S. P. Gupta
Director, Indian Archaeological Society, New Delhi
The Great Somersault
On 10th and 16th June 2003, Irfan Habib told the press that ‘nothing has been found in the excavations’ at Ayodhya (The Hindu and The Asian Age, 11th June; Times of India, 17th June) and the whole exercise has been an utter waste of time and energy. It was flashed all over the world through the mass media. However, the likes of Irfan Habib who opposed the fresh excavations ordered by the Allahabad High Court, shifted their stand and did a somersault ever since the ASI report titled Ayodhya 2002-2003 was made public on 25th August 2003.
The report brought to light hundreds of objects and remains of various buildings immediately below the disputed structure, so much so that the foundation walls of the Disputed Structure or the Babri Mosque have been found directly overlying the walls of a temple of the North Indian Style, called ‘Nagar Style’, implying thereby that the so-called ‘Babri Mosque’ was built after destroying a pre-existing temple at this site and directly over the ruins of the temple.
The ASI Report is in two volumes. The first volume has the text running in 308 pages, fully illustrated with dozens of charts, tables and line drawings of plans and sections of the excavated remains. The second contains 237 photographs of structural remains and movable antiquities. In the light of this revelation, these scholars accepted the discovery of material remains unearthed at Ramjanmabhumi, though reluctantly, and with riders as may be seen from a write-up of Irfan Habib circulated in the form of Xeroxed copies.
Since the findings have gone against the Masjid protagonists, the likes of Irfan Habib have started a malicious campaign against the ASI Report by imagining a mosque of the Sultanate Period which had never existed at the Janmabhumi. The only mosque-like structure ‘meant for angels to descend on’ that existed at the site was the so-called ‘Babri Mosque’ of the 16th century. Moreover, very cleverly, Habib avoided naming the Sultan who may have built this ‘imagined mosque.’ After all, the Sultans ruled for more than 300 years and they were so many of them. Is this history or cat-and-bull story?
In any case, the speculative theories aired by Irfan Habib are not supported and substantiated by any source of history — literature, tradition, epigraphy, numismatics, manuscripts, farmans, sanads, nishans ¾ Muslim and Hindu alike. For instance, even the granddaughter of Aurangzeb, who wrote the famous book Safiha-i-chahal–nasaih Bahadur Shahi in the late 17th century, has not mentioned it at all, she talks only of the so-called ‘Babri Mosque’. In fact, we will be happy if any scholar in India or abroad can give us proof of the existence of a mosque of the Sultanate Period at Ramjanmabhumi; it is a very serious matter and opinions of motivated historians cannot be taken as proof.
Animal Bones and Ritual Sacrifice
The first point raised by Irfan Habib concerns the presence of animal bones in different excavated levels. Though zoologists have not yet identified the animal species to which they belonged, Irfan Habib takes them as sheep and goat. He then says, “Animals are surely not eaten and their bones deposited in a temple” in order to prove that there could never be a temple at the Ramajanmabhumi site.
First, animal sacrifice is a common feature in most of the temples — the Bimala Devi shrine in the Jagannath Temple, Puri; the Kali Temple of Kolkata; the Kamakhya Temple of Guwahati; the Masuria Temple of Allahabad and practically all the temples of Uttaranchal. These are only a few examples of those temples where goat and sheep have been regularly sacrificed and their meat eaten by the devotees for hundreds of years. Therefore, if the bones of sheep and goats are found in the debris of the temples at Ramajanmabhumi, what is surprising in it? It may be noted that not a single animal bone has been found from within the temples, even the Circular Shrine has not yielded a single piece of animal bone. Where is then the question of ‘deposited in a temple’? It is sheer twisting of archaeological evidence, intentionally and with a purpose, sinister as it is. On the contrary, is there any evidence of animal sacrifice in mosques? Do the Muslims eat animal flesh in mosques and then deposit the bones in mosques? Does the presence of goat and sheep bones in the debris of a temple, or even within a temple, automatically mean that it was a mosque and not a temple? The answers of all these questions will be just ‘No’.
Lime Mortar In India: Sultanate or Pre-Sultanate?
Second point: Habib says, “four floors have been discovered; all of them have lime-mortar bonding, a sure sign of Sultanate and post-Sultanate construction”, “the presence of lime-mortar in the floor and attached walls” would show “floor 4, the lowest floor, belongs to Sultanate period.”
