Topic started by Sreekishen (@ 64.203.129.86) on Mon Dec 29 01:05:22 EST 2003.
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.
Our view on the Construction of the Ram Mandir at Ayodhya
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What Really Happened in India during the Muslim Invasions?
Invaders at a very low level of civilisation and culture worth the name, from Arabia and Afghanistan began invading India from the early eighth century onwards. It is a recorded and evident fact that Islamic invaders demolished countless Hindu temples, shattered countless sculptures and idols, plundered innumerable palaces and forts of Hindu kings, killed vast numbers of Hindu men and carried off Hindu women.
In the year 1527 the Muslim invader Babar came down from Ferghana in Central Asia and attacked the Hindu King of Chittodgad, Rana Sangrama Singh at Sikri and with the help of cannons and artillery (used in India for the first time) overcame Rana Sangrama Singh and his allies.
After this victory, Babar decided to spread terror among the subjugated Hindu population. He despatched his general general, Mir Baqi to attack the Hindu places of pilgrimage. Mir Baqi came to Ayodhya in 1528 and destroyed the many temples that were there. He gave special attention to the main and biggest temple in the town. This was the temple which was built on the place where Samrat Shri Ramachandra, an ancient King of India was born. Samrat Shri Ramachandra was (and still is) revered by the devout among the Hindus as a god.
Historically speaking, Samrat Shri Ramchandra was a great king in ancient India, who by his noble qualities had set an example of ideal human behaviour in many respects. Samrat Shri Ramchandra had his failings too as a human being, as can be seen in his killing of Shambuka for doing penance in spite of Shambuka being a Shudra and his (Rama's) having made his wife Sita undergo agnipareeksha (trail by fire) to test her fidelity, since she was abducted by the evil Ravana.
Now we come back to another evil person Babar, whose general Mir Baqi destroyed this temple at Ayodhya, built by the Hindus to commemorate their great king Samrat Ramchandra. Mir Baqi built a mosque at the site of the destroyed temple. This was called the Babri Masjid (Mosque), named after the invader who destroyed the temple and built a mosque in its place.
Interestingly, the fact of the destruction of this temple and the erection of a mosque in its place is also mentioned in the Encyclopedia Britannica.
This story many Indians - and even many of the educated Indians - do not know very well. Indian History books at School and College do not tell the story in its true detail. Hence many Indians do not seem to recognize that the alien Muslim marauders destroyed this and countless other temples as also disturbed for eleven hundred years, the historical evolution of what was till then a spiritually, philosophically and materially advanced civilisation.
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It is significant to note that the Islamic invaders did not just destroy countless temples and constructions but also suppressed cultural and religious practices; damaged the pristine vigour of Hindu culture; prevented the intensification of Hindu culture, debilitating it permanently; stopped the development of Hindu arts: ended the creative impulse in all realms of thought and action; damaged the people's cultural pride, disrupted the transmission of values and wisdom, cultural practices and tradition from one generation to the next; destroyed the proper historical evolution of Hindu kingdoms and society; affected the acquisition of knowledge, research and reflection and violated the moral basis of Hindu society.
Slaughter of the Civilian Hindu Population
The Muslim Swordsmen also slaughtered a lot of Hindus civilians away from the battlefield. This was something that the Hindus were not used to. They abducted countless Hindu women and held them as concubines in Harems. Although pre-Islamic India was not exactly a zone of peace, and there used to be warfare, but there was also a code of warfare too.
War took place from Sunrise up to Sunset
Warfare under the shadow of darkness was considered foul
In the battlefield, an adversary who laid down his arms was not to be slaughtered.
No civilian population was ever killed.
This code of warfare was followed by the Hindus right up to the Muslim invasions, and this was one reason for the successive Hindu defeats at the hands of the Muslims who had no qualms for foul means during warfare and even in peace times.
Needless to add that the Muslim invaders converted millions of Hindus to Islam at the point of the Sword, they also massacred millions more and had a practice of making a tower of severed enemy (Hindu) heads in the main square of a town after its conquest. This gruesome experience was not unique to India, but it was replicated with equal brutality at all those places of our globe that were unfortunate enough to fall into the path of the Muslim Jehadis
Seen above are the ruins of the Nalanda University burnt down by the Muslim general Bakhtiyar Khilji in the year 1194 C.E.
The Nalanda University was another Hindu institution that faced the brunt of Muslim brutality three hundred years before the destruction of the Ram Temple at Ayodhya.
