should Chaddis start jumping with joy at what Aurangzeb did?

by Guest Wed Mar 29, 2017 10:30 pm

Considerable misunderstanding has arisen from a passage in the Ma'athir-i `Alamgiri concerning an order on the status of Hindu temples that Aurangzeb issued in April 1669, just months before his destruction of the Banaras and Mathura temples. The passage has been construed to mean that the emperor ordered the destruction not only of the Vishvanath temple at Banaras and the Keshava Deva temple at Mathura, but of all temples in the empire. The passage reads as follows:

Orders respecting Islamic affairs were issued to the governors of all the provinces that the schools and places of worship of the irreligious be subject to demolition and that with the utmost urgency the manner of teaching and the public practices of the sects of these misbelievers be suppressed.

The order did not state that schools or places of worship be demolished, but rather that they be subject to demolition, implying that local authorities were required to make investigations before taking action.

More importantly, the sentence immediately preceding this passage provides the context in which we may find the order's overall intent. On April 8, 1669, Aurangzeb's court received reports that in Thatta, Multan, and especially in Banaras, Brahmins in "the stablished schools" had been engaged in teaching "false books" and that both Hindu and Muslim "admirers and students" had been travelling over great distances to study the "ominous sciences" taught by this "deviant group." We do not know what sort of teaching or "false books" were involved here, or why both Muslims and Hindus were attracted to them, though these are intriguing questions. What is clear is that the court was primarily concerned, indeed exclusively concerned, with curbing the influence of a certain "mode" or "manner" of teaching within the imperial domain. Far from being, then, a general order for the destruction of all temples in the empire, the order was in response to specific reports of an educational nature and was targeted at investigating those institutions where a certain kind of teaching had been taking place.

http://www.frontline.in/static/html/fl1726/17260700.htm

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one wonders whether the "false teachings" (of the "deviant group"), which were being followed by both Hindus and Muslims, and suppressed by Aurangzeb, constituted the Charvaka philosophy, in which case Aurangzeb would be guilty of persecuting hindus and muslims who had become Charvakas.