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The '''Gyanvapi Mosque''' is located in [[Varanasi|Banaras]], [[Uttar Pradesh]], [[India]]. It was constructed by [[Aurangzeb]] in 1669 upon demolition of an older Shiva temple.<ref name="Catherine1992">{{cite book |author=Catherine B. Asher |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3ctLNvx68hIC&pg=PA278 |title=Architecture of Mughal India |date=24 September 1992 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=978-0-521-26728-1 |pages=278–279}}</ref>
The '''Gyanvapi Mosque''' is located in [[Varanasi|Banaras]], [[Uttar Pradesh]], [[India]]. It was constructed by [[Aurangzeb]] in 1699.


== History ==
== History ==

Revision as of 16:12, 17 May 2022

Gyan Vapi Mosque
Religion
AffiliationIslam
Location
LocationVaranasi, India
StateUttar Pradesh
Gyanvapi Mosque is located in India
Gyanvapi Mosque
Location in Uttar Pradesh, India
Gyanvapi Mosque is located in Uttar Pradesh
Gyanvapi Mosque
Gyanvapi Mosque (Uttar Pradesh)
Geographic coordinates25°18′40″N 83°00′38″E / 25.311229°N 83.010461°E / 25.311229; 83.010461
Architecture
StyleMughal architecture (part of Indo-Islamic architecture)
FounderAurangzeb
Specifications
Dome(s)3
Minaret(s)2

The Gyanvapi Mosque is located in Banaras, Uttar Pradesh, India. It was constructed by Aurangzeb in 1699.

History

Demolition of Vishweshwar Temple

The site originally had a Vishweshwar temple, established by Todar Mal in conjunction with Narayana Bhatta—the head of Banaras's most-famous Brahmin family—sometime around late sixteenth century during the reign of Akbar.[1][2][3] Vir Singh Deo Bundela, a close associate of Jahangir, appears to have had refurbished the temple in the early seventeenth century.[1][4][3] Precise details about the temple and the history of the site are debated to an extent.[5][a]

The Gyanvapi Mosque sketched as the Temple of Vishveshwur, Benares by James Prinsep. The original wall of the now demolished temple still stands in the mosque.

Sometime around 1669, Aurangzeb ordered the demolition of the temple and commissioned the construction of a mosque, in its place.[1][5] The façade was modeled partially on the Taj Mahal's entrance; the plinth of the temple was left largely untouched and continued to serve as the courtyard of the mosque while the southern wall — along with its cusped arches, exterior moldings and toranas — was turned into the qibla wall; .[6][1][2][5] These surviving elements attest to the influence of Mughal architectural style on the original temple.[1][b]

The name of the mosque is derived from an adjoining well, the Gyan Vapi ("Well of Knowledge").[4][c] Oral accounts indicate that the Brahmin priests were allowed to reside in the premises and exert their privileges on issues of Hindu pilgrimage.[1] The desecrated site — especially the plinth — became a popular hub for Hindu pilgrims from across the country.[1][d]

Motives

Scholars attribute political reasons rather than religious zealotry to be the primary motivation for Aurangzeb's demolition.[4] The Oxford World History of Empire notes that while the demolition might be interpreted as a sign of Aurangzeb's "orthodox inclinations", local politics played an influencing role and his policies towards Hindus and their places of worship were "varied and contradictory, rather than consistently agnostic." Madhuri Desai — in her magnum opus on Banaras — opines that Aurangzeb's complex and often-contradictory policies can be "more accurately analyzed in [the] light of his personal compulsions and political agenda, rather than as expressions of religious bigotry."[1][7]

Catherine Asher, a historian of Indo-Muslim architecture, notes that not only did the zamindars of Banaras frequently rebel against Aurangzeb but also local Brahmins were accused of interfering with Islamic teaching.[6][8] Consequently, she argues the demolition to be a political message in that it served as a warning for the Zamindars and Hindu religious leaders, who wielded great influence in the city; Cynthia Talbot, Richard M. Eaton, Satish Chandra and Audrey Truschke agrees.[6][1][8][9]

