The Historical Question of Ayodhya -

The historical starting point of the Ram Janmabhoomi issue is the contention that the
Babri Masjid structure in Ayodhya was built after the forcible demolition of a Hindu
temple on the same spot by Muslim soldiers. The case can be summarized as
follows.

There is archaeological evidence that a temple, or at the very least a building with
pillars, has stood on the Babri Masjid spot since the eleventh century. Of course,
because of the structure standing there, the archaeological search has been far from
exhaustive, but at least of the existence of this 11th century building we can be
certain.

When the building was destroyed, we do not know precisely, there are no
descriptions of the event extent anywhere. Mohd. Gori's armies arrived there in 1194,
and they may have destroyed it. It may have been rebuilt afterwards, or it may only
have been destroyed by later Muslim rulers of the area. So it is possible that when
Mir Baqi, Babar's lieutenant, arrived there in 1528, he found a heap of rubble, or an
already aging mosque, rather than a magnificent Hindu temple.

However, it is very unlikely that the place was not functioning as a Hindu place of
worship just before the Babri Masjid was built. As is well known, fourteen pillar-
stones with Hindu temple ornamentation have been used in the construction of the
Babri Masjid. Considering the quantity of bricks employed in the building, one cannot
say that these fourteen pillar- stones were used merely to economize on bricks:
quantitatively, they simply didn't make a difference. These remnants of Hindu
architecture were more probably use in order to display the victory of the mosque
over the temple, of Islam over Paganism. That was in keeping with a very common
practice of Muslim conquerors, who often left pieces of the outer wall of the
destroyed temple standing (as was done in the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi,
replacing the Kashi Vishvanath temple), or worked pieces of idols into the threshold
of the newly- built mosque, so that the faithful could tread them underfoot.

Since the actual practice in the case of the Babri Masjid conforms to this general
pattern, we may infer that in all probability the Masjid was built in the same material
circumstances in which the pattern normally applied, viz. just after the demolition of
a Pagan place of worship. This is all the more probable considering that no
alternative explanations for the presence of these Hindu pillar-stones have been
offered, not even by those historians who would have an ideological and
argumentative interest in doing so.

In methodological terms, our conclusion that the use of Hindu remnants in the
mosque building indicates an immediately preceding temple demolition because
such a sequence fulfills a common pattern, is based on the principle of consistency.
This principle as a ground for historical inference does not given absolute certainty,
but at least a good measure of probability. But conversely, a contention that violates
the principle of consistency without being supported by hard evidence, thereby
becomes very improbable. As we shall see, the advocates of the Babri Masjid cause,
including a team of JNU historians, have disregarded the consistency principle in
central points of their argumentation.

In their well-known and oft-quoted statement on the Ayodhya controversy, the JNU
historians have rejected the contention that there was a temple on the disputed spot
before the Babri Masjid was built there. This is a wildly improbable contention. There
is a general cultural pattern that would have made people build a temple there, a
very important one.

If you go to Ayodhya and walk to the Masjid/Janmabhoomi, you will find yourself
walking uphill, even after passing the Hanuman Garhi which itself is on a little hill.
Relative to the flatness of the entire Ganga basin, the disputed split is quite an
elevated place, and it overlooks Ayodhya. Now, either prince Rama was a historical
character, born in the castle of the local ruler, which would logically (i.e. strategically)
have been built on this elevation, and then his birthplace temple would also have to
be there. Or we do not assume Ram's historicity (without necessarily excluding it)
and we also do not assume that he was born there, which is the JNU historians'
position, and then the question is reduced to whether people would have refrained
from building a temple on this hilltop.

Ayodhya is a place of pilgrimage and temple city of long standing. The JNU historians
themselves cite evidence that it housed important temples of the Buddhists, Shaivas
and Jains. In such a temple city par excellence, it is virtually impossible that the
geographical place of honour would have been left unused. The contention that there
was no temple on the Babri Masjid site goes against all we know of ritual patterns in
the lay-out of sacred places the world over: it violates the principle of consistency.

That the Babri Masjid replaced a pre-existent centre of worship, is also indicated by
the fact that Hindus kept returning to the place, where more indulgent Muslim rulers
allowed them to worship on a platform just outside the mosque. This is attested by a
number of different pieces of testimony by Western travelers and by local Muslims,
all of the pre-British period, as well as from shortly after the 1856 British take-over
but explicitly referring to older local Muslim sources. A number of these documents
have been presented by Harsh Narain and A.K. Chatterjee. That they are authentic
and have a real proof value, is indirectly corroborated by the attempts made to make
two of them disappear, which Harsh Narain and Arun Shourie independently
discovered.

Most of these sources explicitly declare that the Babri Masjid had replaced an earlier
Hindu temple, and even specify that it has been Ram's birthplace temple. But
whatever their historical explanation for this unusual phenomenon of Hindus insisting
on worshipping in a mosque's courtyard, they testify to the existing practice. And
these Hindus were going into a mosque courtyard for specifically Hindu worship -- not
for common Hindu-Muslim worship of some local Sufi, as you find in some places, but
for separate Hindu worship of Lord Ram. The JNU historians completely fail to explain
this well attested fact.

The attachment of the Hindus to the Babri Masjid spot cannot reasonably have
originated in the period when the mosque was standing there. For the sake of
argument, we might opine that perhaps a great miracle happened on the spot,
sometime later than 1528: but in that case, there would be a tradition saying so. No,
the Hindus' attachment to the spot clearly dates back to pre-Masjid days, and stems
from a pre-existent tradition of worship on that very spot. Since this near inevitable
assumption is corroborated by all relevant documents and by the local Hindu
tradition, and is not contradicted by any authentic source giving a different
explanation, we might as well accept it.
 However, while the inference that there was a pre- existent tradition of worship on
the spot is necessary for explaining the Hindus' centuries-long attachment to the
place, it may not be sufficient. There are many destroyed temples to which Hindus
have not kept returning. They simply built a new temple somewhere else, and even
when Muslim power ended, they stayed with the new arrangement and forgot about
the destroyed and abandoned temple. If they were so attached to the place, it is
probably not because the erstwhile temple had made it important, but because the
place had an importance of its own, and retained its special character even
regardless of there being a temple in place or not. This assumption is coherent with
the unanimous and un contradicted testimony of Hindu and pre-colonial Muslim and
Western sources, that the place was believed to be Ram's birthplace.

When in December 1990 the government asked both parties to collect evidence for
their case, a small group of scholars, on being invited by the VHP, traced some more
strong pieces of documentary evidence. At the same time, Dr. S.P. Gupta and Prof.
B.B. Lal (Former Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India), came out
with unambiguous archaeological and iconographical proof that a Vaishnava temple
has stood at the site until it was replaced with the Babri Masjid. By contrast, the Babri
Masjid Action Committee could only muster a pile of newspaper clippings, articles
and book extracts by partisan writers who gave their anti-Mandir opinion, but no
evidence whatsoever. The Hindu team of scholars had no difficulty in demonstrating,
in a rejoinder, the utter lack of proof value of the AIBMAC evidence …(and these)...
documents are the definitive scholarly statement on the Ayodhya dispute.