Ayodhya Issue

Historians have different opinions regarding the great

epics of India- namely the Mahabharata and the
Ramayana. For some both are the narration of true
incidents while others regard them as fiction. This is
because of the lack of the sources especially inscriptions.
Difficulties prevailing the date of these epics continues to
exist. The only way to overcome this difficulty by the
archaeologist is to excavate and explore the sites
mentioned in these texts. Advantage of exploring the
sites in such a manner is that they bear the same names
even today, for example; there is only one Hastinapura
and one Ayodhya.

In early 1950s B.B.Lal began excavation at Hastinapura

and other sites associated with the Mahabharata and
discovered a common material culture known as Painted
Grey Ware Culture. The destruction of this culture is
brought to light by the excavation at Hastinapura on
account of a flood by the Ganga. The result of these sites
was published around 1954-45.

Regarding the Ramayana too same methodology was

applied and five sites were excavated. These were
Ayodhya, Sringaverapura, Bharadvaja Asrama,
Chitrakuta, and Nandigrama. All these sites yielded
Northern Black Polished Ware (NBPW) Culture around
seventh century. The protagonists of the Babri Masjid
reject the historicity of the Ramayana. They complain that
‘Ayodhya diggings did not confirm the traditional notions
of chronology of the so-called “sacred” texts or even of
the “epic” story. It provided a rude shock insofar as the
Rama saga centring around Ayodhya of the Tretayuga
was not shown to be hundreds of thousands of years
old.’

It is almost impossible to get any contemporary

inscriptions to provide authenticity to these epics. We
cannot depend or archaeological evidences for these.
These epics had a form of basis in historical reality.
Earlier they were sung and later given a textual form in
more reduced manner. A lot of intersection took place in
this process.

The view of the archaeology in this particular issue was

presented at an International Conference on ‘New
Archaeology and India’ organised by Indian Council of
Historical Research (ICHR) in October 1998 but it was
never brought to light because of its view in this
concerned matter. According to it in the Janmabhumi
complex, to the south of the Babri Masjid laid an
uppermost level of a trench that brought to light a series
of brick built bases which had pillars. A few stone pillars
had been used in the construction of the Babri Masjid
even which might had come from the previous structure.

The Babri Masjid historians are of the view that the pillars
evidences are fraud. Once they came to know about
these bases were as old as 1975-76, they reconciled
themselves to its authenticity. This ‘pillar-base’ topic
became very hot and ICHR decided not to publish it.
There are various other organisations that held the same
view that there was a Hindu temple at the site before the
construction of the Babri-Masjid.

The excavation at Ayodhya was a part of a larger project

called ‘Archaeology of the Ramayana sites’. Fourteen
areas were excavated and the Janmabhumi was one of
them. A trench laid at the south direction of the mandir-
masjid complex. Alike other sites, Ayodhya also revealed
NBPW as the earliest occupation. Various stages of
NBPW continued till the Kushana times but it was
abandoned later and remains were found in Kaushilya
Ghat.

Parallel rows of pillar bases made out of brick bats were

found and mostly in square shape but rarely circular.
They laid in the east-west direction. There were a few
pillars that were underneath the mandir-masjid complex.
There were four floors made out of lime and was
associated with the pillar bases. The Babri-Masjid
historians denied the evidences of the pillars and were of
the view that these were not pillars rather walls. Another
historian was of the view that the structure was no more
than a cowshed. Neither coins nor inscriptions were
found in matter relating to ‘pillar bases’. Four floors along
with pillared complex can be dated between 12th-15th
centuries AD.
Pillar bases extended into the edge of the trench marked
the possibility of more such pillars in that particular
direction. This could only be revealed by further
excavations. B.B.Lal was of the view that in order to have
a clearer picture of this, further excavation underneath
the mosque was required without causing any harm to
the structure. He even said that this issue had political
colours instead of archaeological one. He pointed out
that if both the groups - Vishwa Hindu Parishad and All
India Babri Masjid Action Committee wanted to know
what preceded the Masjid, and then further excavation
was must.

