Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T04:49:36.212Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Inscribing the Other, Inscribing the Self: Hindu-Muslim Identities in Pre-Colonial India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Cynthia Talbot
Cynthia Talbot
Affiliation:
University of Texas at Austin
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The nature of medieval Hindu-Muslim relations is an issue of great relevance in contemporary India. Prior to the 200 years of colonial subjection to the British that ended in 1947, large portions of the Indian subcontinent were under Muslim political control. An upsurge of Hindu nationalism over the past decade has led to demands that the state rectify past wrongs on behalf of India's majority religion.' In the nationalist view, Hindu beliefs were continually suppressed and its institutions repeatedly violated during the many centuries of Muslim rule from 1200 C.E. onward. The focal point of nationalist sentiment is the most visible symbol of Hinduism, its temples. As many as 60,000 Hindu temples are said to have been torn down by Muslim rulers, and mosques built on 3,000 of those temples' foundations. The most famous of these alleged former temple sites is at Ayodhya in North India, long considered the birthplace of the Hindu god Rama. The movement to liberate this sacred spot, supposedly defiled in the sixteenth century when the Babri Masjid mosque was erected on the ruins of a Rama temple, was one of the hottest political issues of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Tensions reached a peak in December 1992, when Hindu militants succeeded in demolishing the mosque.

Type
Ideologies of Identity
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 37 , Issue 4 , October 1995 , pp. 692 - 722
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Earlier versions of this article were presented at the 1993 Western Conference of the Association for Asian Studies meeting in Mexico City and the 1994 national meeting of the Association for Asian Studies in Boston. I am deeply indebted to Richard M. Eaton and Phillip B. Wagoner, my fellow panelists on both occasions, whose ideas have so heavily influenced my own. Their editorial assistance is also gratefully acknowledged, as is the help of Susan M. Deeds.

1 On Hindu nationalism, see Gold, Daniel, “Organized Hinduisms: From Vedic Truth to Hindu Nation,” in Fundamentalisms Observed, Marty, Martin E. and Appleby, R. Scott, ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 531–93;Google ScholarVeer, Peter van der, Religious Nationalism: Hindus and Muslims in India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994).Google Scholar

2 Entry for the date 1688 in “Hindu Timeline,” Hinduism Today, 12 1994.Google Scholar

3 For discussion of the Ayodhya situation, see Engineer, Asghar Ali, ed., Politics of Confrontation: The Babri-Masjid Ramjanmabhoomi Controversy Runs Riot (Delhi: Ajanta Publications,1992);Google ScholarThakur, Ramesh, “Ayodhya and the Politics of India's Secularism,” Asian Survey, 33:7 (07 1993), 645–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 For an older example of Hindu nationalist historiography, see Majumdar, R. C., “Hindu-Muslim Relations,” in The Struggle for Empire, vol. 5 of The History and Culture of the Indian People (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1957), 498.Google Scholar

5 Thapar, Romila, Mukhia, Harbars, and Chandra, Bipan, Communalism and the Writing of Indian History (Delhi: People's Publishing, 1969);Google ScholarMukhia, Harbans, “Communalism and the Writing of Medieval Indian History: A Reappraisal,” in Perspectives on Medieval History (New Delhi: Vikas Publishing, 1993), 33–45.Google Scholar

6 Freitag, Sandtia, Collective Action and Community: Public Arenas and the Emergence of Communalism in North India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989).Google Scholar

7 Pandey, Gyanendra, The Construction of Communalism in Colonial North India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1990).Google Scholar

8 Gayly, C. A., “The Pre-History of ‘Communalism’? Religious Conflict in India, 1700–1860,” Modern Asian Studies, 19:2 (1985), 202.Google Scholar

9 Pandey, , Construction of Communalism, 199.Google Scholar

10 Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 2nd ed. (London: Verso, 1991).Google Scholar

11 Smith, Anthony D., Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986).Google Scholar

12 Veer, Van der, Religious Nationalism, 12–24;Google ScholarRogers, John D., “Post-Orientalism and the Interpretation of Premodern and Modern Political Identities: The Case of Sri Lanka,” Journal of Asian Studies, 53:1(1994), 10–23;CrossRefGoogle ScholarLorenzen, David N., “Introduction: The Historical Vicissitudes of Bhakti Religion,” in Bhakti Religion in North India: Community Identity and Political Action, Lorenzen, D., ed. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), 2–13.Google Scholar

13 Pollock, Sheldon, “Ramayana and Political Imagination in India,” Journal of Asian Studies, 52:1 (1993), 264.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 The inscriptions examined for this study, which all contain some reference to Muslims, were culled from a larger corpus of about 1,600 records issued in Andhra in this time period. The existence of another 400 inscriptions from the same era and place has been reported by the epigraphical branch of the Archaeological Survey of India, but the majority of these records are either heavily damaged or no longer available for consultation.

