Latest / Aurangzeb: The Emperor Who Expanded and Broke the Mughal Empire — Fexingo History / Aurangzeb's Temples: Destruction, Patronage, and Politics
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked about Aurangzeb's taxes, his wars, even his gardens. But there's one thing that shadows every conversation about him – his relationship with Hindu temples. And it's a topic that's been twisted into a lot of shapes, both by his detractors and his defenders. Luna: Yeah, I feel like everyone has an opinion on that, but I've never really heard the specifics. What did he actually do? Lucas: Right, let's get into the specifics. The most famous cases are the destruction of the Kashi Vishwanath temple in Benares in 1669, and the Keshavdeo temple in Mathura a year later. But the story is not as simple as 'he tore down temples, full stop.' There are also instances where he issued orders protecting temples, and even gave grants to some. So what's going on? Lucas: Take the Kashi Vishwanath temple. The temple had been destroyed before – it was rebuilt in the sixteenth century under Akbar's rule. But in 1669, Aurangzeb ordered its demolition. The court chronicle, the maasir i alamgiri, records that the emperor received news that 'the foolish Brahmins of Benares' were teaching their superstitions, so he ordered the governor to raze the temple and build a mosque in its place. Luna: So it was about suppressing 'superstition'? That sounds like a religious motivation, but I'm guessing there's more to it. Lucas: Exactly. Historians like Audrey Truschke caution that we shouldn't take the chronicle's language at face value. The maasir i alamgiri was written to present Aurangzeb as a pious Sunni ruler, so it frames these actions as religiously motivated. But the timing and the targets tell a different story. Lucas: Look at the Mathura temple. It was built by Bir Singh Bundela, a Rajput ally of Jahangir. By the time Aurangzeb came to power, the Bundelas had become a thorn in the Mughal side – they were supporting rebels. So when he ordered that temple destroyed, it was as much about punishing a rebellious clan as it was about religion. Richard Eaton has pointed out that temple destruction in medieval India was often linked to political rebellion – it was a way to symbolically decapitate a rival's power base. Luna: That makes sense. But did he destroy temples all over the empire, or was it more targeted? Lucas: It was definitely not all over. The historian Jadunath Sarkar counted around a dozen major temple destructions during Aurangzeb's reign, mostly in the north and the Deccan, often in areas that were in rebellion. But there's also evidence of him issuing orders to protect temples. In 1659, he issued a farman, a royal order, to protect the temples of the Jat community in Mathura. And later, he gave land grants to a Jain temple in Gujarat. So it's a mixed bag. Lucas: And there's more. In 1690, Aurangzeb even issued a decree forbidding the destruction of any place of worship – Hindu, Jain, or Christian. That's a far cry from the image of a temple-bashing zealot. Luna: Wait, really? That seems contradictory. So what's the thread that ties it together? Lucas: The thread might be political pragmatism. Aurangzeb was a savvy ruler. He knew when to be harsh and when to be lenient. The temples he destroyed were often those associated with powerful local lords who had challenged his authority. He wasn't waging a systematic campaign against all Hindus – he was using the built environment to make a political statement. Lucas: And there's another layer. The destruction was not just about punishment; it was about reordering the landscape to assert Mughal supremacy. Building a mosque on the site of a destroyed temple was a clear message: the Mughal emperor is the ultimate authority, and no other power can stand in his way. Luna: That's a powerful message. But what about the backlash? I've heard that the Jats rebelled after the Mathura demolition. Lucas: Oh, absolutely. The Jat rebellion in the 1680s, led by Gokula, was partly fueled by the destruction of the Keshavdeo temple. And the Marathas, under Shivaji and his successors, used Aurangzeb's temple policies as a rallying cry. It's interesting – the destruction might have been intended to cow his opponents, but it often galvanized them instead. Lucas: And then there's the long-term memory. The destruction of the Kashi Vishwanath temple became a symbol of Muslim oppression in later Hindu nationalist narratives. But modern historians like Truschke argue that we have to read the court chronicles critically – they exaggerate the religious dimension and downplay the political context. Luna: So how do we know what actually happened? I mean, the chronicles are biased, right? Lucas: That's the hard part. We have the chronicles, but we also have other sources – like the legal opinions of the time, the fatawa e alamgiri, which Aurangzeb commissioned, and the accounts of foreign travelers like Francois Bernier. But even those are not neutral. We have to piece together a picture that's always incomplete. Lucas: And here's a thought – even if we could know exactly what Aurangzeb did, we still have to ask: what did it mean to the people at the time? Was it seen as a religious act, a political act, or both? The lines were often blurred. Luna: It's like trying to untangle a knot. Lucas: Exactly. And that's what makes history so fascinating – it's never as simple as we'd like. But it's also why we have to be careful about using the past to score points in the present. Lucas: But there's another angle to this. While we're digging into the complexities of Aurangzeb's actions, it's worth remembering that our show exists because of a community of listeners who value this kind of nuance. We don't run ads, and we keep everything free. A small group of listeners already chips in monthly through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, and that's what makes it possible for us to keep making these deep dives. Luna: Yeah, it's amazing that so many of you are part of that. It keeps the show independent and lets us go down these rabbit holes. Lucas: Anyway, back to the temples. So we've seen that Aurangzeb's actions were not monolithic. But there's one more layer – his personal piety. He was known for his ascetic lifestyle, praying five times a day, copying the Quran. That piety likely shaped his views, but it didn't make him into a one-dimensional zealot. Luna: So he was a man of faith who also had to run an empire. That's a tricky balance. Lucas: It was. And it's interesting to see how he navigated it. For instance, after the destruction of temples, he sometimes allowed their reconstruction if the local community showed loyalty. There's a record of a temple in Gujarat being rebuilt after the Rajputs pledged allegiance to him. Lucas: So, the bottom line: Aurangzeb's temple policy was a tool of statecraft, not a simple act of religious bigotry. It was about maintaining control, punishing rebellion, and making a statement about the emperor's supreme authority. And that's a far more interesting – and complicated – story than the one we often hear. Luna: It makes me wonder – how did the people who lived through it react? I mean, beyond the revolts. Lucas: The common people's voices are harder to hear. But we do have some traces. For example, there are Persian chronicles that mention how the destruction of the Mathura temple upset even some Muslims, because the site was revered by many as a cultural landmark. So it wasn't universally celebrated. Lucas: And then there's the legacy. In the centuries after Aurangzeb, the narratives around these events were shaped by colonial historians and later by nationalist movements. The British often portrayed Aurangzeb as a fanatic to justify their own rule as a 'civilizing' force. And Indian nationalists, both Hindu and Muslim, have used him for their own purposes. It's a tangled web. Luna: It really is. So where does that leave us? How should we think about Aurangzeb and the temples? Lucas: Maybe the honest answer is: with humility. We can't fully know his intentions, and we have to be wary of the sources. But we can say that his actions were not uniform, that they were often politically motivated, and that they had profound consequences that echo into the present. And that's worth thinking about. Lucas: I'll leave you with a question: what would it mean to judge Aurangzeb by the standards of his own time, not ours? That's a question we could spend a whole episode on – maybe we will.