The archaeology of Ayodhya concerns the excavations and findings in the Indian city of Ayodhya in the state of Uttar Pradesh, much of which surrounds the Babri Mosque location.
| Ayodhya dispute |
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| Organizations |
In 1862–63, Alexander Cunningham, the founder of Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), conducted a survey of Ayodhya. [1] Cunnigham identified Ayodhya with Sha-chi mentioned in Fa-Hien's writings, Visakha mentioned in Xuanzang's writings and Saketa mentioned in Buddhist legends. According to him, Gautama Buddha spent six years at this place. Although Ayodhya is mentioned in several ancient Hindu texts, Cunningham found no ancient structures in the city. According to him, the existing temples at Ayodhya were of relatively modern origin. Referring to legends, he wrote that the old city of Ayodhya must have been deserted after the death of Brihadbala "in the great war" around 1426 BCE. When King Vikramāditya of Ujjain visited the city around first century CE, he constructed new temples at the spots mentioned in Ramayana. Cunningham believed that by the time Xuanzang visited the city in 7th century, Vikramaditya's temples had "already disappeared"; the city was a Buddhist centre, and had several Buddhist monuments. [2] Cunningham's main objective in surveying Ayodhya was to discover these Buddhist monuments. [3]
In 1889–91, an ASI team led by Alois Anton Führer conducted another survey of Ayodhya. [1] Führer did not find any ancient statues, sculptures or pillars that marked the sites of other ancient cities. He found "a low irregular mass of rubbish heaps", from which material had been used for building the neighbouring Muslim city of Faizabad. The only ancient structures found by him were three earthen mounds to the south of the city: Maniparbat, Kuberparbat and Sugribparbat. Cunningham identified these mounds with the sites of the monasteries described in Xuanzang's writings. Like Cunningham, Führer also mentioned the legend of the Ramayana-era city being destroyed after death of Brihadbala, and its rebuilding by Vikramaditya. He wrote that the existing Hindu and Jain temples in the city were modern, although they occupied the sites of the ancient temples that had been destroyed by Muslims. The five Digambara Jain temples had been built in 1781 CE to mark the birth places of five tirthankaras, who are said to have been born at Ayodhya. A Śvetāmbara Jain temple dedicated to Ajitanatha was built in 1881. Based on local folk narratives, Führer wrote that Ayodhya had three Hindu temples at the time of Muslim conquest: Janmasthanam (where Rama was born), Svargadvaram (where Rama was cremated) and Treta-ke-Thakur (where Rama performed a sacrifice). According to Führer, Mir Khan built the Babri mosque at the place of Janmasthanam temple in 930 AH (1523 CE). He stated that many columns of the old temple had been utilized by the Muslims for the construction of Babri mosque: these pillars were of black stone, called kasauti by the natives. Führer also wrote that Aurangzeb had built now-ruined mosques at the sites of Svargadvaram and Treta-ke-Thakur temples. A fragmentary inscription of Jayachandra of Kannauj, dated to 1241 Samvat (1185 CE), and a record of a Vishnu temple's construction were recovered from Aurangazeb's Treta-ke-Thakur mosque, and kept in Faizabad museum. [4]
Awadh Kishore Narain of Banaras Hindu University led an excavation in Ayodhya during 1969–70. He dated establishment of Ayodhya to early 17th century BCE, and also observed that there was evidence of strong Jain presence in the area. [5]