15 Pollock, , “Ramayana and Political Imagination,” 282.Google Scholar

16 Venkataramanayya, N. and Samma, M. Somasekhara, ed., “Vilasa Grant of Prolaya Nayaka,” El, 32:239–68.Google Scholar Parts of the inscription are translated in Sarma, M. Somasekhara, A Forgotten Chapter of Andhra History (Madras: Ananda Press, 1945), 20, 35–36, 44–45.Google Scholar

17 The last two Sultanate expeditions into Kakatiya territory (in 1321 and 1323 C.E.) were led by the man then known by the title Ulugh Khan, who became Sultan Muhammad bin Tughluq in 1325. The Khiljis had conducted several earlier campaigns against the Kakatiyas, beginning in 1303 C.E. Although this inscription indicates that there were eight Sultanate campaigns during the reign of Kakatiya Prataparudra, Muslim sources describe only five (Venkataramanayya, N., The Early Muslim Expansion in South India [Madras: University of Madras, 1942], 23–24, 31–43, 83–85, 99–108, 115–19).Google Scholar

18 Author's translation from Sanskrit; Venkataramanayya, and Sarnia, Somasekhara, “Vilasa Grant,” verse 21.Google Scholar

19 Author's translation from Sanskrit, , “Vilasa Grant,” verse 28.Google Scholar

20 Parasher, Aloka, Mlecchas in Early India; a Study in Attitudes towards Foreigners (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1991), 121–4 and 240–3;Google ScholarThapar, Romila, “The Image of the Barbarian in Early India,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 13:4 (1971), 420–1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 Parasher, , Mlecchas in Early India, 45 and 213.Google Scholar

22 Thapar, Romila, “Imagined Religious Communities? Ancient History and the Modern Search for a Hindu Identity,” Modern Asian Studies, 23:2 (1989), 224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 North Indian uses of these terms are frequent as well, see Avasty, Ram Shankar and Ghosh, Amalananda, “References to Muhammadans in Sanskrit Inscriptions in Northern India—A.D. 730 to 1320,” Journal of Indian History, 16 (1936), 24–26 and 17 (1937), 161–84;Google ScholarPrasad, Pushpa, Sanskrit Inscriptions of the Delhi Sultanate (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1990).Google Scholar

24 Smith, , Ethnic Origins of Nations, 49.Google Scholar

25 Armstrong, John A., Nations before Nationalism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982), 3–7.Google Scholar For more on boundaries between groups, see Klein, Kerwin L., “Frontier Tales: The Narrative Construction of Cultural Borders in Twentieth-Century California,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 34:3 (07 1992), 464–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 “Nationalism, Mauritian Style: Cultural Unity and Ethnic Diversity,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 36:3 (07 1994), 566–7.Google Scholar

27 Mahmood, Cynthia Kepley, “Rethinking Indian Communalism: Culture and Counter-Culture,” Asian Survey, 33:7 (1993), 722–37;CrossRefGoogle ScholarDoniger, Wendy, “Hinduism by Any Other Name,” Wilson Quarterly, 15:3 (1991), 35–41.Google Scholar

28 SH, 16.4;Google ScholarNDI copper-plate 10 and Kanigiri 23;Google ScholarEl 13.1;Google ScholarRamesan, N., “The Kraku Grant of Harihara II,” in Epigraphia Andhrica, vol. 2, Venkataramanayya, N. and Sastry, P. V. Parabrahma, ed. (Hyderabad: Government of Andhra Pradesh, 1974), 73–87.Google Scholar

29 Ernst, Carl W., Eternal Garden: Mysticism, History and Politics at a South Asian Sufi Center (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 22–23.Google Scholar

30 Wink, Andre, Early Medieval India and the Expansion of Islam, vol. 1, pp. 190 and 5,Google Scholar of Al-Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1990).Google Scholar