Other historians were of the view that the demand of Lal

of further excavation would serve the purpose of those
who wanted to demolish the Babri-Masjid and construct a
temple at that particular site.

Lal’s demand of excavation without damaging the

structure went in vain. The tension between the groups
continued. The Babri Masjid was demolished by the Karni
sena (Kar Sevaks) on 6th December 1992 and brought to
light various archaeological materials from the walls of
the Masjid. Apart from the sculpted panels and paintings
which might had been the part of a temple, there were
three inscriptions on stone.

Professor Ajaya Mitra Shastri is a notable historian and

specialist in numismatics and epigraphy. He said that the
inscriptions were composed in Sanskrit verse and a very
small part in prose. It has not been fully deciphered but
the part deciphered provides a great deal of information.
Line 15 clearly says that it was a Vishnu-Hari temple built
by piles of stones; line 17 points out that this was built in
the temple city of Ayodhya and line 19 described Vishnu
as destroying King Bali and Ravana.

The Babri-Masjid historians contended that the inscribed

slabs, architectural parts were brought by the Karni
Sevaks from somewhere else and placed there
deliberatively. But B.B. Lal argues that it holds no
background because of the availability of the
photographs that contradict this. For example; there were
two photographs in which Sevaks were carrying huge
slabs bearing a long inscription after picking it up from
the debris. Many eminent epigraphists have examined
the slab and none has thought that the inscription was
forged. There are numerous examples from history when
temples were destroyed and incorporated in mosque
such as the Quwwat-ul-Islam Mosque. For the foregoing
there was a clear picture that a temple existed at the site
which was destroyed and some parts of it were
incorporated in Masjid. Pillars were placed as a symbol of
victory.

On the very contrary R.S. Sharma also takes a stand on

this Ayodhya issue. He examines the validity of the view
that a temple marking the birthplace of Rama was built in
the eleventh century and existed at the Baburi Masjid site
in Ayodhya, until it was demolished in the sixteenth
century to erect the Masjid in its place. And examines
various types of evidences: textual, architectural and
archaeological, historical and epigraphic. Some of his
major arguments are discussed below.

While examining the textual evidence R.S. Sharma states

that those who believe in the historicity of Rama fix his
date around 1800 BC, on the basis of the Puranic family
tree. But we do not find even a modest settlement at
Ayodhya until 500 BC, as is true of the whole mid-Ganga
plain. Because of this difficulty some scholars locate the
original Ayodhya in Afghanistan and Rajasthan, and
others look for it in Balia and Munger districts.

Following the history of Hindu belief, the present Ayodhya

seems to have emerged as a place of religious
pilgrimage in late medieval times. He asserts that chapter
85 of the Visnu Smriti lists as many as 52 places of
pilgrimage but does not include Ayodhya. At present
there is no documented temple of Rama in any part of
Uttar Pradesh until 16 th century. Bhatta Laksmidhara,
the Gahadavala minister also surveys the well-known
brahmanical tirthas of his time, but neither mentions
Ayodhya nor the birthplace of Rama. He further
examines that according to Hindu belief many tirthas are
far more important than Ayodhya in northern India like
Prayag and Banaras. It is only in late medieval or early
modern times did Ayodhya come to be regarded as one
of the seven important places of pilgrimage. Even
Tulsidas, who wrote the Ramacharitamanas in 1574 at
Avadhpuri or Ayodhya, does not mention it as place of
pilgrimage. Here, Ayodhya appears neither as a place
with a temple of Rama nor as an important place of
pilgrimage for the Hindus. On the other hand Prayag is
called tirathraj, that is, the king of all the places of
pilgrimage.

Also he nowhere speaks of the worship of the idol of

Rama; had a temple of Rama existed in Ayodhya it could
not have escaped his notice. In fact Tulsidas clearly talks
of temples: he speaks of the temple of Girija or Parvati in
Mithila and mentions a temple of Svayamprabha near
Mahendra mountain. He mentions a temple in
Vibhisana’s house in Lanka. He also talks of many
temples on the bank of Sarayu. It is therefore highly
significant that he does not mention any temple of Rama
in Ayodhya, or the Ramajanmabhumi temple.

