Hindu Temples - What Happened to Them

Infobox Book
name = Hindu Temples - What Happened to Them
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption =
author = Sita Ram Goel
Arun Shourie
Harsh Narain
Jay Dubashi
Ram Swarup
illustrator =
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country = India
language = English
series =
subject = Hinduism
genre = Non-fiction
publisher =
release_date = 1991
english_release_date =
media_type =
pages =
isbn = ISBN 81-85990-49-2 (Volume 1)
ISBN 81-85990-03-4 (Volume 2)
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followed_by =

"Hindu Temples - What Happened to Them" is a book in two volumes by Sita Ram Goel, Arun Shourie, Harsh Narain, Jay Dubashi and Ram Swarup. (Volume 1: ISBN 81-85990-49-2, Volume 2: ISBN 81-85990-03-4) The first volume was published in spring 1990.

The first volume includes a list of 2000 mosques that it is claimed were built on Hindu temples, which it is asserted is based primarily on the books of Muslim historians of the period or the inscriptions of the mosques. The second volume excerpts from medieval histories and chronicles and from inscriptions concerning the destruction of Hindu, Jain and Buddhist temples. The authors claim that the material presented in this book are only the tip of an iceberg.

The book contains chapters about the Ayodhya debate. The Appendix of the first volume contains a list of temple-destructions and atrocities that the authors claim took place in Bangladesh in 1989. The book also criticizes "Marxist historians" and one of the appendices of the second volume includes a "questionnaire for the Marxist professors" that the authors sent to well-known Indian historian Romila Thapar.

In August 1990 while releasing the book "Hindu Temples - What Happened To Them", Bharatiya Janta Party leader L. K. Advani chided Goel for using strong language. [Goel, Sita Ram, "How I became a Hindu", Chapter 9] There were proposals in November 1990 in Uttar Pradesh to ban the book. [http://koenraadelst.voiceofdharma.com/books/ayodhya/ch12.htm] .

Criticism

Koenraad Elst's book "Negationism in India - Concealing the Record of Islam" contains a lengthy review of the book. Koenraad Elst claimed that "None of the negationist historians has come forward with a reply or with the announcement that a mistake has been discovered in Mr. Goel's list of monuments of Islamic fanaticism. Manini Chatterjee, reviewer for The Telegraph, could do no more than calling it a "very bad book". Very bad for the negationists, indeed." [http://koenraadelst.voiceofdharma.com/books/negaind/ch3.htm] And Elst further claimed: "Of the hundreds of secularist historians who have signed statements denouncing "communal history distortion", not a single one has been able to challenge even one of the 2000 claims in the list." [http://voiceofdharma.com/books/foe/ch15.htm]

Cynthia Talbot in 1995 claimed that Goel's list of destroyed temples is "greatly inflated", but also called for a systematic and unbiased study of the subject, without which it is very difficult to gauge the extent of damage wrought on Indian temples. [Cynthia Talbot. Inscribing the Other,Inscribing the Self:Hindu-Muslim Identities in Pre-Colonial India. Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol.37,No.4 (Oct. 1995).] Cynthia Talbot noted that in the decades after 1565 temple desecration were on the rise in Andhra Pradesh, which is in accord with the dates in Goel's list of temple destructions (in Goel's chapter "Let the Mute Witness speak"). Reflecting on Goel's list, she says: "Five date from the fourteenth century (phase one), six come from phase two, and nineteen date from 1565 to 1650 CE (phase three). The remaining thirty or so cases stem from the century after 1650, with a notable bunching of incidents in the late 1600s, when the Mughal empire was absorbing the former Qutb Shahi kingdom of Golconda." [Cynthia Talbot. Inscribing the Other,Inscribing the Self:Hindu-Muslim Identities in Pre-Colonial India. Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol.37,No.4 (Oct. 1995).]

Manini Chatterjee, in a review in the Calcutta Telegraph, called Goel's book a “very bad book”. [Manini Chatterjee, review in the Calcutta Telegraph (ca. 30-1-1991). Koenraad Elst "Who is a Hindu?" (2001)] Richard Eaton also criticized the book. [Richard Eaton: “Temple desecration and Indo-Muslim states”, Essays on Islam and Indian History. Chapter Six] Eaton discussed one of the cases in Goel's list of destroyed temples: “an inscription dated 1455, found over the doorway of a tomb-shrine in Dhar, Madhya Pradesh” which mentions “the destruction of a Hindu temple by one Abdullah Shah Changal during the reign of Raja Bhoja, a renowned Paramara king who had ruled over the region from 1010 to 1053” Eaton says that the inscription is “hardly contemporary” and “presents a richly textured legend elaborated over many generations of oral transmission until 1455”. He acknowledges that “Goel does, however, consider it more likely that the event took place during the reign of Raja Bhoja II in the late thirteenth century rather than during that of Raja Bhoja I in the eleventh century.” Richard Eaton thinks that “we cannot know with certainty” if the temple destruction did take place. [Richard Eaton: “Temple desecration and Indo-Muslim states”, Essays on Islam and Indian History. Chapter Six] Eaton also claimed that Goel has used “selective translations of premodem Persian chronicles, together with a selective use of epigraphic data”. [Richard Eaton: “Temple desecration and Indo-Muslim states”, Essays on Islam and Indian History. Chapter Six] According to Vimal Yogi Tiwari, such a historical assessment as in Goel's book "Hindu Temples" has by and large been missing in India. [Review by Vimal Yogi Tiwari in the Pioneer. Elst, Koenraad, Ayodhya and After: Issues Before Hindu Society (1991)]

Goel's book also includes an exchange of comments between Romila Thapar and Goel. [Appendix 4 of "Hindu Temples - What Happened to Them"] Romila Thapar has criticized Goel, claiming that he does not understand how to use historical sources. [Romila Thapar et al.: Communalism in the Waiting of Indian History, People’s Publishing House, Delhi 1987 (1969), p.15-16, and repeated in her letter to Mr. Manish Tayal (UK), 7-2-1999, concerning Arun Shourie: Eminent Historians, ASA, Delhi 1998. Manish Tayal: “Romila Thapar’s reply to ‘Eminent Historians’”, 16-2-1999. "Koenraad Elst "Who is a Hindu?" (2001)]

References

*Koenraad Elst: Negationism in India Concealing the record of Islam (1992) [http://koenraadelst.voiceofdharma.com/books/negaind/index.htm]

ee also

* Muslim conquest in the Indian subcontinent
* Negationism in India - Concealing the Record of Islam (Book)
* Persecution of Hindus
* Anti-Hindu
* Muslim League Attack on Sikhs and Hindus in the Punjab 1947

External links

* Online version: [http://voi.org/books/htemples1/ Volume 1] , [http://voi.org/books/htemples2 Volume 2]
* [http://koenraadelst.voiceofdharma.com/books/ayodhya/ch12.htm Comments on the book] ,
* [http://voiceofdharma.com/books/foe/ch15.htm Comments]
* [http://www.india-world.net/india/history/modern/portuguese.html Destruction of Hindu temples by the Portuguese]