Professor B. B. Lal led a more detailed ASI study of the area in 1975–76. [5] The team of archaeologists of the ASI, led by former Director-General ASI (1968–1972), B. B. Lal in 1975–76, worked on a project titled "Archaeology of Ramayana Sites", which excavated five Ramayana-related sites of Ayodhya, Bharadwaj Ashram, Nandigram, Chitrakoot and Shringaverapura. [6]
Though the results of this study were not published in that period, [6] between 1975 and 1985 an archaeological project was carried out in Ayodhya to examine certain sites referenced to in the Ramayana or that belong to its tradition. Ascribed to the 14th century AD, it is the oldest image found in Ayodhya. The Babri Mosque site was one of the fourteen sites examined during this project. B. B. Lal conducted excavations in Ayodhya and found a terracotta image showing a Jain ascetic. [7]
Jain Samata Vahini, a social organisation of the Jains stated that the excavation conducted at Hanuman Garhi by Prof B. B. Lal in 1976 threw up a grey terracotta figurine that was dated back to the fourth century AD, [8] [9] and Prof B. B. Lal, former director-general of the Archaeological Survey of India also acknowledge the same. [7]
Lal took a controversial [10] [11] [12] [13] stance in the Ayodhya dispute. Writing in 1977, Lal stated in the official ASI-journal that finds were "devoid of any special interest." [14]
In 1990, after his retirement, he wrote in a RSS magazine that he had found the remains of a columned temple under the mosque, [11] [15] [14] and "embarked on a spree of lectures all over the country propagating th[is] evidence from Ayodhya." [15] In Lal's 2008 book, Rāma, His Historicity, Mandir and Setu: Evidence of Literature, Archaeology and Other Sciences, he writes (that): [16]
Attached to the piers of the Babri Masjid, there were twelve stone pillars, which carried not only typical Hindu motifs and mouldings, but also figures of Hindu deities. It was self-evident that these pillars were not an integral part of the Masjid, but were foreign to it.
In a 2003 statement to the Allahabad High Court, Lal stated that he submitted a seven-page preliminary report to the Archaeological Survey of India in 1989, mentioning the discovery of "pillar bases", immediately south of the Babri mosque structure in Ayodhya. Subsequently, all technical facilities were withdrawn and the project wasn't revived for another 10–12 years, despite his repeated request. Thus the final report was never submitted, the preliminary report was only published in 1989, and in Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) volume on historicity of Ramayana and Mahabharat. [6] Subsequently, in his 2008 book, Rama: His Historicity Mandir and Setu, he wrote, "Attached to the piers of the Babri Masjid, there were twelve stone pillars, which carried not only typical Hindu motifs and mouldings, but also figures of Hindu deities. It was self-evident that these pillars were not an integral part of the Masjid, but were foreign to it." [17]
Lal's stance gave an enormous boost to the Ram Temple cause, but his conclusions have been contested by multiple scholars, questioning both the stratigraphic information, and the kind of structure envisioned by Lal. [11] [14] According to Hole, [12]
Later independent analysis of photographs of the trench in which Lal claimed to have found the pillar bases found that they were actually the remains of various walls of different, non-centemporaneous structural phases, and could not have been load-bearing structures (Mandal 2003) [...] other than one photograph, Lal has never made the notebooks and sketches of his excavations available to other scholars so that his interpretation could be tested.
