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Gyanvapi Mosque

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The Gyanvapi Mosque is located in Banaras, Uttar Pradesh, India. It was constructed by Aurangzeb in 1669 upon demolition of an older Shiva temple.[1]

Gyan Vapi Mosque
Religion
AffiliationIslam
Location
LocationVaranasi, India
StateUttar Pradesh
Gyanvapi Mosque is located in India
Gyanvapi Mosque
Location in Uttar Pradesh, India
Gyanvapi Mosque is located in Uttar Pradesh
Gyanvapi Mosque
Gyanvapi Mosque (Uttar Pradesh)
Geographic coordinates25°18′40″N 83°00′38″E / 25.311229°N 83.010461°E / 25.311229; 83.010461Coordinates: 25°18′40″N 83°00′38″E / 25.311229°N 83.010461°E / 25.311229; 83.010461
Architecture
StyleMughal architecture (part of Indo-Islamic architecture)
FounderAurangzeb
Dome(s)3
Minaret(s)2

Pre-Mosque History

The site had a Vishweshwar temple devoted to the Hindu deity Shiva. It was built by Todar Mal in conjunction with Narayana Bhatta—the head of Banaras's most-famous Brahmin family—during the reign of Akbar (16th century).[2][3][4] Vir Singh Deo Bundela, a close associate of Jahangir, appears to have had refurbished the temple in the early seventeenth century.[2][5][4]

What might have existed at the site prior to this temple is debated by scholars.[6] Such history has been extensively contested by local Hindu as well as Muslim population.[7][8] Madhuri Desai — in her magnum opus on Banaras — notes the multiple histories of the original temple and tensions arising out of the location of Gyanvapi to have fundamentally shaped the sacred topography of the city.[7]

Claims

Recent accounts of the history of the mosque, as purveyed by Hindus,[lower-alpha 1] center around a litany of repeated destruction and re-construction of the original temple which is situated in contrast to the timelessness of the lingam.[7] The original temple, located the current site of the mosque, was allegedly uprooted by Qutb al-Din Aibak in 1193/1194 CE, upon the defeat of Raja Jayachandra of Kannauj; the Razia Mosque was constructed in its place, a few years later.[5][9][10] The temple would be rebuilt by a Gujarati merchant during the reign of Iltutmish (1211–1266 CE) only to be demolished by Hussain Shah Sharqi (1447–1458) or Sikandar Lodhi (1489–1517).[9] During Akbar's rule, Raja Man Singh got the temple re-constructed,[lower-alpha 2] but it would again fell victim to Aurangzeb's intense religious zealotry.[8]

In contrast, most local Muslims reject that Aurangzeb had demolished the temple for religious zealotry; theories include — (a) the original building was never a temple but a structure of the Din-i Ilahi faith which was destroyed out of Aurangzeb's hostility to Akbar's "heretical" thought-school, (b) the original building was indeed a temple but destroyed by Jnan Chand (a Hindu) as a consequence of the priest having looted and violated one of his female relatives, (c) the temple was destroyed by Aurangzeb but only because it served as a hub of political rebellion.[8] Relatively fringe arguments include that the Gyanvapi was constructed much before Aurangzeb's reign — Maulana Abdus Salam Nomani (d. 1987), erstwhile Imam of the Gyanvapi mosque, has claimed evidence of Shah Jahan having had started a madrasah called Imam-e-Sharifat at the mosque in 1638–1639 CE — or that the temple was demolished due to a communal riot of Hindus' doing.[8][11] The mosque management committee supports Nomani and maintains that both the Kashi Vishwanath Temple and the Gyanvapi were constructed by Akbar, true to his spirit of religious tolerance.[12]

Historicity

Diana L. Eck finds medieval chronicles to affirm the Hindu notions of an Adi-Vishweshwar premises being the original home of the lingam; however, scholars have critiqued Eck’s non-contextual usage of medieval sources.[6][13][lower-alpha 3] Hans T. Bakker finds the temple destroyed in 1194 to be indeed located in current-day Gyanvapi precincts but devoted to Avimukteshwara; sometime around the late 13th century, Hindus reclaimed the vacant Gyanvapi site for a temple of Vishweshwar since the Razia mosque had occupied the "Hill of Vishweshwar".[10] This new temple would be destroyed by the Jaunpur Sultanate, apparently to supply building materials for mosques at their new capital.[10]

