Ayodhya Revisited

by Kunal Kishore

  The famous French orientalist, M. Anquetil du Perron thus made an eloquent assessment of Tieffenthaler’s work in the following words:

  “Whilst two leading European nations are contending in the Carnatic and elsewhere for the supremacy over India in many bloody encounters, a modest missionary quietly and perseveringly pushes his way through pathless jungles and over arid plains, measuring in all thousands of miles, in order to make purely pacific conquest, and benefit thereby humanity – whilst Bengal, the East Coast, the Deccan and Gujarat are the scenes of bloody strifes which the greed of European nations has, if not originated, at least fostered, it is consoling to see that there are still men of science who are untouched by avarice and free from the thirst of gold. We sincerely desire the examples of intelligent travelers like Tieffenthaler might be imitated by some of the Europeans settled in those vast regions. Of what use are the endless armed squadrons, sent thither to uphold material interests, and bring Asia’s treasures to Europe whilst all means of advancing human knowledge are neglected? Prompted by the love of science, and filled with the zeal for the cause of humanity, I hope my wishes will be realized, and the public—I am sure—anxiously watch the efforts of this savant (Tieffenthaler) in the North of Bengal, and will receive with pleasure the results of his exploration in those hitherto little-known regions of Asia.”

  (Noti’s Biography of Tieffenthaler, pp. 411-12)

  Tieffenthaler’s account on Ayodhya had the distinction of being quoted in the German article “Die Verkärperungen des Wischnu: Rama oder Shrirāma” (i.e. The Incarnation of Vishnu: Rāma or Śrīrāma) written by Herrn Dr. Fr. Majer. It was published in 1802 in the German magazine ‘Asiatisches Magazin’ from Weimar.

  Tieffenthaler’s work ‘Descriptio Indiae’ originally written in Latin but translated by Bernoulli in German between 1785 and 1787 and into French between 1786 and 1791. Bernoulli edited and annotated Tieffenthaler’s work with abundant ability. The German and French versions of Tieffenthaler’s work are still extant.

  Justice Agarwal’s description of Tieffenthaler as “an intellectual giant and linguistic wizard” is totally correct. In the brief biography of Tieffenthaler presented in the 4th chapter it has been shown that he wrote books on various subjects like geography, history, linguistics, comparative language, astronomy, astrology, cosmology and on flora and fauna of India. He had very good knowledge of Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, French, Urdu, Persian, Arabic and Sanskrit. He wrote fluently in almost all these languages except one or two. Tieffenthaler knew Persian and Arabic well. He composed a Sanskrit-Persian dictionary and certain treatises in Persian. S.N. Sen suggests that of all these Asian languages he acquired, he had the best knowledge of the Persian in which he composed at least two treatises.

  Tieffenthaler was undoubtedly “an intellectual giant and linguistic wizard”. Justice Agarwal was not the first person to describe him so; eminent author E.A.H. Blunt, I.C.S. in his book “List of Inscriptions on Christian Tombs and Tablets of Historical Interest in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh” has paid similar tributes to him. If Aligarh Historians are not aware of his academic achievements, Justice Agarwal is not to blame for this lapse.

  He was not merely a traveller. He was born in Austria in 1710 A.D. but after he came to India in 1743, he remained in this country till his death on 5th July, 1785 at Lucknow. To the Aligarh Historians he may be ‘a little known traveller’ but he has been rightly regarded by many as the first European who wrote “an exact description of Hindustan.” His accounts on Ayodhyā in English were published in 1828 A.D. in the book ‘The Modern Traveller’.

  Justice Agrawal was again correct when he commented that there existed no inscription in the mosque during his visit. When Buchanan was faced with the general public perception that the temples of Banaras, Mathurā and Ayodhyā were demolished by Aurangzeb, he got the Ayodhyā ‘misconception’ removed by getting one (or two) inscription(s) deciphered through a Maulavi, as Buchanan did not know Persian at all. Tieffenthaler had two sets of information. The general perception was that the temple at Ayodhyā was demolished by Aurangzeb but there were some persons who believed that Babur got it razed to the ground. Had any inscription really existed in and around 1770 A.D. when Tieffenthaler visited the mosque, he, being a scholar of Persian, would have studied it and declared like Buchanan later that the mosque was built by Babur and not by Aurangzeb. But since there was no inscription in or around the mosque in 1770 A.D. Tieffenthaler remained uncertain and mentioned both versions. Thus, if Justice Agarwal presumed that there existed no inscription when Tieffenthaler visited the mosque and minutely observed the structure along with its vicinity, he (Justice Agarwal) was totally justified in making such a legal presumption. It has already been shown in Chapter V as to how the two inscriptions were created on the eve of Buchanan’s visit in 181314 and replaced repeatedly with changed contents at different times.