This statement apparently means that the lime-mortar, (a) used as bonding material, (b) used in flooring, and (c) used as plaster on walls, came to India with the Sultans of Delhi who came from Ghazni in Afghanistan and who established their regular rule in Mehrauli area in 1206 A.D. In other words, the Hindus did not know the technique of producing lime from kankar and its use with the admixture of coarse materials like sand in their constructions; and the Muslims, when they came to Delhi, taught them the use of lime for preparing mortar for joining bricks and stones and plastering walls. It only betrays Habib’s utter ignorance of the history of science and technology of ancient India. He is, in any case, only a scholar of economic history of medieval India. Therefore, I won’t greatly blame him for this display of his ignorance but I do blame him for presenting a false history of India to the nation.
The massive use of lime-mortar, let it be noted, is attested to in the Harappan cities of the third millennium B.C. Later on, it is found used in the 3rd century B.C. at Bhir Mound, Taxila, Pakistan. In the 2nd century B.C., i.e., at least 1500 years before the coming of Delhi Sultans, the builders of the famous dome of the Buddhist Stupa at Sanchi had made use of it. The dome has thick lime plaster, found by Sir John Marshall, and can still be seen in situ. Percy Brown has quoted the archaeological evidence of the use of lime mortar at Besanagar (Vidisha) as recorded by Alexander Cunningham: “portions of the foundations consisted of bricks cemented together by a well-made grade of lime mortar… bricks were grooved to hold the lime mortar.” That the lime mortar was used during the Kushana Period also (1st – 3rd century A.D.) for example, at Mathura, has been recorded by its excavator, Sri M. C. Joshi, former Director General, Archaeological Survey of India. At Sirkap also bajari-lime mortar was used during this period as has been recorded by the excavators, including Sir John Marshall. At Kaushambi, in Uttar Pradesh, the lime mortar had high percentage of lime as the chemical analysis has undoubtedly shown. It is common knowledge that lime-mortar was extensively used in bonding bricks, in plastering walls and in finishing floors during the Gupta Period (400 A.D. – 600 A.D.) at Nalanda, Aphsad and many other places in Bihar. From the 7th to the 10th century, Nalanda used lime-mortar in the ratio of 3:2 (lime + sand). Jars with dried up mortar and a cell used as cistern to make the mortar have been found at Nalanda. At Karvan, District Vadodara, Gujarat, two kinds of lime mortar were used in the Gupta buildings, one with higher content of lime and the other lower. At Bhitari, District Gazipur in Uttar Pradesh, the lime and sand ratio in the mortar was 6:1. The red colour of the mortar and plaster comes from the use of ferruginous kankar in making the lime. Lime-mortar and Surkhi with lime were used at Bangarh, also during the Gupta period. It was used extensively in 8th – 9th century in the temple construction of Nara Nath in Kashmir, and Purana Qila, Delhi. It was also used extensively in the 10th century temple of Lingraj at Bhubaneswar, the Kanchipuram temple of the same period and the Arthuna Temple of Rajasthan. At Sarnath, it was used during the rule of the Gahadaval dynasty, 11th –12th century A.D., in temples. Samples of lime-mortar from Kausambi and Bhitari have been examined by Dr. B. B. Lal, Prakash and Rawat, Sanaullah and others, and published by A. Ghosh, H. C. Bhardwaj and others.
Therefore, more than a thousand years before the Sultans of Delhi, the Hindus had used the lime-mortar (chunam) on a large scale in their constructions. Lime-mortar, both rough and fine, the former used for bonding bricks and stones, and the latter for plastering walls and floors, was used for the last 5000 years in India from the north to the south and from east to the west. Is it, therefore, correct to say that the Sultans of Delhi introduced the lime-mortar in India?
‘Muslim’ Glazed Ware in India: Sultanate or Pre-Sultanate?
The third objection raised by Habib is “the finding of medieval (‘Muslim’) glazed ware beneath all the floors levels, including the floors attributed to the temples by the Archaeological Survey of India in its Report.”
The fact of the matter is that glazed ware was first produced in India during the Harappan times at Harappa and Mohenjodaro in the third millennium B.C. Glazed ware of greenish blue colour was used in India during the Kushana period, 1st – 3 rd centuries A.D., at Mathura. At Shahji-ki-Dheri, Buddhist structures used glazed tile and a Buddhist shrine near Dal Lake in Srinagar had a courtyard paved with tiles of different colours.
