plinth of the temple was left largely untouched to serve as the courtyard of the mosque, and the southern wall — along with its cusped arches, exterior moldings and toranas — was turned into the qibla wall. Other buildings in the precinct were spared.Oral accounts indicate that notwithstanding the desecration, Brahmin priests were allowed to reside in the premises of the mosque and exert their privileges on issues of Hindu pilgrimage. The remnants of the temple, especially the plinth, continued to remain a popular hub for Hindu pilgrims. The mosque came to be known as the Alamgiri Mosque — after the name of Aurangzeb — but with time, the current name was adopted in common parlance, deriving from an adjoining sacred waterbody — Gyan Vapi — which, in all likelihood, even predated the temple.
Motives
Scholars attribute political reasons rather than religious zealotry to be the primary motivation for Aurangzeb's demolition. Catherine Asher, a historian of Indo-Muslim architecture, notes that not only did the zamindars of Banaras frequently rebel against Aurangzeb but also the local Brahmins were oft accused of interfering with Islamic teaching. Consequently, she said that the demolition was a political message in that it served as a warning for the Zamindars and Hindu religious leaders, who wielded great influence in the city; Cynthia Talbot, Richard M. Eaton, Satish Chandra and Audrey Truschke agree on similar grounds. O' Hanlon highlights that the temple was demolished at a time when the conflict with Marathas was at its zenith.In general, scholars emphasize upon how Aurangzeb granted protection and patronage to several temples, ghats, and maths, including in Banaras, both before and after the demolition. Ian Copland and others support Iqtidar Alam Khan who said Aurangzeb built more temples than he destroyed; they said that the religious politics of the Mughal emperors ought not to be viewed in light of their personal piety but in the sociopolitical contingencies of their times. The Oxford World History of Empire said that while the demolition of Gyanvapi might be interpreted as a sign of Aurangzeb's "orthodox inclinations", local politics played an influencing role and his policies towards Hindus and their places of worship were "varied and contradictory, rather than consistently agnostic."
Muslim counter-claims
Writing in 1993, Mary Searle Chatterjee said most local Muslims rejected the idea that Aurangzeb had the temple demolished out of religious zealotry. Theories included:- The original building was a structure of the Din-i Ilahi faith which collapsed by itself or was destroyed by Aurangzeb, out of his hostility to Akbar's heretical thought-school.
- The original building was a temple but destroyed by a Hindu merchant from Jaunpur called Jnan Chand, as a consequence of the priests having looted, violated, and murdered one of his female relatives.
- The original building was a temple but destroyed in a communal riot, triggered by local Hindus
- The original building was a temple and was destroyed by Aurangzeb but only because it had served as a hub of political rebellion.
Local Muslims emphatically reject that Aurangzeb had demolished any temple to commission the mosque. Nonetheless, there has been little engagement with these claims in historical scholarship; Desai said Nomani's arguments were a strategic "rewriting of history" arising out of the Hindu-hegemonic nature of discourse in postcolonial Benaras.