31 Ernst, , Eternal Garden, 24–25.Google Scholar

32 Vos, George de, “Ethnic Pluralism: Conflict and Accommodation,” in Ethnic Identity: Cultural Continuities and Change, Vos, George de and Romanucci-Ross, Lola, ed. (Palo Alto: Mayfield Publishing Company, 1975), 9–18;Google ScholarKeyes, Charles F., “The Dialectics of Ethnic Change,” in Ethnic Change (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1981), 7–10.Google Scholar

33 Thapar, , “Imagined Religious Communities?,” 77–78Google ScholarPollock, , “Ramayana and Political Imagination,” 286.Google Scholar

34 In this early period, the majority of Muslims in India most probably were either foreign immigrants or their descendants. They were thus marked with many distinctive non-Indian features in areas such as dress and food, in addition to their separate languages and religious beliefs. As the number of converts to Islam increased, the initial sense of ethnic separateness must have faded, explaining why ethnic referents were largely discarded in favor of the religious label Musalman in the Andhra of later centuries. Very little research has been conducted on conversion to Islam in medieval South India, unfortunately, so it is not possible to pinpoint when the trend emerged.

35 Chappell, David A., “Ethnogenesis and Frontiers,” Journal of World History, 4:2 (1993), 267–75;Google ScholarKopytoff, Igor, “The Internal African Frontier: The Making of African Political Culture,” in The African Frontier: The Reproduction of Traditional African Societies, Kopytoff, Igor, ed. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987).Google Scholar

36 Miller, David Harry, “Ethnogenesis and Religious Revitalization beyond the Roman Frontier: The Case of Frankish Origins,” Journal of World History, 4:2 (1993), 277–85.Google Scholar

37 Talbot, Cynthia, “Political Intermediaries in Kakatiya Andhra, 1175–1325,” Indian Economic and Social History Review, 31:3 (1994), 261–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38 Ramayya, J., ed., “Madras Museum Plates of Verna,” El, 8:9–24.Google Scholar

39 People of less elevated status typically made religious gifts to temples rather than to Brahmins in this period, and had their benefactions recorded in stone at the endowed temple. The most widespread gift was that of milk-bearing animals to provide oil for temple lamps.

4 O Author's translation from Sanskrit; Venkataramanayya, and Sarma, Somasekhara, “Vilasa Grant,” verse 37.Google Scholar

41 Author's translation from Sanskrut in Ramayya, ; “Madras Museum Plates,” verse 12.Google Scholar

42 Smith, , Ethnic Origins of Nations, 58–67Google ScholarArmstrong, , Nations Before Nationalism, 201–40.Google Scholar

43 For example, Gerhard, Dietrich, “The Frontier in Comparative View,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 1:3 (1959), 205–29;CrossRefGoogle ScholarBartlett, Robert and MacKay, Angus, ed., Medieval Frontier Societies (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989);Google ScholarLamar, Howard and Thompson, Leonard, ed., The Frontier in History: North American and Southern Africa Compared (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981);Google ScholarMcNeill, William H., “The Great Frontier: Freedom and Hierarchy in Modern Times,” in The Global Condition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 5–63.Google Scholar

44 The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204–1760 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).Google Scholar An additional exception is Richards, John F., “The Islamic Frontier in the East: Expansion into South Asia,” South Asia n.s., 4 (10 1974), 90–109.Google Scholar

45 Thompson, Leonard and Lamar, Howard, “Comparative Frontier History,” in The Frontier in History: North American and Southern Africa Compared, Lamar, H. and Thompson, L., ed., 7 and 10.Google Scholar

46 Richards, John F., Mughal Administration in Golconda (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), 7–8.Google Scholar

47 Based on translation of Rao, T. A. Gopinatha, “Srisailam Plates of Virupaksha: Saka Samvat 1388,” El 15:24.Google Scholar

48 SII 16.47; Saltry, P. V. Parabrahma, “The Polepalli Grant of Achyutaraya,” in Epigraphia Andhrica, vol. 4, Saltry, P. V. Parabrahma, ed. (Hyderabad: Government of Andhra Pradesh, 1975), 133–40; N. Ramesan, ed., “The Jadavalli Grant of Sadasivaraya,” in Copper Plate Inscriptions of the State Museum, vol. 2 (Hyderabad: Government of Andhra Pradesh, 1970), 21–28.Google Scholar

49 Wagoner, Phillip B., “Understanding Islam at Vijayanagara” (Paper presented at the meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, Boston, April 1994).Google Scholar

50 Burns, Robert I., “The Significance of the Frontier in the Middle Ages,” in Medieval Frontier Societies, Bartlett, R. and MacKay, A., ed., 307–12.Google Scholar