Attempts at reconstructing Vishweshwar Temple

In 1698, Bishan Singh, the ruler of Amber, had his agents survey the town and gather details about the various claims and controversies regarding the demolition of the temple; their maps ('tarah') not only went out of way to note that the Gyanvapi mosque laid at the site of a dismantled Vishweshwar temple but also marked the temple-plinth separately.[1][e] The Amber court purchased significant territory around the Gyanvapi precincts, including from Muslim inhabitants, with an aim to rebuild the temple without demolishing the mosque but in vain.[1] Around 1700, an "Adi-Vishweshwar Temple" was constructed at the initiative of Singh's successor Sawai Jai Singh II, about 150 yards anterior to the mosque.[1][10] The temple borrowed extensively from contemporary Mughal architecture, in what Desai as well as Asher locate evidence of imperial patronage.[1][2][f]

By the early 18th century, Banaras was in the effective control of Nawabs of Lucknow.[11] With the advent of the East India Company and increasingly severe annexation policies, multiple rulers from across the nation — and even administrative elites — started investing in Brahminising Banaras, to claim cultural authority back in their home-lands.[11] The Marathas, in particular, became highly vocal about religious injustice at the hands of Aurangzeb and Nana Fadnavis proposed to demolish the mosque and reconstruct Vishweshwar temple.[4] In 1742, Malhar Rao Holkar proposed a similar course of action.[11] In spite of their consistent efforts, these plans did not materialize due to a multitude of interventions — Nawabs of Lucknow who were their political rivals, local Brahmins who feared the wrath of the Mughal court, and British authorities who feared an outbreak of communal tensions.[4][11]

Gyanvapi, the original holy well between the temple and mosque

In the late eighteenth century, as East India Company gained direct control of Banaras ousting the Nawabs, Malhar Rao's successor (and daughter-in-law) Ahilyabai Holkar constructed the present Kashi Vishwanath Temple to the immediate south of the mosque — this, however, had a markedly different spatial configuration and was ritually inconsistent.[5][11][g] Also, that the original lingam was supposedly hidden by the priests inside the Gyan Vapi well during Aurangzeb's raid, the plinth continued to be considered as more sacred than the new temple by pilgrims for well over a century — into the early 1900s — before the Kashi Vishwanath temple succeeded in installing itself as the central component of pilgrimage routes.[11][12][h] During these 100 years, the Gyan Vapi compound would be fiercely contested by Hindus and Muslims alike with each side investing in the well, the mosque, and the temple.[11][13][i]

Contesting the Mosque Complex

In 1828, Baiza Bai, widow of the Maratha ruler Daulat Rao Scindhia, constructed a colonnade to support a roof over the Gyan Vapi well.[11] Since about 1853, Hindus and Muslims accused each other of encroaching on their spaces within the complex in a series of petitions — in an order dated 21 June 1854, the local court rejected a plea to install a new idol in the complex and asked Hindus to dispose of all broken idols. M. A. Sherring[j], writing in 1868, noted the Hindus to have claimed the plinth as well as the southern wall; the Muslims were reluctantly allowed to exert control over the mosque, and permitted to only use the side entrance.[10][k] The Hindus also venerated a peepal tree overhanging the gateway, and did not allow the Muslims to "pluck a single leaf from it."[13]

In 1901, a bull statue was installed. Edwin Greaves, visiting the site in 1909, found that the mosque was "not greatly used", and remained an "eyesore" to the Hindus.[14] The bull statue was highly venerated and "freely worshiped"; close to it, there were a couple of small temples dedicated to Gauri Shankar (Shiva and Parvati), and other Hindu deities.[14] The well commanded significant devotion too — pilgrims received its sacred water from a priest, who sat on an adjoining stone-screen.[14]

In 1935, local Muslims attacked the Police after being prevented from offering prayers outside of the mosque proper, injuring several officials.[15] This gave way to a legal suit in the local civil court demanding that the entire complex be treated as an integral part of the mosque; a favorable decision was granted on 15 August 1937 despite opposition from the government and the decision was upheld by the Allahabad High Court on appeal, in 1941.

