New Delhi: The Archeological Survey of India (ASI) has determined that the existing structure of a mosque in the Bhojshala complex in Madhya Pradesh’s Dhar was made from parts of an earlier temple that can be dated to the Paramara period, between the 10th and 11th centuries.
The ASI’s scientific examination of the Dhar complex – the report runs into 151 pages – was undertaken following an order by the Madhya Pradesh High Court in March. The findings were submitted to the court Monday.
This dispute between the area’s Hindus and Muslims was taken to court when the Hindu Front for Justice filed a petition against Namaz at the site.
According to the ASI report, a copy of which is with ThePrint, a total of 95 sculptures, sculptural fragments and architectural members with sculptural depictions were noticed during the investigation.
While sculptures of four-armed deities were found carved on the windows, pillars and beams used in the current structure, images of various Hindu gods and goddesses as well as animals, apart from mythical and composite figures (both human and animals) of different shapes, were also detected.
As human and animal figures are not permitted in a mosque, the ASI team found such images in many places had been “chiselled out or defaced”. “Such attempts can be seen on pillar and pilaster in western and eastern colonnades, on the lintel in western colonnade, entrance of southeast cell, etc,” the report stated. In some pillars of the western colonnade, such figures, including that of deities, were in a “good state of preservation”, the ASI observed.
“From art and architecture of decorated pillars and pilasters, it can be said that they were part of earlier temples and were reused while making colonnades of the mosque over the high platform of basalt. A pillar decorated in niches in all four directions depict mutilated images of deities. Another base of a pillar also depicts a deity image in a niche. Standing images on two pilasters have been chopped off and are beyond recognition,” the ASI report read.
Declared a protected monument in 1951, the 11th-century Bhojshala complex is treated by Hindus as a temple dedicated to Goddess Saraswati, while Muslims call it the Kamal Maula Mosque. According to an arrangement formulated by the ASI in April 2003, Hindus perform puja on the premises on Tuesdays, while Muslims offer namaz on Fridays.
In ordering an ASI survey, the high court followed in the footsteps of the Supreme Court which had done the same for the Gyanvapi-Kashi Vishwanath dispute in Varanasi.
The order was issued on 11 March and the ASI was asked to conclude its scientific survey within six weeks. The deadline was extended to 12 weeks after the research body asked for more time.
On an appeal filed by the Muslim side, the Supreme Court on 1 April declined to stay the scientific survey but restrained the ASI from carrying out any “physical excavation” that could change the character of the premises in question.
The investigation began on 22 March during which the ASI requested the National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI) to conduct a ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey. Representatives from both Hindu and Muslim communities were present during the survey.
The ASI documented all objects noticed and retrieved during the scientific investigation, which included inscriptions, sculptures, coins, architectural fragments, pottery, and objects of terracotta, stone metal and glass. Some of these objects required “first-aid treatment”, which according to the ASI report, was done at the site itself.
The scientific survey, per the ASI report, indicated three distinct architectural phases at the site. The existing structure, the mosque, represents the third phase, and, the ASI said, “is constructed over a pre-existing structure of basalt”. The pre-existing structure is the base of the present structure, the report discloses.
A study of the walls in the southwest corner of the courtyard suggested that the earlier structure was made on natural soil and was of bricks. “Thick and high wall with offsets indicate that the structure would have been massive and perhaps for public purpose,” the report said.
Remains of the earlier structure still exist “in situ” and were covered under the thick and heavy slabs of basalt used during the construction of the platform that was the base for the current structure.
Based on the artefacts found during the survey, the ASI finding held the brick structures were of the Paramara period. The earlier structure was enlarged from time to time, for which locally available basalt stone was used. While the lower portion of these brick walls got buried and was confined within a massive stone platform, the enlarged structure made of basalt had inscriptions on it, one of which mentioned “sharada sadan” found mention in the literary inscription “parijatamanjari.”
As for the existing structure, the ASI survey found that its superstructure was constructed over a larger and high platform of basalt and is very distinct in material and style. “Existing structure appears to have been made hurriedly without paying much attention to the symmetry, design, material etc,” the report adds. Moulders of the earlier structure are in uniform shape and height, whereas stone blocks and slabs used in the construction of the existing structure are not of particular size.
The report further mentions the reuse of “chopped off” images from the earlier structure in the present one. Inscriptions in Sanskrit and Prakrit were damaged and reused as well in the 106 pillars and 82 pilasters of the current structure.
“Art and architecture of the pillars and pilasters in colonnades (of the mosque) suggest that they were originally part of temples,” notes the report.
Though the ASI survey led to the discovery of 31 coins from various periods, the earliest one found at the site are of “Indo-Sassanian” era, which the report maintained, can be dated to 10-11th century, when PAramara kings were ruling in Malwa with their capital at Dhar.
More than 150 inscriptions and fragments, engraved on fine grained basalt in Nagari script, “datable to 13th century, have been found in and around the structure. Upon their reading, it can be said that they “contain literary works composed by some of the Paramara kings or works composed or copied during their rule”.
Large inscriptions starting with the invocation of “OM Sarasvityanamah” and “Om Namah Shivay” were also found in the eastern colonnade, as per the ASI survey report. Some of the inscriptions are on the performances that took place inside the temple, such as “Parjijatamanjari-natika or Vijayasri” and also mentions the names of their composers.
“Retrieved architectural remains, sculptural fragments, large slabs of inscriptions with literary texts, Nagakarnika inscriptions on pillars, etc. suggest that a large structure associated with literary and educational activities existed at the site. Based on scientific investigations and archeological remains recovered during the investigations, this pre-existing structure can be dated to the Paramara period,” the survey report concludes.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
Also read: SC-appointed panel suggests felling 2,818 trees for road work in Taj zone, 1k fewer than UP proposed