In contrast, Madhuri Desai, in her reading of medieval literature, rejects the existence of any Vishweshwar temple in early-medieval Banaras; she alongside other scholars argue that it was only in the Kashikhand[lower-alpha 4] that Vishweshwar would be featured as the major deity of the city for the first time and even then, for centuries, it remained one among the many sacred spots of Banaras.[2][5][13][lower-alpha 5] Vishweshwar would be transformed into the principal shrine of the city only after sustained Brahminical activism and the patronage of Mughals, beginning from the late sixteenth century.[2][13] The Hindu claims are seen to be the building blocks of a meta-narrative about Hindu civilization being continually oppressed by Muslim invaders, which was reinforced via colonial apparatuses of knowledge production.[6][7]

However, there does not exist any acceptance of the Muslim narratives in historical scholarship;[lower-alpha 6] Desai deems Nomani's arguments as a strategic "rewriting of history" arising out of the Hindu-hegemonic nature of discourse in postcolonial Benaras.[14][15]

Establishment

 
The Gyanvapi Mosque sketched as the Temple of Vishveshwur, Benares by James Prinsep. The original wall of the now demolished temple still stands in the mosque.

Sometime around 1669, Aurangzeb ordered the demolition of the temple; a mosque was constructed in place, probably by Aurangzeb himself, sometime soon.[2][6][lower-alpha 7] The façade was modeled partially on the Taj Mahal's entrance; the plinth of the temple was left largely untouched and continued 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.[1][2][3][6] These surviving elements attest to the influence of Mughal architectural style on the original temple.[2][lower-alpha 8]

The name of the mosque is derived from that of an adjoining waterbody — Gyan Vapi ("Well of Knowledge") — which, in all likelihood, predated the Vishweshwar temple and was a pond.[5][lower-alpha 9] 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.[2] The Gyanvapi site — especially the plinth — continued to remain a popular hub for Hindu pilgrims from across the country.[2]

Motives

Scholars attribute political reasons rather than religious zealotry to be the primary motivation for Aurangzeb's demolition.[5] The Oxford World History of Empire notes that while the demolition 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." Madhuri Desai — in her magnum opus on Banaras — opines that Aurangzeb's complex and often-contradictory policies can be "more accurately analyzed in [the] light of his personal compulsions and political agenda, rather than as expressions of religious bigotry."[2][7]

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 accused of interfering with Islamic teaching.[1][16] Consequently, she argues 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.[1][2][16][17]

Late-Mughal India

In 1698, Bishan Singh, the ruler of Amber, had his agents survey the town and gather details about the various claims and controversies regarding the demolition of the temple; their maps ('tarah') made it a point to note that the Gyanvapi mosque lay at the site of a dismantled Vishweshwar temple. They also marked the temple-plinth separately.[2][lower-alpha 10] The Amber court purchased significant land around the Gyanvapi precincts, including some from Muslim inhabitants, with an aim to rebuild the temple without demolishing the mosque. But these efforts did not succeed.[2] Around 1700, an "Adi-Vishweshwar Temple" was constructed at the initiative of Bishan Singh's successor Sawai Jai Singh II, about 150 yards anterior to the mosque.[2][18] The temple borrowed extensively from contemporary Mughal architecture, in what scholars regard as evidence of imperial patronage.[2][3][lower-alpha 11]

By the early 18th century, Banaras was under the effective control of the Nawabs of Lucknow.[19] With the advent of the East India Company and increasingly severe annexation policies, multiple rulers from across the country — and even administrative elites — started investing in Brahminising Banaras, to claim cultural authority back in their homelands.[19] The Marathas, in particular, became highly vocal about religious injustice at the hands of Aurangzeb and Nana Fadnavis proposed demolishing the mosque and reconstructing a Vishweshwar temple.[5] In 1742, Malhar Rao Holkar proposed a similar course of action.[19] In spite of their consistent efforts, these plans did not materialize due to a multitude of interventions — Nawabs of Lucknow who were their political rivals, local Brahmins who feared the wrath of the Mughal court, and British authorities who feared an outbreak of communal tensions.[5][19]