Hole concludes that "the structural elements he had previously thought insignificant suddenly became temple foundations only in order to manufacture support for the nationalists' cause." [12]
B. B. Lal's team also had K. K. Muhammed, who in his autobiography claimed that a Hindu temple was found in the excavation, and said that left historians are misleading the Muslim communities by aligning with fundamentalists. [18] [19]
In July 1992, eight eminent archaeologists (among them former ASI directors, Dr. Y.D. Sharma and Dr. K.M. Srivastava) went to the Ramkot hill to evaluate and examine the findings. These findings included religious sculptures and a statue of Vishnu. They said that the inner boundary of the disputed structure rests, at least on one side, on an earlier existing structure, which "may have belonged to an earlier temple". [20] The objects examined by them also included terracotta Hindu images of the Kushan period (100–300 AD) and carved buff sandstone objects that showed images of Vaishnav deities and of Shiva-Parvati. They concluded that these fragments belonged to a temple of the Nagara style (900–1200 AD).[ citation needed ]
During the demolition of the Babri mosque in December 1992, three inscriptions on stone were found. The most important one is the Vishnu-Hari inscription inscribed on a 1.10 x .56-metre slab with 20 lines that was provisionally dated to ca. 1140. The inscription mentioned that the temple was dedicated to "Vishnu, slayer of Bali and of the ten-headed one". [lower-alpha 1] [21] The inscription is written in the Nāgarī script, a Sanskrit script (or lipi ) of the 11th and 12th century. [21] It was examined by world class epigraphists and Sanskrit scholars (among them Prof. Ajay Mitra Shastri). [21]
Ajay Mitra Shastri, Chairman of the Epigraphical Society of India and a specialist in epigraphy and numismatics, examined the Vishnu-Hari inscription and stated: [21]
The inscription is composed in high-flown Sanskrit verse, except for a small portion in prose, and is engraved in the chaste and classical Nagari script of the eleventh-twelfth century AD. It was evidently put up on the wall of the temple, the construction of which is recorded in the text inscribed on it. Line 15 of this inscription, for example, clearly tells us that a beautiful temple of Vishnu-Hari, built with heaps of stone (sila-samhati-grahais) and beautified with a golden spire (hiranya-kalasa-srisundaram) unparalleled by any other temple built by earlier kings (purvvair-apy-akrtam krtam nrpatibhir) was constructed. This wonderful temple (aty-adbhutam) was built in the temple-city (vibudh-alaayni) of Ayodhya situated in the Saketamandala (district, line 17) (...). Line 19 describes god Vishnu as destroying king Bali (apparently in the Vamana manifestation) and the ten-headed personage (Dasanana, i.e., Ravana).
Following allegations that the Vishnu Hari inscription corresponded to an inscription dedicated to Vishnu that was supposedly missing in the Lucknow State Museum since the 1980s, the museum director Jitendra Kumar stated that the inscription had never been missing from the museum, although it was not on display. He showed the inscription held by his museum at a press conference for all to see. It was different in shape, colour and textual content from the Vishnu-Hari inscription. [22] [ full citation needed ] [23]
In the January 2003, Canadian geophysicist Claude Robillard performed a search with a ground-penetrating radar. The survey concluded the following:
There is some structure under the mosque. The structures were ranging from 0.5 to 5.5 meters in depth that could be associated with ancient and contemporaneous structures such as pillars, foundation walls, slab flooring, extending over a large portion of the site.
Claude Robillard, the chief geophysicist stated the following: [24] [25]
There are some anomalies found underneath the site relating to some archaeological features. You might associate them (the anomalies) with pillars, or floors, or concrete floors, wall foundation or something. These anomalies could be associated with archaeological features but until we dig, I can't say for sure what the construction is under the mosque.
The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) excavated the Ram Janambhoomi–Babri Mosque site at the direction of the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court in Uttar Pradesh in 2003. The archaeologists also reported indications of a large structure that pre-dated the Babri Masjid. A team of 131 labourers was engaged in the excavations. On 11 June 2003 the ASI issued an interim report that only listed the findings of the period between 22 May and 6 June 2003. In August 2003 the ASI handed a 574-page report to the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court.
The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), who examined the site, issued a report of the findings of the period between 22 May and 6 June 2003. This report stated: [26]
Among the structures listed in the report are several brick walls 'in east–west orientation', several 'in north–south orientation', 'decorated coloured floor', several 'pillar bases', and a '1.64-metre high decorated black stone pillar (broken) with figurines on four corners' as well as inscription of holy verses on stone in Arabic language.
