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According to the Marxist professors what is really required is an investigation into the theory that both the Dera Keshav Rai temple and the Idgah were built on the site of a Buddhist monastery which appears to have been destroyed. Thank God, they have suggested it only as a theory; elsewhere in their writings they have not been that cautious. In fact, they have gone out of their way in spreading the Big Lie that the Hindus destroyed many Buddhist and Jain temples and monasteries in the pre-Islamic past. They have never been able to cite more than half-a-dozen instances of dubious veracity. But that has sufficed for providing a vociferous plank in the progressive party line. If the descendants of Godse, writes the executive editor of a prestigious Marxist monthly, think that every medieval mosque has been built after demolishing some temple, why should we stop at the medieval period After all, Hindu kings had also got a large number of Jain and Buddhist temples destroyed. The KrishNa temple at Mathută rose on the ruins of a Buddhist monastery. There are hundreds of such places (that is, Hindu temples built on the ruins of Buddhist and Jain places of worship) in Karnataka, Rajasthăn, Bihăr and Uttar Pradesh.1 The author of the article did not think it necessary to quote some instances. The proposition, he thought, was self-evident. Herr Goebbles, too, never felt the need of producing any evidence in support of his pronouncements.
It is unfortunate that some Buddhist and Jain scholars have swallowed this lie without checking the quality and quantity of the evidence offered. Some of these scholars are known for their progressive inclinations. But there are others who have become victims of a high-powered propaganda. The happiest people, however, have been the Christian missionaries and the apologists of Islam. Does it not, they say, blow up the bloody myth that Hinduism has a hoary tradition of religious tolerance and that all religions coexisted peacefully in this country before the advent of Islam and Christianity We shall examine this canard exhaustively at a later stage in this study. For the present we are confining ourselves to the evidence offered in the context of the Keavadeva temple. We reproduce below the relevant reports of the Archaeological Survey of India.
In 1853, writes Dr. J. Ph. Vogel, regular explorations were started by General Cunningham on the KaTră and continued in 1862. They yielded numerous sculptural remains; most important among them is an inscribed standing Buddha image (height 36) now in the Lucknow Museum. From the inscription it appears that this image was presented to the Yaă-Vihăra in the Gupta year 230 (AD 549-50).2
The last archaeological explorations at Mathura were carried out by Dr. Fuhrer between the year 1887 and 1896. His chief work was the excavation of the Kańkălî Tîlă in the three seasons of 1888-91. He explored also the KaTră site. Unfortunately, no account of his researches is available, except the meager information contained in his Museum Reports for those years The plates of which only a few are reproductions of photographs and the rest drawings, illustrate the sculptures acquired in the course of Dr. Fuhrers excavations but do not throw much fight on the explorations themselves ...3
Author : Shri Sita Ram Goel
Foot Notes
1 Gautama Navalakhă, Bhakti Săhitya kă Durupayoga, HaMsa, Hindi monthly, New Delhi, June 1987, p. 21. Emphasis added.
2 Archaeological Survey of India, Annual Report 1906-07, p. 137.
3 Ibid., p. 139.
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