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{{short description|Hindu-centric historical revisionist}}

{{EngvarB|date=September 2013}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2020}}
{{Infobox person
| name = P. N. Oak
| image = File:Purushottam Nagesh Oak.png
| alt =
| caption =
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1917|03|02}}
| birth_place = [[Indore]], Indore State, [[Presidencies and provinces of British India|British India]]
| death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|2007|12|04|1917|03|02}}
| death_place = [[Pune]], India
| other_names =
| known_for = Historical revisionism
| occupation = Soldier and writer
}}
'''Purushottam Nagesh Oak''' (2 March 1917 – 4 December 2007) was a [[Historical revisionism|historical revisionist]] from India.<ref name="guardfringe">{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/30/hardline-hindu-nationalists-step-up-campaign-against-taj-mahal|title=Hardline Hindu nationalists campaign against Taj Mahal|work=[[The Guardian]]|date=30 October 2017|access-date=2020-02-17}}</ref>

Among his prominent claims were that Christianity and Islam are both derivatives of [[Hinduism]]; that [[Vatican City]], [[Kaaba]], [[Westminster Abbey]] and the [[Taj Mahal]] were once [[Hindu temple]]s dedicated to [[Shiva]]; and that the [[Pope|Papacy]] was originally a [[Vedas|Vedic]] Priesthood. Their reception in Indian popular culture have been noted by observers of contemporary Indian society. He ran an '''Institute for Rewriting Indian History''<nowiki/>' in the 1980s which published a quarterly periodical called ''Itihas Patrika'' dedicated to fringe causes; he had also written numerous books, some of which have even lead to court cases in a bid to alter the mainstream history narrative.<ref name=india1/><ref name=ht1/><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/2000/07/14/stories/0214000q.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171214072255/http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/2000/07/14/stories/0214000q.htm|url-status=dead|archive-date=14 December 2017|newspaper=[[The Hindu]]|title=Plea to rewrite Taj history dismissed|date=14 July 2000}}</ref>

==Life==
Oak was born in 1917 in [[Indore]] in the erstwhile [[Indore State|Princely State of Indore]], [[British India]].<ref>{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=2018-01-25|title=P. N. Oak - Indian Authors – Biography & Books|url=https://theindianauthors.in/legends/p-n-oak/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210201055649/https://theindianauthors.in/legends/p-n-oak/|archive-date=2021-02-01|access-date=2021-02-01|website=Indian Authors - Biography & Books|language=en-US}}</ref><ref name="Keralam">{{Cite web|last=Keralam|first=Haindava|date=2007-12-05|title=PN Oak, an obituary|url=https://haindavakeralam.com/pn-oak-hk15318|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210201060221/https://haindavakeralam.com/pn-oak-hk15318|archive-date=2021-02-01|access-date=2021-02-01|website=Haindava Keralam|language=ml-IN}}</ref> According to his own account, he completed an M.A. ([[Dr. B. R. Ambedkar University|Agra]]) and a law degree (LL.B. [[University of Mumbai|Mumbai]]), before being inducted as a [[Gazetted Officer (India)|Class I Gazetted officer]] in the [[Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (India)|Ministry of Information and Broadcasting]] wherein he wrote various journalistic pieces.<ref name="Oak1" /> Before joining the army, he also claims to have worked as an English tutor at [[Fergusson College]] in Pune.<ref name=Oak1/> During [[World War II]] he enlisted in the [[Indian National Army]], which fought alongside the [[Empire of Japan|Japanese]] against the [[British Empire|British]].<ref name="Keralam" /> He served in the propaganda sections, but was never captured by the British [[End of World War II in Asia|after the end of hostilities]].<ref name="Roy" /> According to his own account he skillfully evaded capture as he journeyed from [[Singapore]] to [[Kolkata|Calcutta]] between [[1945]] and [[1946]].<ref name="Roy" /> While in the Army, he wrote a play called ''Rani of Zanshi: A Play in Three Acts,'' it had been produced to commemorate the first anniversary of the founding of the [[Rani of Jhansi Regiment]] (the Women's Regiment) of the INA in July 1943.<ref name="Roy">{{Cite book|last=Roy|first=Kaushik|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nL6Ct0RDg6wC&q=Indian%20Army%20in%20the%20Two%20World%20Wars%20edited%20by%20Kaushik%20Roy&pg=PA508|title=The Indian Army in the Two World Wars|date=2011-10-14|publisher=BRILL|year=2011|isbn=978-90-04-18550-0|location=Leiden, Netherlands|pages=508–510|language=en}}</ref>