ASI mentioned in its report that they have found ruins of other eras also. These ruins could be the ruins of a Jain temples. [27]
Earlier excavations had unearthed animal bones and even human remains. Historians like Irfan Habib have stated that there was Muslim habitation in the area during this period. Earlier excavations had unearthed animal bones and even human remains which could not have been there if the place was indeed a temple. Presence of animal bones, they had been arguing, meant that it was a residential area (and not a shrine) inhabited by a non-vegetarian community. And that it was in that Muslim habitat that a mosque was raised in 1528 or thereafter. The ASI report mentions the bones, but does not explain how they came to be there. [29]
Two Muslim graves were also recovered in the excavation, as reported in the Outlook weekly."The graves are below the mosque floor. The ASI officials, in their conservative estimates, have dated them only at 150 years old. It would be much earlier than that. Coupled with the other evidence in the area—the Lakhauri bricks used as construction material (pre-Mughal era), lime mortar as cementing material, bones with cut marks and glazed ware belonging to the early medieval era (9th to 14th century AD)—one can say there's evidence of a Muslim settlement in the area before Babar's time. The ASI should send the samples from the graves for carbon-dating so that we can be sure," says Dr S.Z.A. Jaffri of Delhi University, appointed by the court as observer at the excavation site. [30] While the ASI videographed and photographed the graves on 22 April, it did not perform a detailed analysis of them. The skeletons found at the site were not sent for carbon-dating, neither were the graves measured. [31]
Anirudha Srivastava, a former ASI archaeologist, said that in some trenches, some graves, terracotta and lime mortar and surkhi were discovered which also indicated Muslim habitation. It was surmised, also, that some mosque existed on the site and that Babri was built on the site of another mosque. [32]
The ASI findings were disputed by several archaeologists. [33]
According to archaeologist Supriya Verma and Jaya Menon, who observed the excavations on behalf of the Sunni Waqf Board, "the ASI was operating with a preconceived notion of discovering the remains of a temple beneath the demolished mosque, even selectively altering the evidence to suit its hypothesis." this allegation particularly focused on the "pillar bases" central to the claim of a temple, which Verma and Menon alleged were irregularly shaped, irregularly spaced and largely the result of selective excavation, rather than representing genuine evidence of pillars. [34]
The leaders of Babri Masjid Action–Reo create more complications, conflict and controversy."struction expressed reservations on the credibility of the ASI in carrying out the assignment impartially, owing to political pressure. ASI comes under the Ministry of Human Resource Development, which was headed by Murli Manohar Joshi, himself an accused in the Babri Masjid demolition case. [35]
The Muslim side expressed doubts on the final ASI report, claiming that the notes and other draft items were supposedly destroyed by the ASI, within 24 hours following the submission of the final report. [36]
There were also attempts by Babri Masjid supporters to prohibit all archaeological excavations at the disputed site. Naved Yar Khan's petition at the Supreme Court to prohibit all archaeological excavations at the Mosque site was rejected. [37] [ full citation needed ] Similarly, there were questions raised as to what level the archaeological digging should reach – should they stop when evidence of a Hindu temple was found? Both Buddhists and Jains asked for the digging to continue much further to learn whether they, too, could lay claim to the site. [38]
Along the same lines as Habib, Muslim Personal Law Board secretary Mohammed Abdul Rahim Quraishi "said a team of well-known archaeologists including Prof. Suraj Bhan had visited the site and inspected the excavated pits and was of [the] opinion that there was evidence of an earlier mosque beneath the structure of the Babri Masjid". [39]
The two agree on a pre-Babri Muslim presence, but Quraishi's "interpretation" of the findings is already starkly at variance with Habib's: the latter saw no mosque underneath, while Quraishi's employee Bhan did.