R.S. Sharma also argues that the Ramatirtha mentioned

in the Tirthaprakasa of the Viramitrodaya has nothing to
do with the Rama temple alleged to have stood on the
Baburi site since it is located in the Gomati, which may
be a name of a part of the Sarayu river and it consists of
bathing in the Gomati. The Ramajanmabhumi tirtha or
temple is therefore conspicuous by its absence in the
Viramitrodaya list. He also states that Hindu belief did not
associate any particular place in Ayodhya with the birth of
Rama until, the middle of the seventeenth century.

A Hindu organization, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP)

campaigned for the demolition of the Baburi mosque and
sought its replacement with a temple in honour of the
Hindu god Rama. The VHP experts emphasised the
longstanding Hindu belief in the birthplace of Rama at the
very spot where the Baburi Masjid was erected. The only
Sanskrit text they cite to support this argument is the
Skanda Purana. They refer to the Ayodhya Mahatmya in
particular, i.e. the merits of visiting Ayodhya. R.S. Sharma
consulted the printed version of the Skanda Purana
(Ksemaraja 1910) and two other versions found in
manuscript in the Vrindavan Research Institute and the
Bodleian Library, Oxford and states that these texts are
full of internal contradictions, and interpolations continued
to be made in the printed version of the Skanda Purana
at least until the eighteenth century. He also states that
the Ayodhya Mahatmya given in the printed version was
compiled by several hands.

R.S. Sharma argues that the description of the

Janmasthana [birthplace of Rama] in the last chapter of
the Ayodhya Mahatmya (verses 18–25) is clearly a later
addition since this part of Skanda Purana which deals
with tirthas was compiled from 1615 to 1645 according to
Kane. He further states that in the context of the tirthas
located in Ayodhya the Skanda Purana mentions five
tirthas, six goddesses and five gods, but does not speak
of the Janmasthana. Therefore, the fact that the term
Janmasthana occurs in the present printed version
clearly shows that it was interpolated in the Purana in
either the eighteenth or early nineteenth century. He
states that even if we accept the location of Rama's
birthplace as described in the Ayodhya Mahatmya, it
does not correspond to the Baburi Masjid. Since both the
Vrindavan and Bodleian versions of the Mahatmya
mentions the compass directions and distances of
Rama's birthplace from some specific sites, this situates
the birthplace somewhere between Rinmochan and
Brahmakunda, i.e. on the bank of Sarayu. Thus,
according to the hindu belief, the birthplace of Rama
cannot be located on the site where the Baburi Masjid
stood.

R.S. Sharma states that the main archaeological

argument provided for the existence of the temple at the
site of the mosque is based on the presence of fourteen
pillars in the Baburi Masjid. Since these pillars could be
seen on the spot, common people who did not have
much idea about such pillars were misled by continuous
false propaganda. It has been argued that these pillars
once formed part of a temple, that they were in situ and
that the mosque was erected over them. But this whole
argument is mistaken.

He provides that most of the pillars measure a little more

than 1.7 metres each in height, and their diameter at the
base varies from 18 centimetres to 25 centimetres; in one
single case a base measures about 1 metre. Therefore,
such pillars can obviously not be load-bearing, for which
at least a height of 2.1 metres is needed in medieval
temples. Also in several cases the span between two
sets of pillars, which have been embedded in the walls of
the mosque, measures 5 metres, which completely
precludes the possibility of them being used as load-
bearing pillars in their present position. He further argues
that the pillars embedded in the mosque wall simply
stand on the floor of the mosque and do not form a part
of its foundation. Therefore, he states that these pillars
cannot be a part of any temple hall and they form an
integral part of the mosque for the purpose of decoration
although reused.