In 1964, he founded an organisation called ''Institute for Rewriting Indian History''.<ref name="Oak1" /> He died on 4 December 2007, at 3.30 am at his Pune residence aged 90.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://scroll.in/article/767712/how-the-taj-mahal-became-part-of-the-campaign-to-erase-indias-muslim-past|title=How the Taj Mahal became part of the campaign to erase India's Muslim past|last=Paracha|first=Nadeem F.|website=Scroll.in|language=en-US|access-date=2019-10-08}}</ref>

==Historical revisionism==
===Taj Mahal Theory===
In 2000 India's Supreme Court dismissed Oak's petition to declare that a Hindu king had built the Taj Mahal by saying he had a "bee in his bonnet" about the Taj.<ref name=Tribune1 /> Till date, as of 2017, several court cases about Taj Mahal being a Hindu temple have been inspired by Oak's theory.<ref name=india1>Siraj Qureshi, [http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/taj-mahal-court-petition-shiva-temple/1/1024727.html "Another court petition challenges Taj Mahal's story as a symbol of love"], [[India Today]], 12 August 2017.</ref><ref name=ht1>[http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/is-the-taj-mahal-a-mausoleum-or-a-shiva-temple-cic-tells-government-to-clarify/story-bYyd6mFUmFbrIjOJnbP9CI.html "Is Taj Mahal a mausoleum or a Shiva temple? CIC asks govt to clarify"], [[Hindustan Times]], 10 August 2017.</ref> In August 2017, [[Archaeological Survey of India]] stated there was no evidence to suggest the monument ever housed a temple.<ref>[http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/vinay-katiyar-taj-mahal-tejo-mahalaya-temple-supreme-court-bee-in-bonnet-theory-asi/1/1071039.html BJP's Vinay Katiyar now calls Taj Mahal a Hindu temple - a 'bee in bonnet' theory that Supreme Court once rejected] [[India Today]]</ref>

[[Giles Tillotson]] calls Oak's claims as a "desperate bid to assign a new meaning to the Taj" and "pseudo-scholarship". He states that Oak interprets the statements of ''[[Padshahnama]]'' about Shah Jahan's purchase of the land for the Taj from [[Jai Singh I]] upon where a mansion built by an ancestor of the Raja earlier existed, to claim that Taj Mahal was a wonder of ancient Hinduism. Tillotson adds that no evidence is offered by Oak to redate it to thirteen centuries earlier. He adds that the technical know-how to construct structural buildings didn't exist in 4th-century India, Oak's original claim, the only surviving architecture being rock-cut or monolithic. Oak later dropped this claim and claimed it to be from the 12th century. He adds that Oak claims Mughals built nothing and only converted Hindu buildings. In relation to similarity with buildings of [[West Asia]], Oak also claims them all to be "products of Hindu architecture".<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q4zYd848UJkC&pg=PA115|author=Giles Tillotson|title=Taj Mahal|pages=112–114|publisher= [[Harvard University Press]]|year=2008|author-link=Giles Tillotson|isbn=9780674031869}}</ref>

===Kaaba Theory: Vedic origins===
{{See also|Kaaba#Pre-Islamic Era}}
In a 13-page pamphlet titled ''Was Kaaba a Hindu Temple?'', Oak derives a claim of a "Vedic past of Arabia" based on an inscription mentioning the legendary Indian king [[Vikramāditya]] that Oak claims was found inside a dish inside the Kaaba. According to Oak, the text of the alleged inscription is taken from the page 315 of an anthology of poetry entitled ''Sayar-ul-Okul'' (''Se'-arul Oqul'' meaning the ''memorable words''),<ref name=Oak1966>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)</ref> compiled in 1742 on the orders of a "Sultan Salim" (the actual Sultan at the time being [[Mahmud I]], sultan [[Selim III]] lived from 1761 to 1808) from the earlier work of prophet Muhammed's uncle [[Amr ibn Hishām]] (poetic name "Abu al-Ḥakam" (or ابوالحكم) or meaning the "Father of wisdom") who had refused to convert to Islam, and, first modern version published in 1864 in Berlin and a subsequent edition was published in Beirut in 1932.<ref name=vishva1>"Hindu Vishva", Volume 27, Issues 4-11, pp. 16.</ref> Oak goes on to state that the anthology is kept in the "Makhtab-e-Sultania Library" (Galatasaray Mekteb-i Sultanisi or Galatasaray Imperial School) in [[Istanbul]], [[Turkey]] which has been now renamed as [[Galatasaray High School|Galatasaray Lisesi]] school.<ref>Rabbi Simon Altaf, 2011, [https://books.google.com.sg/books?isbn=1599160528 World War III - Unmasking the End-Times Beast: Unmasking End Time Beast], African-Israel International Union of Israelite Qahalim, {{ISBN|1599160528}}.</ref>

