Purushottam Nagesh Oak

Purushottam Nagesh Oak (March 2nd 1917 - December 4th 2007), commonly referred to as P. N. Oak, was an Indian writer notable for his historical revisionism based on the ideology of Hindutva. His views have largely been dismissed in mainstream academic circles, in India as well as the west, as examples of pseudohistory .

Biography

According to the introduction of one of P. N. Oak's books, he was born in Indore, Madhya Pradesh. During World War II he joined the Indian National Army, which fought with the Japanese against the British. He obtained M.A and L.L.B degrees from Mumbai University. From 1947 to 1953 he was a reporter for the The Hindustan Times and The Statesman newspapers. From 1953 to 1957, he worked in India's Central Radio and Public Ministry. From 1959 to 1974, he worked at the American Embassy in New Delhi. [ [http://home.freeuk.net/tajmahal/19Author.htm cover blurb] on one of Oak's books, hosted at freeuk.net/tajmahal/.]

Revisionist theories

Intent on rectifying what he believes to be "biased and distorted versions of India's history produced by the invaders and colonizers", Oak has written several books and articles on Indian history and founded an "Institute for Rewriting Indian History" in 1964. According to Oak, modern secular and Marxist historians have fabricated "idealized versions" of India's past and drained it of its "Vedic context and content". Oak's work typically resorts to "deep punning" (Aravamudan 2005) associating Sanskrit sound-alikes with non-Sanskrit religious terms (such as "Vatican"="vatika" "hermitage", "Islam"="ishalayam" "temple of God" and similar). Based on this, Oak claims that both Islam and Christianity originated as distortions of "Vedic" beliefs. He thus alleges that the Kaaba in Mecca was originally a shrine to Shiva [ [http://www.hinduism.co.za/kaabaa.htm "Was the Kaaba Originally a Hindu Temple?" by P.N. Oak] (hinduism.co.za)] and that the Papacy was "a Vedic priesthood" until Constantine the Great killed the "Vedic Pope" and replaced him with the head of the hitherto unimportant Christian sect. [cite news|url=http://www.vnn.org/editorials/ET9906/ET04-4033.html|first=P.N.|last=Oak|title=Cities And Regions Since|publisher=Vaishnava News Network|date=1999-06-04]

Oak finds some mention in passing as an eccentric in academic literature on the Hindutva wing of Hindu Nationalism. Aravamudan (2005) calls him a "mythistorian" whose life's work may be summarized by the title of his work "World Vedic Heritage: A History of Histories, Presenting a Unique Unified Field Theory of History that from the Beginning of Time the World Practised Vedic and Spoke Sanskrit". Edwin Bryant writes that most academics would consider him a 'crackpot'. ["The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate", Edwin Bryant, Oxford University Press (2001), p. 4.] Art historian Rebecca Brown describes Oak's books as "revisionist history as subtle as Captain Russell's smirk" (referring to a character in the Hindi movie Lagaan). [Rebecca Brown, [http://muse.jhu.edu/demo/film_and_history/v034/34.1brown.html Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India] "Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Film and Television Studies" 34.1 (2004) 78-80]

Oak's theories continue to be publicized by some contemporary Hindutva adherents. [Narasimhan Ram, editor of The Hindu newspaper, calls him a "Sangh historian" [http://www.hindu.com/2001/04/29/stories/05291346.htm HRD Ministry - its master's voice] , "The Hindu", April 29, 2001.] [cite news|title=The Taj Mahal|author=Akbar S. Ahmed|publisher=History Today, vol. 43|date=May 1993|quote=The Taj has recently entered a controversy which reflects the politics of modern India. Hindu fundamentalists, wishing to deny any positive role of Muslims in India, argue that it was not built by Shah Jahan. They claim Hindu rulers in the fourth century built it. Books with titles such as "Taj Mahal Was a Rajput Palace" (P.N. Oak, 1965; [http://www.ece.lsu.edu/kak/taj.pdf online version] ) further argue this position. There is no merit in the argument, but it has acquired something of a popular following in India.]