Noted lawyer Rajeev Dhawan said the Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid case had taken a wrong turn and the ASI report had no historical or moral significance and the conclusions were based on political considerations. However, Mr. Dhawan said, "The legal case did not relate to the question of whether a temple existed on the site or not". [40]
The Buddhists have also claimed the Ayodhya site. According to Udit Raj's Buddha Education Foundation, the structure excavated by ASI in 2003 was a Buddhist stupa destroyed during and after the Muslim invasion of India. Besides the 2003 ASI report, Raj has also based his claim on the 1870 report of the British archaeologist Patrick Carnegie. According to Carnegie, the Kasauti pillars at the Ayodhya site strongly resemble the ones at Buddhist viharas in Sarnath and Varanasi. [41]
In October 2010, after sifting through all the evidence placed before it, the Allahabad High Court, in an order that ran into over 8,000 pages, said that the portion below the central dome under which the idols of Lord Ram and other Gods are placed in a makeshift temple, belongs to Hindus. All three judges agreed that the portion under the central dome should be allotted to Hindus. [42]
The 2019 Supreme Court verdict on Ayodhya dispute states that the entire disputed land of area of 2.77 acres be handed over to a trust to build a Hindu temple. It also ordered the government to give an alternative 5 acre land to the Sunni Waqf Board. [43]
Ayodhya is a city situated on the banks of the Sarayu river in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It is the administrative headquarters of the Ayodhya district as well as the Ayodhya division of Uttar Pradesh, India. Ayodhya became the top tourist destination of Uttar Pradesh with 110 million visitors in the first half of 2024, surpassing Varanasi.
Babri Masjid was a mosque in Ayodhya, India. It has been claimed to have been built upon the site of Ram Janmabhoomi, the legendary birthplace of Rama, a principal deity of Hinduism. It has been a focus of dispute between the Hindu and Muslim communities since the 19th century. According to the mosque's inscriptions, it was built in 1528–29 by Mir Baqi, a commander of the Mughal emperor Babur. Before the 1940s, the masjid was officially known as "Masjid-i-Janmasthan". The mosque was attacked and demolished by a Hindu nationalist mob in 1992, which ignited communal violence across the Indian subcontinent.
Ram Janmabhoomi is the site that, according to Hindu religious beliefs, is the birthplace of Rama, the seventh avatar of the Hindu deity Vishnu. The Ramayana states that the location of Rama's birthplace is on the banks of the Sarayu river in a city called "Ayodhya". Modern-day Ayodhya is in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It is contested whether the Ayodhya mentioned in the Ramayana is the same as the modern city.
The Liberhan Commission was a long-running inquiry commissioned by the Government of India to investigate the destruction of the disputed structure Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in 1992. Led by retired High Court Judge M. S. Liberhan, it was formed on 16 December 1992 by an order of the Indian Home Union Ministry after the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya on 6 December and the subsequent riots there. The commission was originally mandated to submit its report within three months. Extensions were given 48 times, and after a delay of 17 years, the one-man commission submitted the report to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on 30 June 2009. In November 2009, a day after a newspaper published the allegedly leaked contents of the report, the report was tabled in Parliament by the Home Minister P. Chidambaram.
Braj Basi Lal was an Indian writer and archaeologist. He was the Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) from 1968 to 1972 and has served as Director of the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla. Lal also served on various UNESCO committees.
Swaraj Prakash Gupta was a prominent Indian archaeologist, art historian authority, Chairman of Indian Archaeological Society, founder of the Indian History and Culture Society, and Director of the Allahabad Museum. He was most noted for several excavations Indus Valley civilisation sites and for his support of the existence of a destroyed Ram Mandir underneath the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya.
The Ayodhya dispute is a political, historical, and socio-religious debate in India, centred on a plot of land in the city of Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh. The issues revolve around the control of a site regarded since at least the 18th century among many Hindus to be the birthplace of their deity Rama, the history and location of the Babri Masjid mosque at the site, and whether a previous Hindu temple was demolished or modified to create the mosque.
Baqi Tashqandi, also known as Mir Baqi, was a Mughal commander (beg) originally from Tashkent during the reign of the first Mughal emperor Babur. He is widely believed to have been made the governor of the province of Awadh. He is believed to have demolished a Ram temple and constructed the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya in 1528, which later became the focal point of the Babri Masjid–Ram Janmabhoomi dispute.