== Reception ==
[[Srinivas Aravamudan]] notes Oak to be a 'mythistorian' whose work resorted to exploiting [[Comparative linguistics|comparative philology]] in the generation of delusional etymologies—associating Sanskrit sound-alikes with foreign terms such as [[Holy See|Vatican]]=vatika (hermitage), Christianity=Krishna-niti (the way of Krishna), [[Abraham]] as an aberration of [[Brahma]] ''--'' to purvey an [[Islamophobia|Islamophobic]] and [[Persecution of Christians|anti-Christian]] agenda under the covers of [[Hindutva]].<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tusUlz2jb00C|title=Guru English: South Asian Religion in a Cosmopolitan Language|last=Aravamudan|first=Srinivas|date=2011-06-27|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=9781400826858|pages=34|language=en}}</ref> [[Edwin Bryant (author)|Edwin Bryant]] in his work on Indo-Aryan theory describes Oak to be a self-styled historian whose works suffer from an ubiquitous and very poor standard of professionalism and critical methodology and who fit the definition of a [[Crank (person)|crack-pot]].<ref>{{Cite book|chapter-url=http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0195137779.001.0001/acprof-9780195137774|title=The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture|last=Bryant|first=Edwin|date=2001-09-20|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780195137774|chapter=Aryan Origins and Modern Nationalist Discourse|pages=267–297|doi=10.1093/0195137779.003.0014}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|chapter-url=http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0195137779.001.0001/acprof-9780195137774|title=The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture|last=Bryant|first=Edwin|date=2001-09-20|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780195137774|chapter=Introduction|pages=3–12|doi=10.1093/0195137779.003.0001}}</ref>

[[Giles Tillotson]] describes Oak's work on Taj Mahal as a "startling piece of pseudo-scholarship",<ref name="Parker2008" /> which was plainly a work of polemical fantasy intended to denigrate Islam and did not merit any serious scholarly attention.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YHEHNSTNnRQC|title=Taj Mahal|last=Giles|first=Tillotson|date=2012-11-12|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=9780674063655|pages=112–115, 163|language=en}}</ref> Art historian Rebecca Brown described Oak's books as "revisionist history as subtle as Captain Russell's smirk" (referring to a character in the Hindi movie ''[[Lagaan]]'').<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Brown|first=Rebecca M.|date=2004-07-08|title=Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India (review)|journal=Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Film and Television Studies|language=en|volume=34|issue=1|pages=78–80|doi=10.1353/flm.2004.0008|issn=1548-9922|doi-access=free}}</ref>

Oak's theories have been noted to have found a popular following among [[Hindutva|right-wing Hindu factions]] in a bid to wage politico-religious battles.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YHEHNSTNnRQC|title=Taj Mahal|last=Tillotson|first=Giles|date=2012-11-12|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=9780674063655|pages=163|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Ahmed|first=Akbar|date=May 1993|title=The Taj Mahal|url=https://www.historytoday.com/archive/taj-mahal|journal=History Today|volume=43|issue=5}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-miscellaneous/tp-others/hrd-ministry-its-masters-voice/article27931013.ece|title=HRD Ministry - its master's voice|date=2001-04-29|work=The Hindu|access-date=2019-10-08|language=en-IN|issn=0971-751X}}</ref> [[Tapan Raychaudhuri]] has referred to him as "a 'historian' much respected by the [[Sangh Parivar]]."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Raychaudhuri|first=Tapan|date=April 2000|title=Shadows of the Swastika: Historical Perspectives on the Politics of Hindu Communalism|journal=Modern Asian Studies|language=en|volume=34|issue=2|pages=259–279|doi=10.1017/S0026749X00003310|s2cid=145067932|issn=1469-8099}}</ref> Incidentally, one of his books "Some Blunders in Indian Historical Research" was banned from the Parliament's library by the Speaker of the [[Lok Sabha]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cscsarchive.org:8081/MediaArchive/audience.nsf/(docid)/1D4086DA38E508EBE5256B84001848CC|title=Thinning not the answer to PN Oak Speaker's powers|author=Rajeev Dhavan|author-link=Rajeev Dhavan|url-status=bot: unknown|archive-url=https://archive.today/20120322151521/http://www.cscsarchive.org:8081/MediaArchive/audience.nsf/(docid)/1D4086DA38E508EBE5256B84001848CC|archive-date=22 March 2012|access-date=26 April 2012}}</ref>