Faisal Kutty (2003) noted a revival of interest in Oak's revisionism with the Hindutva campaign of pseudohistorical literature targeting Non Resident Indians. ["Anyone following the developments in India would have at least heard of the attempts to rewrite history, but not many are fully aware of the magnitude and scope of the endeavor. I was rudely awakened to extent of the project when I stumbled upon an article in Canada's largest daily, The Toronto Star, a couple of years ago. Ajit Adhopia, a regular columnist in the religion section at the time, was promoting the work of P. N. Oak, the head of the Institute for Rewriting Indian History. Adhopia was praising the "historical research" of Oak in the Saturday edition of the paper, which has a circulation of close to one million."]

The Taj Mahal

In his book "Taj Mahal: The True Story", Oak claims that the Taj Mahal was originally a Shiva temple or a Rajput palace seized by Shah Jahan and adopted as a tomb.

The Taj, Oak says, is a "typical illustration of how all historic buildings and townships from Kashmir to Cape Comorin though of Hindu origin have been ascribed to this or that Muslim ruler or courtier". [http://www.hindunet.org/hindu_history/modern/taj_oak.html The Tajmahal is Tejomahalay—A Hindu Temple] ] He goes on to propose Hindu origins for the tombs of Humayun, Akbar and Itmiad-u-Dallah and "all historic buildings" in India as well as the Vatican, [http://www.vnn.org/editorials/ET9906/ET04-4033.html Cities And Regions Since] ] the Kaaba and Stonehenge.

Oak claims that Hindu ornaments and symbols were effaced from the Taj, whose sealed chambers hold the remnants, including a Shiva Lingam, of the original temple and that Mumtaz Mahal was not buried at her cenotaph.

In support of these claims, Oak presents carbon dating results of the wood from the riverside doorway of the Taj, quotes from European travellers' accounts and the Taj's Hindu architectural features. Oak further alleges that eyewitness accounts of the Taj Mahal's construction as well as Shah Jahan's construction orders and voluminous financial records are elaborate frauds meant to hide its Hindu origin.

Oak petitioned demanding that the Taj be declared a Hindu monument and that cenotaphs and sealed apartments be opened to determine whether Shivalingam or other temple remains were hidden in them. According to Oak, the Indian government's refusal to allow him unfettered access amounts to a conspiracy against Hinduism.

Oak's denial of Islamic architecture in India has been described as one of the "more extreme manifestations of anti-Muslim sentiment" in Maharashtrian popular culture. [cite book|author=Carl W. Ernst, Annemarie Schimmel|title=Eternal Garden: Mysticism, History, and Politics at a South Asian Sufi Center|publisher=State University of New York Press|date=1992|pages=36] K. N. Panikkar locates Oak's work in the Hindutva mmovements attempt to foster a communal understanding of Indian history ["OUTSIDER AS ENEMY: POLITICS OF REWRTING HISTORY IN INDIA", address to the Stanford India Association. [http://web.archive.org/web/20060109123200/http://www.stanford.edu/group/sia/Events/Panikkar_speech.pdf Text] available on the Internet Archives] . Tapan Raychaudhuri has referred to him as "a 'historian' much respected by the Sangh Parivar."cite journal
author = Raychaudhuri, T.
year = 2000
title = Shadows of the Swastika: Historical Perspectives on the Politics of Hindu Communalism
journal = Modern Asian Studies
volume = 34
issue = 02
pages = 259–279
doi = 10.1017/S0026749X00003310]

The writer Koenraad Elst sees Oak's claim as an example of a "funny attempts at compensation" within a "Hindu inferiority complex" arising from what he describes as a crackdown by "arrogant Leftists" on Hindutva following the murder of Gandhi. [ [http://www.bharatvani.org/books/ayodhya/ch15.htm Ayodhya and After: The Hindu movement after Ayodhya, chapter 15] ]

In 2000 India's Supreme Court dismissed Oak's petition to declare that a Hindu king had built the Taj Mahal and reprimanded him for bringing the action, saying he had a "bee in his bonnet" about the Taj.Fact|date=July 2008 In 2005 a similar petition was dismissed by the Allahabad High Court. This case was brought by Amar Nath Mishra, a social worker and preacher who says that the Taj Mahal was built by the Hindu King Parmar Dev in 1196.Fact|date=July 2008