  Aligarh Historians claim that Fuhrer, Beveridge, Desai and other historians certified the inscriptions to be genuine. But this fact, too, is not true because the inscriptions read by Fuhrer contained the name of Mir Khan in place of Mir Baqi and 930 H (1523 A.D.) in place of 935 H (1528 A.D.). During the time of Beveridge the inscription on the central entrance of the mosque was still incomplete and contained only three verses. Other verses were interpolated subsequently. Moreover, these inscriptions were not seen by Beveridge herself in the mosque; rather their copies were supplied to her by D.M., Faizabad through her I.C.S. husband.

  1.2 Tieffenthaler’s non-mention of inscriptions—a testimony to its non-existence

  In para 1.2 Aligarh Historians have shown unprecedented double standard. Day in and day out, they have been arguing that since Tulasi Das did not mention the demolition of any Rāma temple at Ayodhyā by Babur or Mir Baqi, no temple was ever demolished by either of them. Similarly, they have been advocating that since Ayodhyā does not figure (actually it figures) in the “Kritya-kalpa-taru” edited by Lakshmidhara during the reign of Govindachandra, Ayodhyā was not a pilgrim centre till the 12th century, although they deliberately concealed the fact that his grandfather Chandradeva had come to Ayodhyā for performance of certain rituals in 1093 A.D. on the day of a solar eclipse. However, the same set of historians, after having turned upside down, have written thus:

  “1.2. As to the significance of Tieffenthaler’s not mentioning the inscriptions, it needs stressing that in history negative inferences of this kind are hardly ever given credence. One famous example is of that other famous “intellectual giant and linguistic wizard”, Marco Polo’s failure to mention the hugely ancient Great Wall of China. If Justice Sudhir Agarwal is ever asked to decide when the Great Wall was built, he should immediately say, after Marco Polo’s travels, i.e. after 1300 AD! This shows the risks involved in Justice Agarwal’s approach to History.”

  It is not proper to ridicule a serving High Court Judge who was the darling of secularists until the judgment was delivered, as he was perceived to be an anti-temple judge earlier. Justice Agarwal is a very wellread person and if he has to decide why Marco Polo’s travels did not mention the Great Wall of China, he would reply in the following words of Hugh Murray, F.R.S.E.S. who published “Marco Polo’s travel accounts” in April 1844 from Edinburgh:

  “This great barrier had doubtless been erected centuries before, but by no means in the same substantial shape as at present. For several ages after the entrance of the Tartars, being of no political value, it was probably allowed to go to decay, and perhaps even demolished where a thoroughfare was desirable. It was the Yuen dynasty after the expulsion of those conquerors, that it was restored, and brought to its present perfection.”

  Moreover, the analogy of Tieffenthaler’s accounts with Marco Polo’s travels is not appropriate because Tieffenthaler was giving a detailed description of the disputed structure from the site. Tieffenthaler’s accounts can be compared with those of Buchanan in 1813-14. Aligarh Historians have further added, “Tieffenthaler mere
ly recorded the tradition that either Aurangzeb or Babur built the mosque; why should he have gone and tested it by trying to decipher the mosque inscriptions? Moreover, the Persian inscriptions were written in ornate tughra-influenced nastaliq and so are hard to read for any non-epigraphic however conversant with Persian.”

  It is not a correct observation because Tieffenthaler has not merely described the tradition but has also given a detailed description of the mosque and the vicinity. When he could give the length and width of the ‘Bedi’, there was no reason for him to conceal the inscriptions, if they really existed. He himself was a Persian scholar, whereas the language was completely unknown to Buchanan. When Buchanan, who was in a hurry to leave for his native place, could get it deciphered by a Maulavi, Tieffenthaler, too, could have done it easily, had there been any inscription there. However, the fact of the matter remains that the inscription, which mentioned the construction of the mosque by Mir Baqi at the command of Babur, was not so difficult to read. Tieffenthaler was a great linguist and Buchanan was a surgeon. Therefore, it was expected more of Tieffenthaler to mention the inscriptions than of Buchanan. Had there been any inscription inside the mosque, Tieffenthaler would have mentioned it with certainty and authenticity that the mosque was built by Babur and those who believed that it was done by Aurangzeb were wrong.