 
Gyanvapi, the original holy well between the temple and mosque

In the late eighteenth century, as East India Company gained direct control of Banaras ousting the Nawabs, Malhar Rao's successor (and daughter-in-law) Ahilyabai Holkar constructed the present Kashi Vishwanath Temple to the immediate south of the mosque — this, however, had a markedly different spatial configuration and was ritually inconsistent.[6][19][lower-alpha 12] Compounded with the belief that the original lingam was hidden by the priests inside the Gyan Vapi during Aurangzeb's raid, the plinth would attract greater devotion than the temple for well over a century.[19][20][lower-alpha 13]

British Raj

Under the British Raj, the Gyan Vapi compound, which was once the subject of whimsical Mughal politics, got transformed into a site of perennial contestation between local Hindus and Muslims spawning numerous legal suits and even, riots.[19][21] Says Desai, that the construction of Gyan Vapi had sought to air an "explicitly political and visual" assertion about the Mughal command over the city’s religious sphere but instead, "transmuted Vishweshwur into the undisputed fulcrum of the city’s ritual landscape".[2]

The 1809 riot, widely believed to be first significant riot in N. India under Company rule, hastened the growth of competitive communalism in Banaras.[22] An attempt by the Hindu community to construct a shrine on the "neutral" space between the Gyanvapi Mosque and the Kashi Vishwanath Temple heightened tensions.[23] Soon enough, the festival of Holi and Muharram fell on the same day and confrontation by revelers fomented a riot.[23] A Muslim mob killed a cow — sacred to Hindus — to spoil the sacred water of the Gyanvapi well; a Hindu mob attempted to arson the Gyanvapi Mosque and then, demolish it.[20] Several deaths were reported and property damage ran into lacs, before the British administration quelled the riot.[23][24][25]

In 1828, Baiza Bai, widow of the Maratha ruler Daulat Rao Scindhia, constructed a a pavilion around the pond — reducing it into a well — and erected a colonnade to support a roof; subsequently, Muslims were prevented from accessing the water for purposes of wudu etc.[19] A statue of Nandi was installed soon afterwards. The first legal dispute seem to have arose in 1854, when the local court rejected a plea to install a new idol in the complex.[26][lower-alpha 14] M. A. Sherring[lower-alpha 15], writing in 1868, noted the Hindus to have claimed the plinth as well as the southern wall; the Muslims were allowed to exert control over the mosque but quite reluctantly, and permitted to only use the side entrance.[18][lower-alpha 16] A peepal tree overhanging the gateway was also venerated, and Muslims were not allowed to "pluck a single leaf from it."[21] In 1886, adjudicating on a dispute about illegal constructions, the District Magistrate held that unlike the mosque proper, which had belonged to the Muslims exclusively, the enclosure was a common space thereby precluding any unilateral use.[26] This principle would continue to decide multiple cases in the next few decades.[26][lower-alpha 17]

Edwin Greaves, visiting the site in 1909, found that the mosque was "not greatly used", and remained an "eyesore" to the Hindus.[27] The bull statue was highly venerated and "freely worshiped"; close to it, there were a couple of small temples dedicated to Gauri Shankar (Shiva and Parvati), and other Hindu deities.[27] The well commanded significant devotion too — pilgrims received its sacred water from a priest, who sat on an adjoining stone-screen; the well was also covered with iron-rails to prevent suicides and devotees were not allowed direct access to the water.[27] In the meanwhile, legal disputes continued unabated.[26][lower-alpha 18]

In 1929 and 1930, the cleric was cautioned into not letting the crowd overflow into the enclosure on the occasion of Jumu'atul-Wida, lest Hindu pilgrims face inconvenience.[26][28] Subsequently, in January 1935, the mosque committee unsuccessfully demanded before the District Magistrate that the restriction on crowd-overflow be waived off; in October, it was demanded, yet unsuccessfully, that Muslims be allowed to offer prayers anywhere in the complex.[26] In December 1935, local Muslims attacked the Police after being prevented from offering prayers outside of the mosque proper, injuring several officials.[29] This gave way to a law-suit urging that the entire complex be treated as an integral part of the mosque — a waqf property — by customary rights, if not by legal rights; the contention was rejected by the lower Court in August 1937 and an appeal was dismissed by the Allahabad High Court with costs, in 1941.[26][lower-alpha 19]

