Hindu Temples: What Happened to Them

Hindu Temples – What Happened to Them is a two-volume book by Sita Ram Goel, Arun Shourie, Harsh Narain, and Ram Swarup.^[1] The first volume was published in the Spring of 1990.

Contents[]

The first volume includes a list of 2,000 mosques that he claims were built on Hindu temples, based primarily on the books of Muslim historians of the period or inscriptions found on mosques. The second volume excerpts from medieval histories and chronicles and from inscriptions concerning the destruction of Hindu, Jain and Buddhist temples. The authors claim that the material presented in the book as "the tip of an iceberg".^{[citation needed]}

The book contains chapters about the Ayodhya debate. The appendix of the first volume contains a list of temple-destructions and atrocities that the authors claim took place in Bangladesh in 1989. The book also criticizes "Marxist historians", and one of the appendices of the second volume includes a questionnaire for "Marxist professors", one of whom was the notable Indian historian Romila Thapar.^{[citation needed]}

Publication history[]

In August 1990, while releasing the book, Bharatiya Janta Party leader L. K. Advani chided Goel for using "strong language".^[2]

Reception[]

Cynthia Talbot, writing in 1995 about religious identities in pre-modern India, claimed Goel's list of destroyed temples to be "greatly inflated" and called for a systematic and unbiased study on medieval desecration of Indian temples.^[3] She however noted that since the late sixteenth century, temple desecration were indeed on the rise in Andhra Pradesh, which went in accord with Goel's list.^[3]

Richard M. Eaton, writing in 2000 about the very topic of temple desecration, severely criticized the work and noted that Goel had endeavored to locate a "pattern of wholesale temple destruction by Muslims".^[4] Goel's selective usage of epigraphs and (translated) Persian chronicles were criticized, as well.^[5] Discussing one particular case from among Goel's list concerning a tomb-shrine in Malwa, Eaton noted that Goel had accepted an inscription mentioning a temple-destruction some 400 years after the event, at face value.^[4] According to Vimal Yogi Tiwari, such an historical assessment as in Goel's book "Hindu Temples" has by and large been missing in India.^[6]

Manini Chatterjee, in a review in the Calcutta Telegraph, called Goel's book a "very bad book".^[7]

Goel's book also includes an exchange of comments between Romila Thapar and Goel.^[8] Romila Thapar has criticized Goel, claiming that he does not understand how to use historical sources.^[9]

See also[]

• Muslim conquest in the Indian subcontinent
• Conversion of non-Muslim places of worship into mosques
• The History of India, as Told by Its Own Historians. The Muhammadan Period (Book)

References[]

External links[]

• Online version:

---Volume 1 First Edition (There is also a second revised and enlarged edition.^[1] The online version is the first edition.)

---Volume 2 Second Enlarged Edition