Hieun T’sang had noted the use of coloured tiles in the roof at many places in northern India. The pre-Sultanate glazed pottery is found in Gaur and Pandua in Bengal. The blue, turquoise blue and polychrome glazed wares, i.e., potteries used in everyday life, including those which have in addition incised pictures of lotus petals, birds, etc. on them, were used throughout the Western Coast of India in the wake of the so-called ‘Arab Trade’, from the 8th century A.D. ¾ at least 300 to 400 years before the coming of the Delhi Sultans.
Glazed wares, it is common knowledge, were produced in Iran during the pre-Islamic period, under the Sassanian rule and hence called ‘Sassanian Glazed Ware’ ¾ the Muslims adopted it when they came to Iran. In any case, the so-called Muslim Glazed Wares are found at the hinterland sites also, where they had reached through the Northern Trade Routes, the Uttarapath. In my own excavations conducted at Sanjan, an early Parsi site near Mumbai, dated to 9th –10th centuries, I found them in profusion and in vast variety, and published them in Puratattva No. 32 (2002-2003), and History Today, Volume 3 (2002). Does the presence of these wares in later periods prove that the Sultans of Delhi introduced these wares in India?
It is, therefore, clear that the presence of the so-called Medieval Glazed wares at the Ramajanmabhumi site will neither shift the dates of the temples from the 10th century to the 13th century nor will it prove the non-existence of the temples at the site during the pre-16th century period.
It must also be noted that there is nothing like ‘Muslim Glazed Ware’ and ‘Hindu Glazed Ware’ — glazing found on burnt earthen pots and pans was primarily a technique which was adopted by many people in India and West Asia from very early times as noted above. What is, however, sometimes called ‘Medieval’ or ‘Muslim’ Glazed Ware is the one which was produced in Iraq, Iran, Syria, etc. in West Asia from the 8th – 9th centuries, at sites like Basra in Iraq, and Siraf and Nishapur in Iran but taken to many parts of the world by the Arab traders. This ware is also called ‘South Mesopotamian Islamic Turquoise Grey Ware’, sometimes even ‘Hib’ Ware and ‘Sassanian-Islamic Blue Glazed Pottery’ by scholars like R. E. Mason and A. Rougeulle. Ian Glover has also written long articles on these ‘Muslim’ Glazed Wares. A. V. Sedov has written a whole book on this subject. The so-called ‘Muslim Glazed Ware’ has also been found at Mantai in Sri Lanka, which has been mentioned by J. Carswell and M. Prickett in Ancient Ceylon, No. 5, 1984. They have found it at 25 sites in India also.
Therefore, it is not at all correct to say that the ‘Muslim’ Glazed Ware came to India with the Sultanate. It had a long history in India as in many other countries in the east, up to China and Japan, belonging to the pre-Sultanate times.
Imagining a Sultanate Period Mosque at Rama Janmabhumi
The fourth point relates to the discovery of a “Massive Structure” of a temple “below the Disputed Structure”, mentioned in the Report. In this context, Habib observes that this wall must have belonged to a ‘mosque’, a pre-Mughal mosque, of the Sultanate period. Thus, in order to counter the evidence of the existence of two temple-complexes at the site, one belonging to the 10th century A.D. and the other belonging to the 12th century A.D., as proved by the ASI Report, Habib has concocted the theory of ‘Two Mosques’, one built after the other ¾ first during the Delhi Sultanate period to which the ‘Massive Wall’, according to him, belonged, and the second in the early 16th century, 1528-29 A.D. by Babur. Although, in the absence of any solid evidence in his favour, he took recourse to utter falsehood to the extent of charging the Archaeological Survey of India of even removing, destroying and manipulating the evidence, such as ‘ignoring’ Mihrab’ in the Qanati Mosque, creating pillar-bases where there were none and calling the Islamic Tomb a Hindu Shrine. We wish all these charges were true!
The Falsehood of Qanati Mosque:
He observes, “It is obvious from the presence of lime-mortar and attached walls that floor 4, the lowest floor, belongs to Sultanate period (i.e., 1206–1526 A.D.). A mihrab having been found in an attached wall (ignored in the Report), it is certain, that it belongs to a pre-Mughal open (qanati) mosque or idgah.”