Kishore Kunal is a former officer of the Indian Police Service from the state of Bihar, India. During his police career, he was appointed as the Officer on Special Duty (Ayodhya) by the prime minister V. P. Singh to mediate between the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Babri Masjid Action Committee on the Ayodhya dispute. He continued to serve in this position during the premierships of Chandra Sekhar and P. V. Narasimha Rao.
The demolition of the Babri Masjid was carried out on 6 December 1992 by a large group of activists of the Vishva Hindu Parishad and allied organisations. The 16th-century Babri Masjid in the city of Ayodhya, in Uttar Pradesh, India, had been the subject of a lengthy socio-political dispute, and was targeted after a political rally organised by Hindu nationalist organisations turned violent.
Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas is an organisation which was formed as a trust to promote and oversee the construction of a temple in Ayodhya, India at the Ram Janmabhoomi, the reputed site of the birth of the Hindu deity Rama. The Nyas was formed by members of the Vishva Hindu Parishad.
The Ram Rath Yatra was a political and religious rally that lasted from September to October 1990. It was organised by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its Hindu nationalist affiliates, and led by the then-president of the BJP, L. K. Advani. The purpose of the yatra was to support the agitation, led by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and its affiliates in the Sangh Parivar, to erect a temple to the Hindu deity Rama on the site of the Babri Masjid.
Suraj Bhan (1931–2010) was an Indian archaeologist and professor of archaeology. His academic work was said to bear a deep imprint of Marxism. He was also involved with the work of Communist Party of India (Marxist) in Haryana and took particular interest in the People's Science movement.
Dhaneshwar Mandal is a retired Professor in Ancient History, Culture and Archaeology at Allahabad University. He is widely known for his strong position against the excavations at the Babri Masjid site in Ayodhya conducted by the Archaeological Survey of India.
Karingamannu Kuzhiyil Muhammed is an Indian archaeologist who served as the Regional Director (North) of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). Muhammed is credited for the discovery of Ibadat Khana, as well as various prominent Buddhist Stupas and Monuments. During his career, he undertook the restoration of the Bateshwar Complex, successfully convincing naxal insurgents and dacoits to cooperate, as well as facelift and restoration of the Dantewada and Bhojeshwar temples.
Adhai Din Ka Jhonpra is a historical mosque in the city of Ajmer in Rajasthan, India. It is one of the oldest mosques in India, and the oldest surviving monument in Ajmer.
The Vishnu Hari inscription is the name given to a Sanskrit language inscription found in the Uttar Pradesh state of India. It records the construction of a temple by Anayachandra, a feudatory of the king named Govindachandra, and also contains a eulogy of Anayachandra's dynasty. Its date portion is missing, and its authenticity has been a matter of controversy.
The final judgement in the Ayodhya dispute was declared by the Supreme Court of India on 9 November 2019. The Supreme Court ordered the disputed land to be handed over to a trust to build the Ram Janmabhoomi temple. The court also ordered the government to give an alternative 5 acres of land in another place to the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board for the purpose of building a mosque as a replacement for the demolished Babri Masjid.
The Ram Mandir is a partially constructed Hindu temple complex in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, India. Many Hindus believe that it is located at the site of Ram Janmabhoomi, the mythical birthplace of Rama, a principal deity of Hinduism. The temple was inaugurated on 22 January 2024 after a prana pratishtha (consecration) ceremony. On the first day of its opening, following the consecration, the temple received a rush of over half a million visitors, and after a month, the number of daily visitors was reported to be between 100,000 and 150,000.
Balak Ram, also known as Ram Lalla, is the primary murti (idol) of the Ram Mandir, a prominent Hindu temple located at Ram Janmabhoomi, the presumed birthplace of the Hindu deity Rama in Ayodhya, India. Balak Rama is housed in the sacred sanctum sanctorum of the Ram Mandir, a traditional Nagara style temple. The murti (idol) was consecrated in an elaborate Prana pratishtha ceremony on January 22, 2024.
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