Read What Aurangzeb Said When He Ordered The Demolition Of Kashi Vishwanath Temple

The civic court ordered the video survey after five ladies filed a petition asking for permission to worship Hindu deities whose statues are installed on the exterior wall of Gyanvapi Masjid.

However, the survey was halted due to complaints from the mosque committee, who argued that the court-appointed attorney commissioner did not have the authority to video within the mosque. They later accused him of prejudice and requested that he be replaced. But the court ignored this and on May 12, the court directed the committee to finish the poll and submit its findings by May 17.

The Anjuman Intezamia Masjid committee filed a petition with the Supreme Court, requesting a stay on surveying the Kashi Vishwanath temple-Gyanvapi Masjid complex.

Gyanvapi Masjid case

On May 14, the exercise proceeded under strict security. On Day 1, four basement rooms were videotaped, three of which belonged to Muslims and one to Hindus. Sources claim that half of the survey has been completed.

After this, the western wall of the Gyanvapi complex was studied on Day 2, where the ruins of the Hindu temple destroyed can still be seen and whose photographs represent the best testimony. The fourth room was opened for this purpose.

On May 16, the court-ordered videography survey of the Gyanvapi Masjid complex was finished. But it created another controversy as a Hindu lawyer claimed that a ‘shivling’ had been discovered within a ‘wazukhana,’ or pond, on the mosque property.

Later on, the Supreme Court directed local authorities to safeguard the ‘shivling; that was allegedly discovered in Varanasi’s Gyanvapi Mosque complex, without impeding Muslims’ freedom to pray.

The court-appointed special assistant commissioner, Vishal Singh, presented the findings on the Gyanvapi mosque video survey to the Varanasi court on Thursday, May 19. The courtroom was packed with witnesses from both sides. Since then, both claim their own versions of the truth, but the real question is what’s the actual matter? So, let’s find out about it and then, later, we will go through the evidence of its demolition.

What’s the matter?

The Hindu side alleges that the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb demolished a part of the Kashi Vishwanath temple on which the Gyanvapi mosque now sits.

The evidence of the Kashi Vishwanath temple’s demolition is mentioned in Maasir-i-Alamgiri, Saqi Mustaid Khan’s history of Aurangzeb’s reign.

The initial portion of the book was written while the emperor was still living, and the remainder was finished after he died. Let me inform you that this book was originally written in Persian and translated during British rule by historian Jadunath Sarkar.

Below are some of the important snippets from Maasir-i-Alamgiri book

According to the text in Maasir-i-Alamgiri, the emperor learned of the doctrines of “misbelievers” at Benaras on April 8, 1669. A paragraph reads,

“The lord cherisher of faith learnt that in the provinces of Tetta, Multan, and specially in Benaras, the brahmin misbelievers used to teach their false book in their established schools and that admirers and students of both Hindu and Muslim used to come from great distances to these misguided men to acquire this vile learning.”

It further says,

“His majesty eager to establish Islam orders to the governor of all the provinces to demolish the schools and temples of the infidels and with the utmost urgency to put down the teachings and public practice of the religion of these misbelievers.”

According to the book, on September 2, 1669, it was claimed that the emperor’s officers had destroyed the temple of Kashi Vishwanath in Varanasi on his orders.