==Books by P.N. Oak==
* The Taj Mahal was a Rajput Palace, 1965.
* Indian Kshatriyas once ruled from Bali to Baltic & Korea to Kaba, 1966.
* The rationale of astrology, 1967.
* Who says Akbar was great, 1968.
* Bhārata meṃ Muslim Sultān, 1968.
* Some Missing Chapters of World History, 1973.
* Lucknow's imambaras are Hindu palaces, 1976.
* Delhi's Red Fort is Hindu Lalkot, 1976.
* Christianity is Chrisn-nity, 1979.
* The Taj Mahal is Tejo-Mahalaya, A Shiva Temple, 1981(A revised edition of "The Taj Mahal was a Rajput Palace").
* Hindu viśvarāshṭrācā itihās, 1982.
* World Vedic heritage: a history of histories : presenting a unique unified field theory of history that from the beginning of time the world practiced Vedic culture and spoke Sanskrit, 1984.
* The Taj Mahal is a Temple Palace, 1993 (A revised edition of "The Taj Mahal was a Rajput Palace")
* Some Blunders of Indian Historical Research, 1994.
* Hasyaspad Angrezi Bhasha, 1993.
* Fatehpur Sikri ek Hindu Nagri, 2008.

He wrote in English, Hindi and Marathi. Most of his books were published by Bharati Sahitya Sadan or Hindi Sahitya Sadan, Delhi and have been reprinted time to time. Some of his books were excerpted in magazines in Indian languages.

==See also==
*[[Taj_Mahal#Controversies]]
*[[Historical negationism]]
*[[Nationalization of history]]
*[[Hindutva]]

==References==
{{reflist|refs=
<ref name=Parker2008>{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/non_fictionreviews/3560444/Review-Taj-Mahal-by-Giles-Tillotson.html|title=Review: Taj Mahal by Giles Tillotson|author=Peter Parker|date=13 September 2008|work=[[The Daily Telegraph]]}}</ref>
<ref name=Oak1>{{cite web|author=P. N. Oak |url=http://home.freeuk.net/tajmahal/19Author.htm |title=About The Author Prof P.N.Oak 19/20 |date= November 2017|url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070119172504/http://home.freeuk.net/tajmahal/19Author.htm |archive-date=19 January 2007 }}</ref>
<ref name=Tribune1>{{cite news|url=http://www.tribuneindia.com/2000/20000714/nation.htm|work=[[The Tribune (Chandigarh)|The Tribune]]|title=Plea on Taj history dismissed|author=PTI|date=14 July 2000}}</ref>
}}

==Further reading==
*{{cite book|author=Ganga Ram Garg|title=Encyclopaedia of the Hindu World|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WjDcd0cTFxQC|year=1992|publisher=Concept Publishing Company|isbn=978-81-7022-375-7}}
*{{cite book|author=Ram Gopal|title=Islam, Hindutva, and Congress quest|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IEtuAAAAMAAJ|year=1998|publisher=Reliance Pub. House|isbn=978-81-7510-072-5}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Oak, Purushottam Nagesh}}
[[Category:1917 births]]
[[Category:2007 deaths]]
[[Category:Marathi people]]
[[Category:Indian Hindus]]
[[Category:Indian National Army personnel]]
[[Category:Pseudohistorians]]
[[Category:Ethnocentrism]]
[[Category:Writers from Pune]]
[[Category:English-language writers from India]]
[[Category:Marathi-language writers]]
[[Category:Hindi-language writers]]
[[Category:20th-century Indian journalists]]
[[Category:Writers from Indore]]
[[Category:Journalists from Maharashtra]]
[[Category:Indigenous Aryanists]]
[[Category:Puranic chronology]]

P. N. Oak - Revision history

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