The history of the site has been extensively contested by local Hindu as well as Muslim population.[7][16] Desai notes the multiple histories of the original temple and tensions arising out of the location of Gyanvapi to have fundamentally shaped the sacred topography of the city.[7]

Hindu claims

Desai notes recent accounts of the history of the mosque to center around a litany of repeated destruction and re-construction of the original temple which is situated in contrast to the timelessness of the lingam.[7] Pilgrims visiting the present Kashi Vishwanath Temple are informed with such a narrative[7] Local textbooks of the 1990s propagated such a reading of the mosque's past as well.[16]

The original temple is claimed to have been uprooted by Qutb al-Din Aibak in 1193/1194 CE, upon the defeat of Raja Jayachandra of Kannauj; the Razia Mosque was constructed in its place, a few years later.[4][17][18] The temple would be rebuilt by a Gujarati merchant during the reign of Iltutmish (1211–1266 CE) only to be demolished by Hussain Shah Sharqi (1447–1458) or Sikandar Lodhi (1489–1517).[17] During Akbar's rule, Raja Man Singh got the temple re-constructed,[l] but it again fell victim to Aurangzeb's intense religious zealotry.[16]

Historicity

Scholars differ on the historical accuracy of these arguments.[5] The Hindu claims are seen to be the building blocks of meta-narrative about Hindu civilization being continually oppressed by Muslim invaders, since time immemorial.[5][7] Colonial policies and their apparatuses of knowledge reinforced such — largely ahistorical and un-nuanced — notions.[5][7]

Diana L. Eck finds medieval chronicles to affirm the notion of Adi-Vishweshwar premises being the original home of the lingam; however, scholars have critiqued Eck’s non-contextual usage of medieval sources.[5][19][m] Hans T. Bakker largely affirms the broader thrust of narratives, as well.[18] On his reading of medieval sources, he deems the temple destroyed in 1194 to be likely devoted to Avimukteshwara and located in current-day Gyanvapi precincts; sometime around the late 13th century, the Hindus reclaimed the vacant Gyanvapi for a temple of Vishweshwar since the Razia mosque had occupied the "Hill of Vishweshwar".[18] This new temple was destroyed by the Jaunpur Sultanate, apparently to supply building materials for mosques at their new capital.[18]

Desai, however, rejects these views. In her reading of Gahadavala literature, she records scarce mentions of temples; they were certainly small in scale and insignificant, if they existed at all.[19][n] Kṛtyakalpataru, an early 12th-century 'nibandha' refers to no temple in the town but several Shiva lingams, one among which was Vishweshwar and no unique importance was allotted to it.[19][o] Overall, she finds the existence of any Vishweshwar temple in early-medieval Banaras to be suspect.[19] The Vishweshwar lingam started to occupy a popular place in the religious life of Hindus sometime between the 12th and 14th centuries; authors of the fourteenth-century Kashikhand (since collated with the Skanda Purana) focused on incorporating Vishweshwar as the major deity of the city and featured a Vishweshwar temple in multiple pilgrimage routes, for the first time.[4][19] The details and context of this rise in popularity (and significance) of the Vishweshwar lingam is not ascertainable from textual and other historical evidence.[19] Even afterwards, it remained one among the many sacred spots in Banaras with different 'nibandha' commentators of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries zeroing in on different sacred sites and accordingly, seeking to re-define the sacred space of Kashitirtha in its terms.[1][19] Vishweshwar was transformed into the principal shrine of the city only on the back of sustained Brahminical activism and patronage of Mughals, beginning from the late sixteenth century.[1][19]

Muslim claims

Most Muslims of the city reject the narratives produced by scholarly, Hindu and Colonial accounts.[16]

Varying theories are put forward instead — (a) the original building was never a temple but a structure of the Din-i Ilahi faith which was destroyed as a result of Aurangzeb's hostility to Akbar's "heretical" thought-school, (b) the original building was indeed a temple but destroyed by Jnan Chand (a Hindu) as a consequence of the priest having looted and violated one of his female relatives, (c) the temple was destroyed by Aurangzeb because it served as a hub of political rebellion—all of which converge upon Aurangzeb not having demolished the temple for religious zealotry.[16]

