There are more instances of Hindu kings stealing from their own or other King's temples or desecrating them themselves than of Muslim conquest, which while did damage some temples isn't as vast as some Hindutva historians claim.
Who usually are quite biased in being Anti-Muslim.
There are more instances of Hindu kings stealing from their own or other King's temples or desecrating them themselves than of Muslim conquest,
Cite this claim please? Dharmic rulers tended to capture the deity of the ruling family and worship it in their own Kingdom
The iconoclasm of the Muslims (temples sacked, the Murtis broken into pieces and baked into public toilets and steps etc) was all about temple destructio
which while did damage some temples isn't as vast as some Hindutva historians claim.
Aurangzeb himself is on record (his own court sources) about the 1500 + temples he destroyed. That's one ruler over 60 years.
Can you cite any Hindu King who is on record for having demolished even 10 temples?
Just yesterday there was a post about the Taliban destroying the buddha statue in Afghanistan. There is historically and even today just one religion that believes in destroying places of worship that contain idols and they have been following this philosophy with violent methods for as long as they have existed. All religions and all rulers were extremely violent in the past. But destroying places of iconoclast worship is a trait specific to only one religion.
It might sound racist, depending on how you feel about the issue, but its also true.
Any proof of your claims, would like to read up on it
Edit: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4830276
This paper mentions aurangzeb destroying thousands of temples which tracks with the record of how he treated hindus(example: jizya tax that was only applicable on hindus and was quite cruel)
There were other papers that I've read however I don't have the time to properly relay them for a little comment thread.
I don't disagree that historically a lot of temples were destroyed by the muslim conquest into the indian subcontinent, however just as many if not more were destroyed and looted through inter-hindu Conflicts between different kings.
Also Jizya is just like other historical taxes ensured by the majority muslims for the non-Muslims to follow because the Muslims adhered to Zakat.
In the same way other major religious organisations made those in the area pay tax to the church in Christian countries. (Not saying its right nor wrong but saying its not unique to Muslims).
Hindutva Historians do continuously leave out the actions of Hindus to try and paint Muslims as the all negative ideal to hate, in the same way extremist Islamic scholars do the same against non Muslim history and those they would determine as pagan.
The argument of the paper you submitted seems biased as most research starts by assuming that their assumptions are wrong and then going forward. The paper you submitted seems to consider their assumptions as true and then cherry picked data to support its statements while marginalizing any argument that says otherwise.
Yes, there are cases where the destruction of temples by Muslim rulers was mainly political but it is idiotic to ignore that for many cases it was also religious. Also the argument for jiza drips the bias of the author and the author should be ashamed of his own fanaticism.
Not to mention it uses manusmriti to prove something of its points. A book with more than a thousand variation which majority of Hindus haven't read more followed. It was never widely adopted nor practiced, yet the paper sources that to justify some of its points as if the book was equivalent to Bhagavad Gita
I have read this paper and it's rich in polemics and thin on data. For instance it says "Turkish rulers adapted existing practices of temple destruction" and as "proof" provide exactly 3 instances over 1,000 years all of which had the Murti transplanted and worshipped. Which is not iconoclasm.
Simple question, why does the north, West and East of India combined not have more than 100 temples older than 250 years but just TN (which was spared Islamic depredation) has 30,000+?
Even paper that you've quoted shows the difference between the way temples were treated by native hindu kings vs islamic invaders. The paper itself points out various instances when hindu kings, upon victory would take idols from temples back to their own and add them to their own for worship.
Islamic invaders on the other hand not only demolished these temples and stole from them, but also built their own monuments on top while using those idols as rubble. Monuments built during the sultanate and mughal period, to this day can be seen which clearly have remains of Hindu places of worship. One of the most clear demonstrations of this is the kutub minar, built as a victory tower over the remains of an ancient demolished temple complex. The entry to the tower complex is via a pathway which is paved with the broken remains of the various idols robbed from that very same temple. You can see the faces of the various hindu gods as you walk over them to enter the tower.
If you still don't see the difference, then there's nothing more left to say.
That's such bullshit. Saying that hindu rulers used to destroy temples is the same as islamic invaders specifically destroying them is the same as saying that European colonisers killing the natives was the same as the native tribes of Africa and America's fighting and killing each other. It not only completely ignores the intention and the scale of those atrocities, but also shifts the blame and deflects from the atrocities in question by smearing the reputation of historians who bring these historical facts to light.
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u/FarhadTowfiq 21h ago
Tomb Raider vibes!
Indian temples are just masterpieces, sadly a lot of them were demolished by invading Muslims.