Independent India

The site continues to remain volatile and witness periodic flare-up of communal tensions.[8][23] Beginning 1984, the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) along with Hindu Nationalists engaged in a nation-wide campaign to reclaim the sites of the mosques constructed by demolishing Hindu temples including the Gyanvapi.[6][30][31] After the demolition of the Babri mosque in December 1992, tensions increased and about a thousand policemen were deployed to prevent a similar incident at the Gyanvapi.[32] The Bharatiya Janata Party leaders (who had supported the demand for "reclaiming" Babri mosque) however opposed VHP's demand this time, on the grounds that the Gyanvapi Mosque was actively used.[33]

A title-dispute suit was filed in the Varanasi Civil Court in 1991 for handing over the site to Hindu community; it sought to bypass the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991 (henceforth PoW), which was already in force.[34][35][lower-alpha 20] In 1996, VHP appealed to the Hindus to gather in large number on the occasion of Mahashivaratri; it was met with a poor response and the occasion passed without any untoward incident.[36] In 1998, the court ruled that the suit was indeed barred by the PoW act.[37] A revision petition was subsequently moved before the district court who allowed it and asked the civil court to adjudicate the dispute, afresh.[37] The mosque management committee successfully challenged this allowance in the Allahabad High Court, who stayed the proceedings.[34]

Access to the mosque remains prohibited for non-Muslims, photography is prohibited, approaching alleys have light police-pickets (alongside RAF units), the walls are fenced with barbed wire, and a watchtower exists too.[6][15] The mosque is neither well-used nor embedded enough in the cultural life of the city.[6]

The court-case remained pending for 22 years, before the advocate of the 1991 petition refiled another plea requesting for an ASI survey of the mosque-complex on the same grounds.[34][38][39] The temple had allegedly existed for thousands of years (since the reign of a Vikramaditya) before being demolished by Aurangzeb; this was apparently proved by the continuous presence of Lingam among other features and Hindus were deprived of their religious right to offer water to lingams.[34] The Gyanvapi mosque management committee Anjuman Intezamia Masjid (AIM) acting as the defendant denied the claims and rejected that Aurangzeb demolished a temple to construct the mosque.[40] In March 2019, a few local residents were caught burying a small statue of Nandi near the north wall of the Gyanvapi mosque.[41]