The defeat of the last Hindu Kings of North India - Prithviraj Chauhan and Jaichandra Gahadawal (Rathore) in 1192 and 1194 C.E., respectively by the Afghan raider, Mahmud Shahabuddin Ghori (Ghauri) opened up the Gangetic plains to the ruthless invader where the Buddhist (and Hindu) centres of learning were located. The destruction of monasteries and the slaughter of monks that followed the headlong rush, of the Muslim invaders down the Ganges, stilled the agony of this once glorious; educational and monastic institution into the silence of death.
Before it was destroyed by the blind fury of the Muslim invaders, the Nalanda University housed nine million manuscripts. It was the center of education for scholars from all over Asia and Europe. Many Greek, Persian and Chinese students studied here.
Its vivid descriptions in the chronicles of Huien Tsang, the Chinese Buddhist scholar who visited Nalanda twelve hundred years ago... bring the crumbling stones back to life again. It was this university that was the cradle of ancient Hindu mathematics, astronomy, linguistics, philosophy and theology.
Nothing remains today of this great ancient university.... except ruins! The fanatical ferocity of the Muslim invaders made sure of that. The blazing fires into which the Muslims soldiers threw the nine million manuscripts, reduced them to ashes. Yet this vandalism and hatred of the marauders could not destroy the immortal wisdom that lay within. The spirit that went behind the creation of this university could never be destroyed permanently.
The memory of that intellectual tradition, that was sought to be destroyed by the Muslim Marauders, survives in the hearts of many Indians. The living proof of this is the creation of this website that tries to recollect the immortal wisdom of ancient India. A wisdom that has never preached malice against other faiths, nor have the citizens of this country ever indulged in a holy war against those of another country. Indians have since ancient times won their way by persuasion and never by the sword, nor have they ever used their position or power to compel conformity to their precepts.
Only in ancient India did we have an emperor (Samrat Ashok Maurya) who after a military victory - laid down his weapons and forswore violence. There is no parallel to this attitude, the world over. It is due to this deep sagacity that we could preserve our innate spirit of humanness in face of the heart-rending tyranny of the Muslims - which we had to live with, for eleven centuries at a stretch. And yet we still survive as a wounded civilization to tell the tale of the kind of culture we had before we were forced to shed our blood against the sword of the Islamic Jihad.
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Seen below is the Kutub Minar built by Kutub-ud-din Aibak. The Kutub Minar is one of the earliest Islamic monuments in India. This Minar was built from the columns of destroyed Hindu and Jain temples. It stands at the site of Pithoragarh which was the capital of Prithiviraj Chauhan, the last Hindu ruler of Delhi.
The damaged motifs in this picture show clear Hindu origins - a testimony to the vandalism of the Muslim aggressors.
There are many such temples which had been converted into mosques like the Bhoja Shala Mosque, the Gyan Vyapi Mosque, the Krishna Janmabhoomi Idgah, apart from the now liberated Ram Janmabhoomi at Ayodhya (on whose foundation the Babri Masjid was erected).
The total of such temples that were converted into Mosques during the eleven centuries of Muslim Occupation of various parts of India, runs to 3000 (Three Thousand).
In the opinion of the authors of this write-up, all such controversial structures should be taken possession of by a global educational trust and be converted into schools for humanist and rationalist education. This could be the first step in the long journey for converting all places of religious worship all over the globe into schools for humanist and rationalist education where humans can finally be taught the futility of worshipping human ignorance termed as God and the stupidity of fighting each other due to the different names we have given to human ignorance.
This is our standpoint on the vexed issue of the Babri Masjid.
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Similarities between Ram Janmabhoomi and Other similar Disputes - the Wailing Wall at Jerusalem
The problems between Israelis and Arabs on the status of the holy sites in and around Jerusalem are similar to the Ram Janmabhomi Babri Masjid controversy. The most sacred site of the Jewish people is the site of the second temple which is today known as the Wailing Wall. This wall is the only surviving part of the last temple of the Jewish people that was destroyed by the Romans. When the Arabs (Muslims) overran Jerusalem in the year 634 C.E. they rebuilt the temple to god on the ruins of the original Jewish Temple. But since they had started a new (and violent) religion different from Judaism) they called this new temple, a mosque. This mosque is the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, which is considered to be the 3rd most holy site by Muslims after Mecca and Medina. While the Wailing Wall that is adjoining the mosque, is part of the original Jewish temple that once stood there is considered holy by the Jewish people.
Seen above is the Wailing Wall and the Adjoing Dome of the Rock Masjid.