Relatively fringe arguments include that the Gyanvapi was constructed much before Aurangzeb's reign or that the temple was demolished due to a communal riot which must have involved Hindus playing a significant role in provoking the Muslims.[16] The former has been extensively developed and amplified by Maulana Abdus Salam Nomani (d. 1987), an Imam of the Gyanvapi mosque, over leading Urdu dailies.[16] Nomani claims that the mosque was constructed by the third Mughal emperor Akbar; supposedly there is evidence to argue that Aurangzeb's father Shah Jahan had started a madrasah called Imam-e-Sharifat at the site of the mosque in 1048 hijri (1638–1639 CE).[20][21] Aurangzeb's edict granting protection to all Hindu temples at Banaras and his' providing patronage to numerous temples, Hindu schools, and monasteries are further cited in support.[16] The mosque management committee supports Nomani and maintains that both the Kashi Vishwanath Temple and the Gyanvapi were constructed by Akbar, true to his spirit of religious tolerance.[22]

Historicity

Whilst Aurangzeb did indeed grant protection and patronage to several temples and monasteries, there does not exist any acceptance of these revisionist narratives in scholarship;[p] Desai deems Nomani's arguments as a strategic "rewriting of history" arising out of the Hindu-hegemonic nature of discourse in postcolonial Benaras.[23][24]

Communalism

With the advent of British Raj, the Gyan Vapi precincts that was once the subject of whimsical Mughal politics got transformed into a site of perennial Hindu-Muslim rivalry.[13][25] In the words of Desai, the construction of Gyan Vapi episode had sought to air an "explicitly political and visual" assertion about the Mughal command over the city’s religious sphere but instead, "transmuted Vishweshwur into the undisputed fulcrum of the city’s ritual landscape" for centuries to come.[1] The site continues to remain volatile and witness periodic flare-up of communal tensions.[16][26]

Colonial India

1809 saw multiple incidences.[26] An attempt by the Hindu community to construct a shrine on the "neutral" space between the Gyanvapi Mosque and the Kashi Vishwanath Temple heightened tensions.[26] Soon enough, the festival of Holi and Muharram fell on the same day and confrontation by revelers fomented a riot.[26] A Muslim mob killed a cow — sacred to Hindus — to spoil the sacred water of the Gyanvapi well; a Hindu mob attempted to arson the Gyanvapi Mosque and then, demolish it.[12] Several deaths were reported and property damage ran into lacs, before the British administration quelled the riot.[26][27][28]

Postcolonial India

Beginning 1984, the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) along with Hindu Nationalists engaged in a nation-wide campaign to reclaim the sites of the mosques constructed by demolishing Hindu temples including the Gyanvapi.[5][29][30] After the demolition of the Babri mosque in December 1992, tensions increased and about a thousand policemen were deployed to prevent a similar incident at the Gyanvapi.[31] The Bharatiya Janata Party leaders (who had supported the demand for "reclaiming" Babri mosque) however opposed VHP's demand this time, on the grounds that the Gyanvapi Mosque was actively used.[32]

A title-dispute suit was filed in the Varanasi Civil Court in 1991 for handing over the site to Hindu community; it sought to bypass the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991 (henceforth PoW), which was already in force.[33][34][q] In 1996, VHP appealed to the Hindus to gather in large number on the occasion of Mahashivaratri; it was met with a poor response and the occasion passed without any untoward incident.[35] In 1998, the court ruled that the suit was indeed barred by the PoW act.[36] A revision petition was subsequently moved before the district court who allowed it and asked the civil court to adjudicate the dispute, afresh.[36] The mosque management committee successfully challenged this allowance in the Allahabad High Court, who stayed the proceedings.[33]

The court-case remained pending for 22 years, before the advocate of the 1991 petition refiled another plea requesting for an ASI survey of the mosque-complex on the same grounds.[33][37][38] The temple had allegedly existed for thousands of years (since the reign of a Vikramaditya) before being demolished by Aurangzeb; this was apparently proved by the continuous presence of Lingam among other features and Hindus were deprived of their religious right to offer water to lingams.[33] The Gyanvapi mosque management committee Anjuman Intezamia Masjid (AIM) acting as the defendant denied the claims and rejected that Aurangzeb demolished a temple to construct the mosque.[39] In March 2019, a few local residents were caught burying a small statue of Nandi near the north wall of the Gyanvapi mosque.[40]

On 8 April 2021, the city-court ordered the Archaeological Survey of India to conduct the requested survey.[33] In addition, a five-member committee comprising experts in archaeology was asked to be constituted, with two members from the "minority community" to determine whether any temple existed at the site, prior to the mosque.[33][39] Most commentators opined the court's ruling to run up against the PoW act and other matters of law.[41] The very same day, a challenge was filed by the defendants in the Allahabad High Court.[42] On 9 September, the High Court ruled in favor of the defendants; the survey was indefinitely stayed and the judgement criticized for breach of judicial decorum.[42]

