| BY
1675 1 Hindu India was ready to overthrow the intolerable rule of the fanatic Aurangzeb.
The south had risen under Shivaji; so had the Sikh Gurus as also many Rajput chiefs in
Rajasthan. In 1701, Prince Mohammad Azam, the 39th viceroy of Gujarat, was ordered
by Emperor Aurangzeb 'to destroy the temple of Somanatha beyond possibility of
repairs."2 This dispatch refers to a similar
order issued at the beginning of Aurangzeb's reign. Evidently the earlier Firman of 1669
had not been carried out, or if carried out, had led to an immediate restoration of the
temple.
1 Ibid., Vol. XXII, p. 286.
2 Bombay Gazetteer, Vol. XXII, p. 292. |