51 Castaner, Jose Enrique Lopez de Coca, “Institutions on the Castilian-Granadan Frontier,” in Medieval Frontier Societies, Bartlett, R. and Mackay, A., ed., 127–50;Google ScholarMcKay, Angus, “Religion, Culture and Ideology on the Late Medieval Castilian-Granadan Frontier,” 217–22.Google Scholar

52 For more positive coverage of Hindu-Muslim relations in medieval India, see Sherwani, H. K., “Cultural Synthesis in Medieval India,” Journal of Indian History, 41 (1963), 239–59;Google ScholarSiddigi, W. H., “Religious Tolerance as Gleaned from Medieval Inscriptions,” in Proceedings of Seminar on Medieval Inscriptions (Aligarh: Centre of Advanced Study, Dept. of History, Aligarh Muslim University, 1974), 50–58.Google Scholar

53 Gordon, Stewart, The Marathas, 1600–1818 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 41–58;CrossRefGoogle ScholarRichards, , Mughal Administration in Golconda, 18–33.Google Scholar

54 Ranjanam, K. Lakshmi, “Language and Literature: Telugu,” in History of Medieval Deccan, vol. 2, Sherwani, H. K. and Joshi, P. M., ed. (Hyderabad: Government of Andhra Pradesh, 1974), 161–3. An example of a bilingual inscription is ARIE No. 48 of 1970–71.Google Scholar

55 Stein, , Vijayanagara, 29;Google ScholarSastri, K. Nilakanta and Venkataramanayya, N., Further Sources of Vijayanagara History, 3 vols. (Madras: University of Madras, 1946), vol. 1, 106–8 and 267.Google Scholar

56 Fritz, John M., Michell, George, and Rao, M. S. Nagaraja, Where Kings and Gods Meet: The Royal Centre at Vijayanagara, India (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1984), 122–45.Google Scholar

57 Wagoner, Phillip B., “‘Sultan among Hindu kings’: Dress, Address, and the Islamicization of Hindu Culture at Vijayanagara” (Paper presented at Rockefeller Humanities Workshop, “Shaping Indo-Muslim Identity in Pre-Modern India,” Duke University, Durham, NC, 04 1995).Google Scholar

58 Dun, K. Iswara, Inscriptional Glossary of Andhra Pradesh (Hyderabad: A. P. Sahitya Akademi, 1967), cxxv;Google ScholarRanjanam, Lakshmi, “Language and Literature: Telugu,” 172.Google Scholar

59 “The Ideology of Silence: Prejudice and Pragmatism on the Medieval Religious Frontier,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 26:3 (1984), 442–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

60 Wagoner, Phillip B., Tidings of the King: A Translation and Ethnohistorical Analysis of the Rayavacakamu (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1993), 178Google Scholar n. 49; Prasad, , Sanskrit Inscriptions, 56.Google Scholar

61 Rao, C. V. Ramachandra, Administration and Society in Medieval Andhra (A.D. 1038–1538) under the Later Eastern Gangas and the Suryavamsa Gajapatis (Nellore: Manasa Publications, 1976). 85–86.Google Scholar

62 I thank Thomas R. Trautmann for bringing the correlation between the geographical location of these lords and the distribution of horses and elephants to my attention. For more on elephants in ancient India, see Trautmann, , “Elephants and the Mauryas,” in India: History and Thought, Essays in Honour of A. L. Basham, Mukherjee, S. N., ed. (Calcutta: Subarnarekha, 1982), 263–6.Google Scholar For a discussion of the quality of horses during the medieval period, see Digby, Simon, War Horse and Elephant in the Delhi Sultanate (Oxford: Orient Monographs, 1971), 21–31.Google Scholar

63 The Kaluvacheru grant of the Reddi queen Anitalli, partially published in Somasekhara Sarma, Forgotten Chapter, 111–2. This Sanskrit inscription identifies the Lord of Elephants as the king of Utkala (a sub-region of Orissa), the Lord of Horses as the ruler of the territories in the west, and the Lord of Men as Kakatiya Prataparudra, the Andhra king. In this instance, the Lord of Horses in the west must refer to the Bahmani Sultanate, which controlled the territories to the immediate west of northern Andhra during the early fifteenth century.