Haram Al Sharif and Temple Mount Dispute
The history of the Temple Mount another Jewish-Muslim Holy site is similar. This site is called the Haram Al Sharif by the Arabs, and Temple Mount by the Jewish People. The violence we see these days (October 2000) is centered around these disputes. The reason given is the visit of Ariel Sharon the Israeli Leader to the site which the Muslims found offensive. But the root of all these disputes is the Muslim insistence of claiming the religious places of other religions as their own, once they destroy the original non-Muslim places of worship and erect mosques over them.
It may be noted here, that in spite of being in control of Jerusalem, since 1967, the Jewish people have not yet demolished the Dome of the Rock or the Haram Al Sharif as many would like them to do. Neither has any other religious community so far given umbrage to the Muslims by destroying or even attempting to demolish the Kaaba at Mecca. This is in spite of the fact that Muslims have with impunity gone about destroying the religious places of every other religious community for the last Fourteen Centuries since the formation of Islam in the 7th century.
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Hagia Sophia Basilica and the Selimiye Masjid Issue
The history of Hagia Sophia Basilica in Istanbul is also similar. There the victorious Uthman (Ottman) Turks converted the Cathedral into a mosque and renamed it Selimiye Masjid. This structure was converted into a secular one (as a museum) by the Turkish Secular-minded Visionary Mustafah Kemal Pasha (Ataturk). Thus another potential dispute was resolved. We from the Hindutva team, share Ataturk's vision to a great extent. We wish there are more leaders like Ataturk in today's world.
Seen above is the Selimiye Mosque at Istanbul which was originally a Christian Church named the Basilica of Hagia Sophia
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Reactions to Our View on the Ram Janmabhoomi Babri Masjid Issue
In the context of the Babri Masjid and our view on it, some writers ask us if; "after loosing 3000 temples which are ordinary, to ask us to even sacrifice Kashi, Mathura and Ayodhya, and not asking for their return to Hindus; and this too in a country India, which is dominated by Hindus even by population, is either:
(a) political put on,
(b) Goodie goodie cowardice
(c) vicious generosity
(d) irrational (not rationalist as claimed)
(e) not humanist ( as claimed)
(f) or appeasement of some community."
To them we from the http://hindutva.com team say; "Look at the what we have said about the conversion of the Ram Janmabhoomi site (and all other disputed sites across the globe) into schools for Rational and Humanistic education, as a part of our entire approach. Getting temples back is not the issue. The issue is to make the world a better place to live in. The construction of the Ram Janmabhoomi temple is not going to lead to that! We from the hindutva.com team know that some Indians would say what about National Pride. To them we say; "We do not subscribe to the sentiment of national pride. For us the essence of Hindutva is being Universal (Vaishvic), Noble (sattvic) and Rational (Vaivekic - i.e. based on Viveka which means rational thought).
So, in our view, for making the world a better place to live in, rather than wasting energies on re-building temples destroyed by Muslim invaders (and in the process getting ourselves branded as far right-wing Hindu fundmentalists in the eyes of the West), we need to tune ourselves into Western efforts on fighting theology inspired terrorism. For this we need to concentrate all our energies and diplomacy on fighting ALL forms of religious fanaticism. In this context, Islamic fanaticism is the most violent and cruel form of fanaticism, followed by those of other religions.
We want to see the physical destruction of ALL forms of Religious Fanaticism and Theology Inspired Terrorism across the globe. While some forms of religious fanaticism are mild and can be dissipated with education and inculcation of scientific temper. Some others are not so mild, and they would have to be eliminated physically and violently.
And most importantly, after the destruction of Religious fanaticism, we do not want to see it replaced with any other sort of fanaticism - religious or otherwise.
The unfortunate part is that for the physical destruction of Religious Fanaticism and Theology Inspired Terrorism, we may have to go through a catastrophic but inevitable global Apocalypse, that will make the events of 1914-18 and 1939-45, look like local skirmishes."
Only in such an unfortunate event could fanatics of ALL the different religions destroy each other. And only after such an event would the survivors of humankind have to think about managing the human mind, in the future in a way, that such mental prisons, like religious belief and the consequent religious fanaticism of Jihad, Crusade, holy wars, etc are not allowed to grow in human minds, ever again in the future.
Then finally, we can hope for a humankind free of all religious fanaticism in a world free of all national borders. A humankind that hinges itself on Quest to face the challenges of conquering SPACE - the final frontier of the unknown.
- The Hindutva Team
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