On Friday, 15 May, a two-judge bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court pronounced a 700-year-old mosque in Dhar, near Indore, to be a temple of the Hindu goddess Saraswati. The verdict was substantially based on a court-ordered GPR (Ground Penetrating Radar) survey by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).

As per the survey, the Kamal Maula mosque, a 14th century hypostyle monument, also the first Jama Masjid (congregational mosque) of Dhar, was built on a pre-existing 11th century temple, popular by the modern misnomer Bhojashala (named after the 11th century Paramara king Bhoja). But the archaeological reading of the ASI and the court verdict are both problematic in their understanding of historical sources, the phenomenon of architectural reuse and the historical evolution of religions.

The brief findings of the ASI survey, as recorded in the court order, indicate pre-existing structure underneath the mosque, which was ‘massive perhaps for public purpose’ (p.186). It further states that the pre-existing structure was ‘damaged and modified for reuse’ (ibid.).

Later, on p.189, the ASI contradicts itself when stating that the ‘art and architecture of these pillars and pilasters in colonnades suggest that they were originally part of temples (emphasis added). The remains, then, do not come from a single structure but from multiple temples (p.189).

The identification of the structure underneath as a temple is done purely on the basis of the material reused in the mosque. According to the ASI, figures of four-armed deities as well as of other Puranic gods such as Ganesha can be found on the reused pillars, albeit defaced in consonance with Islamic iconoclasm.

The ASI survey does not entertain the possibility that the structure underneath could be a palace and that the material reused to make the mosque could have also been sourced from a palace. Sculptural reliefs featuring deities were........

© National Herald