64 Tidings of the King, 60–69.Google Scholar

65 Venkayya's, AndugulaNarapati Vijavama,Google Scholar cited in Ranjanam, Lakshmi, “Language and Literature: Telugu,” 165.Google Scholar

66 SII 10.753.

67 Mahalingam, T. V., ed., Summaries of the Historical Manuscripts in the Mackenzie Collection, vol. 2 (Madras: University of Madras, 1976), 36–37.Google Scholar

68 Rao, C. V. Ramachandra, ed., Ekamranathuni Prataparudracaritramu (Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh Sahitya Akademi, 1984), 59–71.Google Scholar

69 Further expression of the idea that Muslim kings were god-like in the same manner as Hindu kings is found in an episode from the Prataparudra Caritraumu. This story, repeated in the later Rayavacakamu as well, concerns the Delhi sultan's mother, who one night viewed the sleeping bodies of her son and the captive, Kakatiya Prataparudra. The brilliant light issuing forth from their forms made her realize that both the Delhi sultan and Prataparudra were manifestations of the gods Vishnu and Shiva (Rao, Ramachandra, Prataparudracaritramu, 66–67Google ScholarWagoner, , Tidings of the King, 122–3).Google Scholar

70 SII 16.175 of 1550 C.E.; unfortunately, only the first few lines of the inscription survive. It was issued by Santa Bhikshavritti Ayyavaru, the head of the Virasaiva monastery at Srisailam, who also asserts that the three lords were his disciples.

71 Dutt, Iswara, Inscriptional Glossary, iii.Google Scholar

72 Venkataramanayya, N. and Sarma, M. Somasekhara, “The Kakatiyas of Warangal,” in Early History of the Deccan, G. Yazdani, ed. (London: Oxford University Press, 1960), 691.Google Scholar

73 Sundaram, K., Studies in Economic and Social Conditions of Medieval Andhra (Machilipatnam and Madras: Triveni Publishers, 1968), 1.Google Scholar

74 Prior to the Kakatiya period, most inscriptions from western Andhra were composed in Kannada (the language of the Karnataka region to the west), while inscriptions in southern Andhra were often composed either in Kannada or Tamil (the language of Tamil Nadu to the south). The description of the geographical distribution of Telugu inscriptions is derived from my own work in progress. It is based on the mapping of roughly six thousand inscriptions issued within the boundaries of modern Andhra Pradesh between 1000 and 1650 C.E.

75 Author's translation from Telugu, II. 12–15 of SII 4.659.

76 Author's translation from Telugu, II. 157–162 of El 6.22.

77 Washbrook, David, “‘To Each a Language of His Own’: Language, Culture, and S??iety in Colonial India,” in Language, History and Class, Corfield, Penelope J., ed. (London: Blackwell, 1991), 179–203;Google ScholarLelyveld, David, “The Fate of Hindustani: Colonial Knowledge and the Project of a National Language,” in Orientalism and the Postcolonial Predicament, Breckenridge, Carol A. and Veer, Peter van der, ed. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), 189–214.Google Scholar

78 Kaviraj, Sudipta, “The Imaginary Institution of India,” Subaltern Studies VII, Chatterjee, Partha and Pandey, Gyanendra, ed. (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992), 26. Kaviraj does not believe that language formed the basis for pre-modern communities in India, however. Whatever the situation might have been in the Bengali-speaking area, which was Kaviraj's case study, I believe that the medieval South Indian evidence sufficiently demonstrates the existence of elite linguistic identities there.Google Scholar

79 Lelyveld, , “Fate of Hindustani,” 201;Google ScholarWashbrook, , “To Each a Language,” 180.Google Scholar

80 Smith, , Ethnic Origins of Nations, 79–84.Google Scholar

81 Early Kakatiya records are HAS 13.6, 7, 12; IAP-K nos. 14, 15, 19, 22, 24; IAP-W nos. 14, 22, 25, 29. Later Kakatiya inscriptions are ARIE no. 126 of 1958–59; HAS 13.3, 56; IAP-W no. 37; SII 4.1071, 1095, 1107; SII 6.212.