Tourism

Access to the mosque remains prohibited for non-Muslims, photography is prohibited, approaching alleys have light police-pickets (alongside RAF units), the walls are fenced with barbed wire, and a watchtower exists too.[5][24] The mosque is neither well-used nor embedded enough in the cultural life of the city.[5]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ See the section on popular history.
  2. ^ James Princep conjectured a reconstruction of the temple from his observations of the temple-remnants, interviews of local Brahmins and readings of nibandha literature. Rosalind O' Hanlon, on the basis of this plan, deems the original temple to have derived from the Kashikhanda.
    Desai finds his reconstruction to be far from realistic and adds that the plan has been often incorrectly noted to be the official version. Detailed architectural details remain unknown. Chunar limestone was the probable building-material.
  3. ^ Legends hold that Shiva had dug it himself to cool the lingam.[4]
  4. ^ Numerous colonial officials including James Princep et al reported the same.
  5. ^ These maps also noted the edges of the rectangular mosque-precinct to be lined up with the residences of Brahmin priests. Desai (in her thesis) mistook these surveys to have been commissioned "in all likelihood" by the Maharaja of Jaipur.
  6. ^ Desai notes that the particular choice of naming (probably) suggests a collective Hindu memory of the Vishweshwar lingam having a prior location at the site.
  7. ^ The precise year of construction is not known. It already existed by 1781, when Warren Hastings commissioned the construction of a gateway.
  8. ^ British traveler Reginal Heber notes the plinth to be considered more sacred by the pilgrims, as late as 1824. the Gyanvapi well was also rumored to contain the lingam and the water of the Gyan Vapi — brought by a subterraneous channel of the Ganges — was treated as holier than the Ganges itself.
  9. ^ See our section on communalism.
  10. ^ An amateur archaeologist, Sherring took to establishing Benaras as a Buddhist city of yore that had fallen to Brahminism, before felling to Muslims. Such an assertion was thought to be a potent antidote to the fashioning of Benaras as an ageless site of pilgrimage for Hindus, which hindered Missionaries' efforts in converting natives; also, if Buddhism can fell to Hinduism after centuries of glory, so could Hinduism to Christianity. Sherring noted the presence of "Buddhist pillars" within the Gyanvapi Mosque, too.
  11. ^ The Muslims had also built a gateway in the middle of the platform in front of the mosque, but were not allowed to use it.
  12. ^ orthodox Brahmins apparently chose to boycott the temple, since Man Singh's daughter was married to Islamic rulers.[17]
  13. ^ Dumper finds Eck’s history to be "extraordinarily confusing, moving from rhetorical storytelling to historical fact".
  14. ^ Desai also notes that unlike contemporary Indian dynasties, there exist no evidence of Gahadavalas commissioning grand temples. Also, see Vishnu Hari inscription.
  15. ^ The center of the sacred region of Kashikshetra lay at Madhyameshwar, north of the contemporary site of the Vishweshwar. Contrast with modern day Kashi, whose central site is the Vishwanath Temple, argued to bear the legacy of Vishweshwar.
  16. ^ However, Mary Searle-Chatterjee notes of an eminent historian from Banaras Hindu University (G. D. Bhatnagar) to reject Aurangzeb's having destroyed a temple. Searle-Chatterjee herself refuses to discuss the historical validity of competing narratives, noting - "The historical issues are irrelevant, since it is dear that whatever the facts were, accounts of the origin of the central ruin are now functioning as symbolic narrative, providing a charter for contemporary attitudes and behavior."