  Thus, Tieffenthaler’s non-mention of inscriptions is a strong ground to presume correctly that no inscription existed in the mosque till 1770 A.D.

  1.3 Ashraf Husain/Z.A. Desai’s article not in conformity with Maulvi Shuaib’s report 1906-07

  Para 1.3 deals with “The Texts of the Masjid Inscriptions” and refers to an article of Maulvi M. Ashraf Husain, titled ‘Inscriptions by Emperor Babur’ which was posthumously published in the ‘Epigraphia India; Arabic and Persian Supplement’, 1965 by Dr. Z.A. Desai, who was the Superintendent, Persian and Arabic Inscriptions, Archaeological Survey of India.

  Aligarh Historians have taken strong exception to the following observation of Justice Agarwal in his judgment:

  “We are extremely perturbed by the manner in which Ashraf Husain/Desai have tried to give an impeccable authority to the texts of the alleged inscriptions which they claim to have existed on the disputed building though repeatedly said that the original text has disappeared. The fallacy and complete misrepresentation on the part of author in trying to give colour of truth to this text is writ large from a bare reading of the write up. We are really at pains to find that such blatant fallacious kind of material has been allowed to be published in a book published under the authority of ASI, Government of India, without caring about its accuracy, correctness and genuineness of the subject.” (para 1463).

  The article of Maulvi M. Ashraf Husain/Dr. Z.A. Desai not only lacked in accuracy and correctness but also contained distortions and tampering. It is analysed below:

  (i) While commenting on A. Fuhrer’s reading of inscriptions, they never claimed that Fuhrer’s reading ‘Mir Khan’ was wrong. They accepted the reading to be Mir Khan but arbitrarily revised it to Mir (and) Khan (Baqi). Aligarh Historians may read the translation of Ashraf/Desai. Nowhere Ashraf and Desai have claimed that in the original reading it was Baqi and Fuhrer wrongly took it to Khan. They have arbitrarily changed the name and this is the reason for Justice Agarwal’s anguish against them. They may have been great Persian scholars but not impartial epigraphists.

  (ii) Similarly, the date of the construction of the mosque was shown to be 930 A.H. in Fuhrer’s reading which corresponds to 1523 A.D. This improbable date was not because of Fuhrer’s wrong reading but because of the lack of knowledge of history on the part of the persons who forged the inscriptions. But Husain/Desai, being scholars of history, detected this inaccuracy and arbitrarily changed it to 935 H, i.e. 1528 A.D. They never wrote that Fuhrer had erred in reading the date.

  (iii) The two epigraphists have referred to Maulvi Shuaib’s report in assertion of the claim that the inscription near the pulpit indicated the construction of the mosque in 935A.H. It is interesting to learn that Husain/Desai made the following comments in the 4th footnote on page 59 of the article:

  “It may be argued that since the epigraph is not quoted in Fuhrer’s SAJ, the slab had already disappeared before he wrote. But this is not the case, since the tablet was found there in 1906-07 A.D. by Maulavi M. Shuaib of the Office of the Archaeological Surveyor, Northern Circle, Agra (Annual Progress Report of the office of the Archaelogical Surveyor, Northern Circle, Agra for 1906-07; Appendix D.)

  But in the report of Maulvi Shuaib the content is different from their assertion. Aligarh Historians, instead of accepting this fact, have blamed the Hon’ble Judge in the following words:

  “Ashraf Husain duly cited the Annual Report of the Office of the Archaeological Surveyor, Northern Circle, Agra, for 1906-07, which, if Justice Agarwal had any doubts about the matter, the Bench could have called for from the Government of India just as it had directed the Government of India to provide a translation of the extract from Tieffenthaler. In any case, our photographs show that the original inscription actually stood over the entrance before 1992 and the photographed text accords with the plate published by Ashraf Husain. Its mode of Tughra-influenced nasta‘liq also proclaims its early Mughal date.”(pp. 9-10)

  If Justice Agarwal did not call for the report, Aligarh Historians should have cited it to buttress their argument.

  What was not done by Justice Agarwal or Aligarh Historians has been done by the present author. When Maulavi M. Shuaib submitted the annual report of the Office of the Archaeological Surveyor, Northern Circle, Agra for 1906-07, the following gist of the inscription was reported by him.