The Kaaba

In a 13 page pamphlet headed 'WAS KAABA A HINDU TEMPLE? IS ALLAH A HINDU GOD?', Oak derives a claim of a "Vedic past of Arabia" based on an alleged inscription mentioning king Vikramāditya found at the Kaaba. The text of the inscription Oak quotes from takes from a manuscript he identifies as "Sayar-ul-Okul", [Muslim Digest, July to Oct. 1986 pages 23-24; [http://media.isnet.org/antar/etc/DeedatBalance.html] Purushottam Nagesh Oak, "Indian Kshatriyas Once Ruled from Bali to Baltic & Korea to Kaba" (1966)] , allegedly a manuscript anthology of Arabic poetry kept in the Makhtab-e-Sultania Library in Istanbul, Turkey. Oak claims the anthology was compiled in 1742 on the orders of a "Sultan Salim" (the actual Sultan at the time being Mahmud I), and alleges it was first edited in 1864 in Berlin. The "Sayar ul-Okul" has since been propagated by fringe Vedic mysticist Stephen Knapp, [Stephen Knapp, "Proof of Vedic Culture's Global Existence" (2001), ISBN 0961741066, p. 123f.] but is unknown to the pertinent Arabist reference works.

Institute for Rewriting Indian History

Oak's "Institute for Rewriting Indian History" issued a quarterly periodical called "Itihas Patrika" in the 1980s.

Bibliography

* "Christianity is Chrisn-nity",
* "Islamic Havoc in India" (A. Ghosh Publisher, 5740 W. Little York, Houston, Texas, 77091)
* "The Taj Mahal Is a Temple Place" (Alternate title, "The Taj Mahal is a Hindu Palace"), Hindi Sahitya Sadan, New Delhi (online version: [http://www.hindusarise.com/tajmahal.pdf hindusarise.com] )
* "Who Says Akbar Was Great?" (Hindi Sahitya Sadan, New Delhi)
* "Agra Red Fort is a Hindu Building" (Hindi Sahitya Sadan, New Delhi)
* "Some Blunders of Indian Historical Research" (Hindi Sahitya Sadan, New Delhi)
* "Some Missing Chapters of World History" (Hindi Sahitya Sadan, New Delhi)
* "World Vedic Heritage -- A History of Histories" (Hindi Sahitya Sadan, New Delhi)
* "Taj Mahal — The True Story" (ISBN 0-9611614-4-2)

Notes

References

*Srinivas Aravamudan, "Guru English: South Asian Religion in a Cosmopolitan Language" Princeton University Press (2005), ISBN 0691118280, p. 36.
*Edwin Bryant "Aryan Origins and Modern Nationalist Discourse", chapter 13 in "The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate", Oxford University Press (2001).
* Carl W. Ernst, "Eternal Garden: Mysticism, History, and Politics at a South Asian Sufi Center" (1992), ISBN 0791408833, p. 36.
* Suvir Kaul, "The Partitions of Memory: The Afterlife of the Division of India" (2002), ISBN 0253215668, p. 205.
* Michael Witzel, "Indocentrism: autochthonous visions of ancient India", in: Patton and Bryant (eds.), "The Indo-Aryan Controversy: Evidence and Inference in Indian History", Routledge (2004), ISBN 0700714634.

ee also

* Hindutva
* Communalism (South Asia)
* Historical revisionism
* Historiography and nationalism

External links

* [http://www.iviews.com/articles/Articles.asp?ref=IV0301-1828 Safronisation of Indian History Elicits Deafening Silence] by Faisal Kutty (2003, iviews.com)
* [http://www.stephen-knapp.com/was_the_taj_mahal_a_vedic_temple.htm Taj: A Vedic temple] (stephen-knapp.com)
* [http://home.freeuk.net/tajmahal/ "Taj Mahal - A Hindu Temple Vandalised - As uncovered by Prof. P. N. Oak"] (home.freeuk.net/tajmahal/)
* [http://web.archive.org/web/20070710172454/http://webpages.marshall.edu/~laher1/oaks.html Mujlisul Ulema (Port Elizabeth), "P.N. Oak's blasphemy against the Ka`bah", Young Men's Muslim Association, South Africa] (archive link)
* [http://www.anindianmuslim.com/2008/04/remembering-pn-oak-original-hindutva.html An Indian Muslim's tribute to PN Oak]