  17. ^ The Ayodhya dispute was stated as an exception to the provision since it was already being litigated when the law was passed.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Desai, Madhuri (2017). "Palimpsests and Authority". Banaras Reconstructed: Architecture and Sacred Space in a Hindu Holy City. University of Washington Press. pp. 30–72. ISBN 978-0-295-74160-4. JSTOR j.ctvcwnwvg.6.
  2. ^ a b c Asher, Catherine B. (May 2020). "Making Sense of Temples and Tirthas: Rajput Construction Under Mughal Rule". The Medieval History Journal. 23 (1): 9–49. doi:10.1177/0971945820905289. ISSN 0971-9458.
  3. ^ a b O'Hanlon, Rosalind (21 March 2011). "Speaking from Siva's temple: Banaras scholar households and the Brahman 'ecumene' of Mughal India". South Asian History and Culture. 2 (2): 264–265. doi:10.1080/19472498.2011.553496. ISSN 1947-2498. S2CID 145729224.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Shin, Heeryoon (May 2015). Building a "Modern" Temple Town: Architecture and Patronage in Banaras, 1750-1900 (PhD). Yale University. p. 4, 35, 38, 198.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Dumper, Michael (24 August 2020). "Hindu– Muslim Rivalries in Banaras: History and Myth as the Present". Power, Piety, and People: The Politics of Holy Cities in the Twenty-First Century. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-54566-2.
  6. ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference Catherine1992 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ a b c d e f g Desai, Madhuri (2017). "Introduction: The Paradox of Banaras". Banaras Reconstructed: Architecture and Sacred Space in a Hindu Holy City. University of Washington Press. pp. 3–16. ISBN 978-0-295-74160-4. JSTOR j.ctvcwnwvg.4.
  8. ^ a b Eaton, Richard M. (2000). "Temple Desecration and Indo-Muslim States". Journal of Islamic Studies. 11 (3): 306–307. doi:10.1093/jis/11.3.283. ISSN 0955-2340. JSTOR 26198197.
  9. ^ Truschke, Audrey (1 January 2017). "Overseer of Hindu Religious Communities". Aurangzeb: The Life and Legacy of India's Most Controversial King. Stanford University Press. pp. 85–86. ISBN 978-1-5036-0259-5.
  10. ^ a b Matthew Atmore Sherring (1868). The Sacred City of the Hindus: An Account of Benares in Ancient and Modern Times. Trübner & co. pp. 51–56.
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h Desai, Madhuri (2017). "Expansion and Invention". Banaras Reconstructed: Architecture and Sacred Space in a Hindu Holy City. University of Washington Press. pp. 73–117. ISBN 978-0-295-74160-4. JSTOR j.ctvcwnwvg.7.
  12. ^ a b Gaenszle, Martin; Gengnagel, Jörg (2006). Visualizing Space in Banaras: Images, Maps, and the Practice of Representation. Isd. ISBN 978-3-447-05187-3.
  13. ^ a b c Desai, Madhuri (2017). "Order and Antiquity". Banaras Reconstructed: Architecture and Sacred Space in a Hindu Holy City. University of Washington Press. pp. 154–186. ISBN 978-0-295-74160-4. JSTOR j.ctvcwnwvg.9.
  14. ^ a b c Edwin Greaves (1909). Kashi the city illustrious, or Benares. Allahabad: Indian Press. pp. 80–82.
  15. ^ "Muslim Trouble in Benares: Police Force Stoned: Attempt to Pray Outside Mosque". Times of India. 20 December 1935.
  16. ^ a b c d e f g h i Searle-Chatterjee, Mary (April 1993). "Religious division and the mythology of the past". In Hertel, Bradley R.; Humes, Cynthia Ann (eds.). Living Banaras: Hindu Religion in Cultural Context. SUNY Series in Hindu Studies. Albany, New York: SUNY Press. pp. 152–158.
  17. ^ a b c Udayakumar, S. P. (2005). "Ramarajya: Envisioning the Future and Entrenching the Past". Presenting the Past: Anxious History and Ancient Future in Hindutva India. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 99. ISBN 978-0-275-97209-7.
  18. ^ a b c d Bakker, Hans (1996). "Construction and Reconstruction of Sacred Space in Vārāṇasī". Numen. 43 (1): 42–43. doi:10.1163/1568527962598368. ISSN 0029-5973. JSTOR 3270235.