On 8 April 2021, the city-court ordered the Archaeological Survey of India to conduct the requested survey.[34] In addition, a five-member committee comprising experts in archaeology was asked to be constituted, with two members from the "minority community" to determine whether any temple existed at the site, prior to the mosque.[34][40] Most commentators opined the court's ruling to run up against the PoW act and other matters of law.[42] The very same day, a challenge was filed by the defendants in the Allahabad High Court.[43] On 9 September, the High Court ruled in favor of the defendants; the survey was indefinitely stayed and the judgement criticized for breach of judicial decorum.[43]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Pilgrims visiting the present Kashi Vishwanath Temple are informed with such a narrative[7] Local textbooks of the 1990s propagated such a reading of the mosque's past as well.[8]
  2. ↑ orthodox Brahmins apparently chose to boycott the temple, since Man Singh's daughter was married to Islamic rulers.[9]
  3. ↑ Dumper finds Eck’s history to be "extraordinarily confusing, moving from rhetorical storytelling to historical fact".
  4. ↑ A part of Skanda Purana; widely considered to be the most authoritative non-secular text on the conception of the city.
  5. ↑ Different 'nibandha' commentators across the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries zeroed in on different temples and sought to re-define the sacred space of Kashitirtha in its terms
  6. ↑ However, Mary Searle-Chatterjee notes of an eminent historian from Banaras Hindu University (G. D. Bhatnagar) to reject Aurangzeb's having destroyed a temple. Searle-Chatterjee herself refuses to discuss the historical validity of competing narratives, noting - "The historical issues are irrelevant, since it is dear that whatever the facts were, accounts of the origin of the central ruin are now functioning as symbolic narrative, providing a charter for contemporary attitudes and behavior."
  7. ↑ Masat-i-Alamgiri only records the destruction of the temple.
  8. ↑ James Princep conjectured a reconstruction of the temple from his observations of the temple-remnants, interviews of local Brahmins and readings of nibandha literature. Rosalind O' Hanlon, on the basis of this plan, deems the original temple to have derived from the Kashikhanda.
    Desai finds his reconstruction to be far from realistic and adds that the plan has been often incorrectly noted to be the official version. Detailed architectural details remain unknown. Chunar limestone was the probable building-material.
  9. ↑ Legends hold that Shiva had dug it himself to cool the lingam.[5]
  10. ↑ These maps also noted the edges of the rectangular mosque-precinct to be lined up with the residences of Brahmin priests. Desai (in her thesis) mistook these surveys to have been commissioned "in all likelihood" by the Maharaja of Jaipur.
  11. ↑ Desai notes that the particular choice of naming (probably) suggests a collective Hindu memory of the Vishweshwar lingam having a prior location at the site.
  12. ↑ The precise year of construction is not known. It already existed by 1781, when Warren Hastings commissioned the construction of a gateway.
  13. ↑ British traveler Reginal Heber notes the plinth to be considered more sacred by the pilgrims, as late as 1824. the Gyanvapi well was also rumored to contain the lingam and the water of the Gyan Vapi — brought by a subterraneous channel of the Ganges — was treated as holier than the Ganges itself.
  14. ↑ A similar dispute reached the Court in 1858 but was settled in favor of the Hindus.
  15. ↑ An amateur archaeologist, Sherring took to establishing Benaras as a Buddhist city of yore that had fallen to Brahminism, before felling to Muslims. Such an assertion was thought to be a potent antidote to the fashioning of Benaras as an ageless site of pilgrimage for Hindus, which hindered Missionaries' efforts in converting natives; also, if Buddhism can fell to Hinduism after centuries of glory, so could Hinduism to Christianity. Sherring noted the presence of "Buddhist pillars" within the Gyanvapi Mosque, too.
  16. ↑ The Muslims had also built a gateway in the middle of the platform in front of the mosque, but were not allowed to use it.
  17. ↑ In 1887, an application by two local Muslims to open a shop at the complex-perimeter was rejected; in 1889, construction of a stone bench was allowed since it could not have been an inconvenience or a favor to either community; in 1898, Muslims were disallowed from stacking construction material in the enclosure since it hindered pedestrians; in 1904, a trough feeder for cows and a wall — constructed by Hindus— were demolished; in 1906, permission to rebuild the wall and install a new idol was rejected; in 1909, the municipality was allowed to pave a part of the enclosure.[26]