  From an analysis of Maulvi Shuaib’s report it appears that the inscription which was below the pulpit was in complete agreement with the one which was found by A. Fuhrer and it included the date A.H. 930, i.e. 1523 A.D. Thus, their claim in the article is contradicted by Maulvi Shuaib’s report.

  1.4 Content of the third inscription is really bizarre

  Para 1.4 relates to the text of the third inscription. Aligarh Historians may read minutely the introduction written by Husain/Desai before commenting upon the inscription and its translation. For their convenience it is produced below:

  “The third record of Babur in the Ayodhya mosque, comprising a fragment of eight Persian verses of medicore quality and a colophon, appears over the central etrance to the prayer-chamber above the chhajja. The four-line text is executed in fairly good Naksh characters in relief amidst floral borders, on a slab measuring about 2m. by 55cm. The text is fairly well preserved, and Fuhrer must have been misinformed to affairm that a few characters of the second and the whole third lines are completely defaced. The purport of the record is the same as that of the previous epigraphs, but here an additional edifice is also mentioned. In verse six, in line three, a fort-wall (hisar) is said to have been built along with the mosque in A.H. 935 (152829 A.D.), by Mir Baqi. who is here called the second Asaf and councillor of the state.”

  This was the inscription which, according to the reading of Fuhrer, recorded the date 930 A.H., i.e 1523 A.D. but in the possession of Husain/Desai it turned into 935 A.H., i.e. 1528 A.D. Nevertheless, nowhere Husain/Desai writes that the reading 930 A.H., i.e. 1523 by Fuhrer is wrong. Nevertheless, they arbitrarily changed it to 935 A.H., i.e. 1528 A.D. Even after the translation of the text by Husain/Desai an explanation has been added but no inaccuracy on the part of Fuhrer, so far the year 930 is concerned, has been pointed out by them. Now, when none of the inscriptions is available, Aligarh Historians feel free to read and translate them arbitrarily. However, it cannot be acceptable because they are not greater epigraphists than Husain/Desai who did not find any fault in Fuhrer’s reading on the date. Now they do not have the original inscription with them. So, they are harping on pictures published by Husain/Desai. But when the content is questionable, it may be well presumed that pictures were contrived.

  Prof. Sushil Srivastava and
his father-in-law S.R. Farooqi have rightly suggested from the palaeographic analysis of the inscription that the third inscription at the central entrance of the mosque belonged to the 19th century. The factual position is that the third inscription in the last seen format was fixed on the central entrance of the mosque in the late 19th century. If the two great epigraphists Husain/Desai misled the country by making arbitrary changes in the text and the translation, Justice Agarwal was totally justified in making his observations in stern words.

  Aligarh Historians have heavily relied on the third inscription, which is said to have been at the central entrance of the mosque. Husain/Desai presented a new reading with a new translation. Some relevant lines (3rd and 4th) are discussed here. They are as follows:

  “(He is) such (an emperor) as has embraced (i.e. conquered) all the seven climes of the world in the manner of the sky.

  In his court, there was a magnificent noble, named Mir Baqi the second Ãsaf, councillor of his government and administrator of his kingdom, who is the founder to this mosque and fort-wall.

  O God, may he live for ever in this world, with fortune and life and crown and throne.”

  The eulogy of Babur that he had conquered the entire world may be justified because that was the usual style in almost all inscriptions. But Mir Baqi has been called:

  (a) a magnificent noble

  (b) the second Āsaf

  (c) councillor of Babur’s government and

  (d) administrator of his kingdom

  Then a prayer to God has been made there for his immortal life with fortune, crown and throne intact. Baqi Tashkindi was a warrior and commander of a thousand troops. But whether he was a noble or not is not confirmed. Even if it is assumed that he was a noble or a magnificent noble (Mir-i-muazzem), how could he wear a crown and keep the throne? These two are the insignia of a king and not a commander of a small troop. If it is assumed that the crown and throne refer to Babur and not to Baqi, even then the other epithets will appear to be inappropriate. Mir Baqi is not known to have been a councillor of the government, as Babur did not keep any council for governance. Babur himself was the administrator of his kingdom. So, how could Mir Baqi become the administrator of Babur’s government? The epithet, second Āsaf, too, is not justified because Āsaf was the Prime Minister of the celebrated King Soloman. Āsaf was a miracle-performing Prime Minster who could bring the throne of a distant Queen within a twinkle of eyes. His name was considered for prophetship, though it was rejected. Mir Baqi did not enjoy such a high status or reputation. He was merely a Beg, commander of a thousand troops.