82 SII 6.796.

83 For some other historical memories of the Kakatiyas, see Talbot, , “Political Intermediaries,” 281–3.Google Scholar

84 Sastri, Hirananda, Shitab Khan of Warangal, Hyderabad Archaeological Series No. 9 (Hyderabad: H. E. H. the Nizam's Government, 1932), 3 and 10.Google Scholar

85 Based on translation of Ibid., 23.

86 Based on translation of Ibid., 24. P. V. Parabrahma.

87 SII 26.622; Sastry, P. V. Parabrahma, Select Epigraphs of Andhra Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh Archaeological Series No. 31 (Hyderabad: Government of Andhra Pradesh, n.d.), 76–77.Google Scholar

88 However, other types of sources do engage in an anti-Muslim polemic. Notable among these are the Rayavacakamu (Wagoner, Tidings of the King) and the village, family, and temple histories (kaifiyat) collected by Colin Mackenzie around 1800, many of which mention anarchy and destruction in the decades after the battle of 1565 (Sastri, Nilakanta and Venkataramanayya, , Further Sources, 2:245–50).Google Scholar

89 In contrast to the 862 records originating in the eight decades between 1490 and 1570 C.E., the eighty-year span from 1570 to 1650 C.E. yields only 318 inscriptions—a mere third of the earlier total.

90 At present, lists of sites where Hindu temples were destroyed and mosques or tombs (dargah) built in their place are being circulated by nationalist scholars. The data upon which these lists are based are not always provided, making the evidence suspect. Muslim chronicles and Perso-Arabic inscriptions are sometimes utilized, but neither of these types of sources is totally reliable. Sita Ram God is one scholar compiling such lists, see his “Let the Mute Witnesses Speak,” in Hindu Temples: What Happened to Them, A Preliminary Survey, Shourie, Arun et al., ed. (New Delhi: Voice of India, 1990), 88–181;Google Scholar and Hindu Temples: What Happened to Them, Pt. 2 The Islamic Evidence (New Delhi: Voice of India, 1991). Thanks are due to Richard M. Eaton for acquainting me with these works.Google Scholar

91 Michell, George, “City as Cosmogram: The Circular Plan of Warangal,” South Asian Studies, 8 (1992), 12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

92 Sherwani, , “Bahmanis,” 208.Google Scholar

93 Although I believe Goel's lists are greatly inflated, this statement would be true even by his reckoning. In the approximately 140 sites of temple desecration that he records for Andhra Pradesh (“Let the Mute Witnesses Speak,” 88–95), the dates for the alleged incidents are given in sixty instances. Five date from the fourteenth century (phase one), six come from phase two, and nineteen date from 1565 to 1650 C.E. (phase three). The remaining thirty or so cases stem from the century after 1650, with a notable bunching of incidents in the late 1600s, when the Mughal empire was absorbing the former Qutb Shahi kingdom of Golkonda.

94 SII 16.296.

95 The Ahobilam Kaifiyat is summarized in Sastri, Nilakanta and Venkataramanayya, , Further Sources of Vijayanagara History, 3:246.Google Scholar

96 Sitapati, P., Sri Ahobilia Narasimha Swamy Temple (Hyderabad: Government of Andhra Pradesh, 1982), 15.Google Scholar

97 SII 5.1312.

98 SII 10.755 and SII 5.1260. The same chief additionally granted a village to the famous temple at Simhacalam, also in northeaster Andhra. This leads K. Sundaram to surmise that the Simhacalam temple had been plundered at the same time as Srikurman, (The Slmhacalam Temple [Simhacalam, A.P.: Simhacalam Devasthanam, 1969], 33 and 104).Google Scholar

99 Sitapati, P., Srisallam Temple Kaifiyat, 2 vols. (Hyderabad: Government of Andhra Pradesh, 1981), 13.Google Scholar

100 Sitapati, , Ahobila Temple, 16;Google ScholarSastri, Nilakanta and Venkataramanayya, , Further Sources, 3:246.Google Scholar

101 “Temple Desecration and the Image of the Holy Warrior in Indo-Muslim Historiography” (Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, Boston, April 1994).

102 The other inscriptions on this slab are published as SII 5.1289–1311.

103 Ernst, , Eternal Garden, 22–29 and 38–59.Google Scholar

104 Richard M. Eaton, “Islamic Iconoclasm in India—Some Case Studies” (Paper presented at Annual Conference on South Asia, Madison, WI, November 1994).

105 This is true of the North Indian poet-saints, Kabir and Guru Nanak (Lorenzen, , “Vicissitudes of Bhakti,” 12Google Scholar) as well as Eknath from Maharashtra (Zelliott, Eleanor, “A Medieval Encounter between Hindu and Muslim: Eknath's Drama-Poem Hindu-Turk Samvad,” in Images of Man: Religion and Historical Process in South Asia, Clothey, Fred, ed. [Madras: New Era Publications, 1982]).Google Scholar