  18. ↑ In 1921, a plinth was allowed to be constructed for the Peepal tree; in 1923, Muslims were prohibited from storing poultry in the enclosure; in 1924, Muslims were ordered to remove a temporary barricade; in 1925, a shed was constructed over the ablution tank to prevent droppings from the peepal tree contaminating the water.[26][28] etc.
  19. ↑ The Court held that not only did the formation of enclosure post-date the mosque but also the enclosure was never in continuous possession of the Muslims (alone) for at-least the last hundred years. Thus, the plaintiff failed to establish any legal right.
    Further, recorded history of overflows into the enclosure went back to a few years, at most, and only on the occasion of a festive day. Thus, it was insufficient to give rise to customary rights.
  20. ↑ The Ayodhya dispute was stated as an exception to the provision since it was already being litigated when the law was passed.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Catherine B. Asher (24 September 1992). Architecture of Mughal India. Cambridge University Press. pp. 278–279. ISBN 978-0-521-26728-1.
  2. ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.15 Desai, Madhuri (2017). "Palimpsests and Authority". Banaras Reconstructed: Architecture and Sacred Space in a Hindu Holy City. University of Washington Press. pp. 30–72. ISBN 978-0-295-74160-4. JSTOR j.ctvcwnwvg.6.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Asher, Catherine B. (May 2020). "Making Sense of Temples and Tirthas: Rajput Construction Under Mughal Rule". The Medieval History Journal. 23 (1): 9–49. doi:10.1177/0971945820905289. ISSN 0971-9458.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 O'Hanlon, Rosalind (21 March 2011). "Speaking from Siva's temple: Banaras scholar households and the Brahman 'ecumene' of Mughal India". South Asian History and Culture. 2 (2): 264–265. doi:10.1080/19472498.2011.553496. ISSN 1947-2498. S2CID 145729224.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 Shin, Heeryoon (May 2015). Building a "Modern" Temple Town: Architecture and Patronage in Banaras, 1750-1900 (PhD). Yale University. p. 4, 35, 38, 198.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 6.8 Dumper, Michael (24 August 2020). "Hindu– Muslim Rivalries in Banaras: History and Myth as the Present". Power, Piety, and People: The Politics of Holy Cities in the Twenty-First Century. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-54566-2.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 Desai, Madhuri (2017). "Introduction: The Paradox of Banaras". Banaras Reconstructed: Architecture and Sacred Space in a Hindu Holy City. University of Washington Press. pp. 3–16. ISBN 978-0-295-74160-4. JSTOR j.ctvcwnwvg.4.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 Searle-Chatterjee, Mary (April 1993). "Religious division and the mythology of the past". In Hertel, Bradley R.; Humes, Cynthia Ann (eds.). Living Banaras: Hindu Religion in Cultural Context. SUNY Series in Hindu Studies. Albany, New York: SUNY Press. pp. 152–158.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Udayakumar, S. P. (2005). "Ramarajya: Envisioning the Future and Entrenching the Past". Presenting the Past: Anxious History and Ancient Future in Hindutva India. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 99. ISBN 978-0-275-97209-7.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Bakker, Hans (1996). "Construction and Reconstruction of Sacred Space in Vārāṇasī". Numen. 43 (1): 42–43. doi:10.1163/1568527962598368. ISSN 0029-5973. JSTOR 3270235.
  11. ↑ Diane P. Mines and Sarah Lamb (2002). Everyday Life in South Asia. Indiana University Press. p. 344. ISBN 9780253340801.
  12. ↑ Dutta, Prabhash K. (15 May 2022). "Gyanvapi: A 31-year dispute of 353-year-old shrine explained". The Times of India. Retrieved 17 May 2022.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 Desai, Madhuri (2017). "Authenticity and Pilgrimage". Banaras Reconstructed: Architecture and Sacred Space in a Hindu Holy City. University of Washington Press. pp. 17–29. ISBN 978-0-295-74160-4. JSTOR j.ctvcwnwvg.5.
  14. ↑ Kumar, Nita (2 January 2021). "Banaras reconstructed: architecture and sacred space in a Hindu holy city". South Asian History and Culture. 12 (1): 104–106. doi:10.1080/19472498.2021.1875734. ISSN 1947-2498. S2CID 231741518.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Madhuri Desai (2003). "Mosques, Temples, and Orientalists: Hegemonic Imaginations in Banaras". Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review. 15 (1): 23–37. JSTOR 41758028.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Eaton, Richard M. (2000). "Temple Desecration and Indo-Muslim States". Journal of Islamic Studies. 11 (3): 306–307. doi:10.1093/jis/11.3.283. ISSN 0955-2340. JSTOR 26198197.