  19. ^ a b c d e f g h Desai, Madhuri (2017). "Authenticity and Pilgrimage". Banaras Reconstructed: Architecture and Sacred Space in a Hindu Holy City. University of Washington Press. pp. 17–29. ISBN 978-0-295-74160-4. JSTOR j.ctvcwnwvg.5.
  20. ^ Diane P. Mines and Sarah Lamb (2002). Everyday Life in South Asia. Indiana University Press. p. 344. ISBN 9780253340801.
  21. ^ Suvir Kaul (2001). The Partitions of Memory: The Afterlife of the Division of India. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers. p. 279. ISBN 9781850655831.
  22. ^ Dutta, Prabhash K. (15 May 2022). "Gyanvapi: A 31-year dispute of 353-year-old shrine explained". The Times of India. Retrieved 17 May 2022.
  23. ^ Kumar, Nita (2 January 2021). "Banaras reconstructed: architecture and sacred space in a Hindu holy city". South Asian History and Culture. 12 (1): 104–106. doi:10.1080/19472498.2021.1875734. ISSN 1947-2498. S2CID 231741518.
  24. ^ a b Madhuri Desai (2003). "Mosques, Temples, and Orientalists: Hegemonic Imaginations in Banaras". Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review. 15 (1): 23–37. JSTOR 41758028.
  25. ^ Pandey, Gyanendra (1989). "The Colonial Construction of 'Communalism': British Writings on Banaras in the Nineteenth Century". Subaltern Studies. Vol. VI. Delhi: Oxford University Press. p. 145.
  26. ^ a b c d e L. Eck, Diana (1982). Banaras: City of Light. Knopf. ISBN 978-0-307-83295-5.
  27. ^ Desai, Madhuri (2007). Resurrecting Banaras: Urban space, architecture and religious boundaries (PhD). University of California, Berkeley. p. 33. ProQuest 304899943.
  28. ^ Reginald Heber (1829). Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India, from Calcutta to Bombay, 1824-1825. Philadelphia, Carey, Lea & Carey. pp. 257–258.
  29. ^ Casolari, Marzia (2002). "Role of Benares in Constructing Political Hindu Identity". Economic and Political Weekly. 37 (15): 1413–1420. ISSN 0012-9976. JSTOR 4411986.
  30. ^ Chapple, Christopher Key; Tucker, Mary Evelyn (2000). Hinduism and Ecology: The Intersection of Earth, Sky, and Water. Harvard University Press. p. 386. ISBN 978-0-945454-26-7.
  31. ^ Sanjoy Majumder (25 March 2004). "Cracking India's Muslim vote". BBC News. Uttar Pradesh.
  32. ^ Manjari Katju (1 January 2003). Vishva Hindu Parishad and Indian Politics. Orient Blackswan. pp. 113–114. ISBN 978-81-250-2476-7.
  33. ^ a b c d e f Taskin Bismee, Decoding the Kashi Vishwanath-Gyanvapi dispute, and why Varanasi court has ordered ASI survey, The Print, 10 April 2021.
  34. ^ Venkataramanan, K. (17 November 2019). "What does the Places of Worship Act protect?". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X.
  35. ^ Engineer, Asghar Ali (1997). "Communalism and Communal Violence, 1996". Economic and Political Weekly. 32 (7): 324. ISSN 0012-9976. JSTOR 4405088.
  36. ^ a b Yamunan, Sruthisagar. "Analysis: Could ASI survey of Gyanvapi mosque lead to it being exempted from Places of Worship Act?". Scroll.in.
  37. ^ Jitendra Sarin (8 May 2017). "Allahabad HC to hear Vishwanath temple, Gyanvapi mosque dispute on May 10". Hindustan Times.
  38. ^ SINGH, JAS (2015). "India's Right Turn". World Policy Journal. 32 (2): 94. doi:10.1177/0740277515591547. ISSN 0740-2775. JSTOR 44214230.
  39. ^ a b Court Revives Dormant Dispute, asks ASI to Survey Gyanvapi Mosque Next to Kashi Vishwanath Temple, The Wire, 10 April 2021.
  40. ^ Kumar, Sushil. "How Modi's Kashi Vishwanath Corridor is laying the ground for another Babri incident". The Caravan.
  41. ^ Shrutisagar Yamunan, Why UP court order asking ASI to survey Kashi-Gyanvapi mosque complex is legally unsound, Scroll.in, 10 April 2021.
  42. ^ a b Upadhyay, Sparsh (9 September 2021). "Gyanvapi Mosque Dispute: Allahabad High Court Stays Varanasi Court's ASI Survey Order & Other Proceedings". Live Law.
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