Many competent art historians such as Krishna Deva,

Devangana Desai, M.A. Dhaky and N.P. Joshi, state that
the style of these pillars is ver much like that of the Pala
pillars, therefore, their date may not be placed later than
1000 AD.

R.S. Sharma says that the motifs depicted on the pillars

make it almost impossible to determine whether the
pillars belong to a Vaishnavite or even to ah Hindu
religious structure and provides that except for a
dvarapala represented on one pillar, hardly any of the
pillar representations from the Baburi mosque can be
specifically designated as Vaishnavite. On the contrary,
the pillars carry motifs peculiar to Buddhist art of the
eastern school. Therefore, he infers that the pillars used
as decorative pieces at the Baburi Masjid were evidently
brought from some temples with Buddhist associations in
eastern India. Since we have many instances of the
transportation of building material.

To this the VHP experts argued that B.B. Lal's

excavations suggest the presence of a pillared structure
adjacent to the Baburi Masjid and claim that this structure
was probably a part of the original temple. To this R.S.
Sharma says that though Lal published two reports on his
Ayodhya diggings, the first in 1976–77 and the second in
1979–80, he first refers to the discovery of the pillared
structure only in 1990, after the Ayodhya dispute had
started and says that this delay in publishing the
discovery is intriguing. Also the photographs of the
alleged pillar bases show no structural remains
associated with the ‘pillar-bases’, either on the plan or on
the section; thus he says that the structure was either
flimsy or an ordinary shed supported by pillars. There is
nothing to show that these pillars had any religious
association.

It was argued that the Masjid pillars were a continuation

of the pillar base discovered in Trench IV of the Ayodhya
excavation in 1977; to this R.S. Sharma argues that the
excavated pillar-bases are not in alignment with the
pillars set in the mosque, and the floor on which the brick
pillar-bases stand is substantially lower than the floor of
the mosque. He says that the mere presence of pillar-
bases does not mean presence of a temple. No stone
pillars, architraves or roof material of the supposed
temple were found in the debris of the trench where the
brick pillar-bases stood. The VHP experts argue that this
brick pillar-base ‘temple’ was demolished in 1528–9 and
was replaced by the Masjid. He considers this to be a
baseless inference. R.S. Sharma says that Glazed
Islamic ware pottery was never used in Hindu temples,
but pieces of this pottery occur in the trenches which
shows that the brick pillar-structure had already fallen
down and gone out of use around the thirteenth century,
and the site was inhabited by Muslims. He further states
that finds of Islamic glazed ware together with lime and
kankar floors in excavations of both A.K. Narain and B.B.
Lal make it clear that the Muslims lived in Ayodhya from
the thirteenth century onwards and needed a mosque for
offering prayers. Finally, he says that there is nothing to
show that the pillar-bases existing at a distance of about
17 metres to the south of the Baburi Masjid structure are
in alignment with the pillars used in the Baburi Masjid.

R.S. Sharma further states that Babur speaks admiringly

of idol houses, that is temples, of Gwalior including
Chanderi and it is an irony that a lover of Hindu art and
architecture should be branded as a destroyer of a Rama
temple which, in any case, did not exist. It is therefore
very clear that the Baburi mosque was not built by
demolishing a temple of Rama at Ayodhya.

Therefore, in conclusion, it can be said that the presence

of Rama Janmabhumi temple at the same site as the
Baburi Masjid stood is quite erroneous. And it is very
unfortunate that an important heritage of our country was
demolished, as such, it is now impossible to reconstruct
the mosque in exactly same manner as it was earlier.
However, the matter is in the court and both the parties
have agreed to abide by the decision.
 Bibliography

1) Lal, Braj Basi. 1998. “The Ayodhya

Issue”. In Destruction and Conservation
of Cultural Property, ed. Peter G. Stone,
Julian Thomas and Robert Layton,
117-26. London: Routledge.

2) Sharma, Ram Sharan. 2001. “The

Ayodhya Issue”. In Destruction and
Conservation of Cultural Property, ed.
Peter G. Stone, Julian Thomas and
Robert Layton, 127-38. London:
Routledge.