  17. ↑ Truschke, Audrey (1 January 2017). "Overseer of Hindu Religious Communities". Aurangzeb: The Life and Legacy of India's Most Controversial King. Stanford University Press. pp. 85–86. ISBN 978-1-5036-0259-5.
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Matthew Atmore Sherring (1868). The Sacred City of the Hindus: An Account of Benares in Ancient and Modern Times. Trübner & co. pp. 51–56.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 19.3 19.4 19.5 19.6 19.7 Desai, Madhuri (2017). "Expansion and Invention". Banaras Reconstructed: Architecture and Sacred Space in a Hindu Holy City. University of Washington Press. pp. 73–117. ISBN 978-0-295-74160-4. JSTOR j.ctvcwnwvg.7.
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 Gaenszle, Martin; Gengnagel, Jörg (2006). Visualizing Space in Banaras: Images, Maps, and the Practice of Representation. Isd. ISBN 978-3-447-05187-3.
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 Desai, Madhuri (2017). "Order and Antiquity". Banaras Reconstructed: Architecture and Sacred Space in a Hindu Holy City. University of Washington Press. pp. 154–186. ISBN 978-0-295-74160-4. JSTOR j.ctvcwnwvg.9.
  22. ↑ Pandey, Gyanendra (1989). "The Colonial Construction of 'Communalism': British Writings on Banaras in the Nineteenth Century". Subaltern Studies. Vol. VI. Delhi: Oxford University Press. p. 145.
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 23.2 23.3 L. Eck, Diana (1982). Banaras: City of Light. Knopf. ISBN 978-0-307-83295-5.
  24. ↑ Desai, Madhuri (2007). Resurrecting Banaras: Urban space, architecture and religious boundaries (PhD). University of California, Berkeley. p. 33. ProQuest 304899943.
  25. ↑ Reginald Heber (1829). Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India, from Calcutta to Bombay, 1824-1825. Philadelphia, Carey, Lea & Carey. pp. 257–258.
  26. ↑ 26.0 26.1 26.2 26.3 26.4 26.5 26.6 26.7 26.8 Din Mohammad v. Secretary of State (Allahabad High Court 1941).
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 27.2 Edwin Greaves (1909). Kashi the city illustrious, or Benares. Allahabad: Indian Press. pp. 80–82.
  28. ↑ 28.0 28.1 Lazzaretti, Vera (2021). "Demolitions, dream projects and the negotiation of Hinduness in Banaras". In Keul, István (ed.). Spaces of Religion in Urban South Asia. Routledge. pp. 90–91. doi:10.4324/9781003106067-7. ISBN 978-1-000-33141-7.
  29. ↑ "Muslim Trouble in Benares: Police Force Stoned: Attempt to Pray Outside Mosque". Times of India. 20 December 1935.
  30. ↑ Casolari, Marzia (2002). "Role of Benares in Constructing Political Hindu Identity". Economic and Political Weekly. 37 (15): 1413–1420. ISSN 0012-9976. JSTOR 4411986.
  31. ↑ Chapple, Christopher Key; Tucker, Mary Evelyn (2000). Hinduism and Ecology: The Intersection of Earth, Sky, and Water. Harvard University Press. p. 386. ISBN 978-0-945454-26-7.
  32. ↑ Sanjoy Majumder (25 March 2004). "Cracking India's Muslim vote". BBC News. Uttar Pradesh.
  33. ↑ Manjari Katju (1 January 2003). Vishva Hindu Parishad and Indian Politics. Orient Blackswan. pp. 113–114. ISBN 978-81-250-2476-7.
  34. ↑ 34.0 34.1 34.2 34.3 34.4 34.5 Taskin Bismee, Decoding the Kashi Vishwanath-Gyanvapi dispute, and why Varanasi court has ordered ASI survey, The Print, 10 April 2021.
  35. ↑ Venkataramanan, K. (17 November 2019). "What does the Places of Worship Act protect?". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X.
  36. ↑ Engineer, Asghar Ali (1997). "Communalism and Communal Violence, 1996". Economic and Political Weekly. 32 (7): 324. ISSN 0012-9976. JSTOR 4405088.
  37. ↑ 37.0 37.1 Yamunan, Sruthisagar. "Analysis: Could ASI survey of Gyanvapi mosque lead to it being exempted from Places of Worship Act?". Scroll.in.
  38. ↑ Jitendra Sarin (8 May 2017). "Allahabad HC to hear Vishwanath temple, Gyanvapi mosque dispute on May 10". Hindustan Times.
  39. ↑ SINGH, JAS (2015). "India's Right Turn". World Policy Journal. 32 (2): 94. doi:10.1177/0740277515591547. ISSN 0740-2775. JSTOR 44214230.
  40. ↑ 40.0 40.1 Court Revives Dormant Dispute, asks ASI to Survey Gyanvapi Mosque Next to Kashi Vishwanath Temple, The Wire, 10 April 2021.
  41. ↑ Kumar, Sushil. "How Modi's Kashi Vishwanath Corridor is laying the ground for another Babri incident". The Caravan.
  42. ↑ Shrutisagar Yamunan, Why UP court order asking ASI to survey Kashi-Gyanvapi mosque complex is legally unsound, Scroll.in, 10 April 2021.
  43. ↑ 43.0 43.1 Upadhyay, Sparsh (9 September 2021). "Gyanvapi Mosque Dispute: Allahabad High Court Stays Varanasi Court's ASI Survey Order & Other Proceedings". Live Law.

External links

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