In other words, there is a wall attached to the ‘massive wall’ of the 12th century temple which is being projected by Habib as Qanati mosque. What a great discovery indeed! Just a simple ‘attached wall’, to the main wall, meaning a secondary wall, being interpreted as Qanati mosque. And for this purpose he even goes to the extent of imagining the existence of a mihrab in this wall, which simply does not exist; the charge of ‘ignoring’ it in the Report is absolutely baseless and false. Four Muslim archaeologists took part in the excavations as well as in the preparation of the ASI report. There was neither a Qanati mosque here nor mihrab in any wall, ‘attached’ or ‘independent’. This is supported neither by the ASI Report nor the actual remains of the structures at the site on which the Report is based. It is not supported by even the Muslim traditional accounts, written or oral, contemporary or later. Who built the Qanati mosque? When exactly was it built? What are its details? A Qanati mosque should have several mihrabs in odd numbers, one alone, if it was at all there, will not do. Habib has no answers for any of these questions. It is in fact just a fabricated story and nothing else.
Negationism of Marxist Historians: Questioning the very Existence of Pillar-Bases
Irfan Habib wants us to believe that there were no ‘pillar-bases’ at the excavated site, the ‘pillar-bases’ were only ‘plugged up hollows’ for making a floor. This is his fifth howler.
The ASI Report makes mention of 50 pillar-bases found in the excavations. Prof. B. B. Lal had found six of them in 1970s. Hence, these are not new discoveries but their number has increased since the area covered under the excavations has increased. These ‘bases’ belong to two different periods, four to the earlier (10th century) and forty-six to the later (12th century). For the earlier period, radiocarbon dates have also been quoted in the Report. In fact, there are as many as ten C-14 dates from various levels.
Habib asks why there are so few of the pillar-bases of the 10th century A.D. Those who have even the elementary knowledge of archaeological excavations will understand the fact (unfortunately, Habib does not, since he has never excavated a single site in his life) that unless the structures and floors of the later period are removed bodily, one can not find the structures and floors of the earlier periods buried under them. Therefore, archaeologists adopted a simple strategy: leave the maximum amount of the evidence of the later period, i.e., of the upper levels, and go down only in available areas to find out the clues of earlier structures and floors. This was exactly what the excavators did at Ayodhya. They left behind forty-six pillar-bases intact, and can still be seen in situ by every one. Then, in the limited area available to them, they had dug below the level of the above forty-six bases. In this limited excavated area, they naturally found only four pillar-bases which belonged to the 10th century. What is surprising in it? Had they removed the forty-six bases and then gone down the floors associated with them, they would have certainly found many more of them.
Also, it appears that the question of lime-mortar is haunting Habib so much that in his write-up he has raised it repeatedly at various places. He also poses a funny question whose answer is, however, inbuilt: “They (46 pillar-bases) contain not only mud bonding but also lime-mortar and thus follow Muslim methods of construction. Are we, then, to suppose, following the ASI’s inferences, that the great temple was built under Muslim rulers, the Delhi Sultans and the Sharqi rulers of Jaunpur?”
As noted above, lime mortar was used for both the purposes in the Harappan Period (3000 B.C.), Mauryan Period (300 B.C.), Sunga Period (200 B.C.), Kushana Period (1st century A.D.), Gupta Period (5th century A.D.) and Pre-Sultanate Period (8th -12th century). It is, therefore, evident that there is absolutely no truth in the observation of Irfan Habib.
More on Pillar-Bases:
Irfan Habib goes on to say that “the 50 pillar bases are the only argument left for a temple, even if 46 of these have to be dated to the Sultanate times”. Is it so? What about the carved structural pieces depicting motifs associated with temples in India? Are the photographs of these pieces not there in the ASI Report? Also, do they not match with those temple pieces which were discovered earlier (June 1992), on display in the local U. P. State Museum at Ayodhya, December 1992 and January 1993 kept in lock-and-key at Ayodhya by the Commissioner, Faizabad? Habib obviously does not take the trouble to look into the older reports and publications before making such non-scholarly remarks.
The Discovery of an Amalaka:
Secondly, let us make it absolutely clear, that the “50 pillar-bases” were not the only evidence cited in the Report for the existence of two temples at the site. The excavators have also recorded the discovery of an amalaka at the site which is exclusively used in the shikharas (spires) of north Indian temples. Do we take it that the amalakas were used in secular Hindu buildings also? Irfan Habib, who is crying foul, has wilfully suppressed this evidence simply because it is inconvenient to him.
The Divine Couple:
Then, the discovery of a highly damaged icon of a ‘Divine Couple’, published in the ASI Report, presumably of Uma-Maheshvara, has also been suppressed by Habib. Are we to suppose that this icon was worshipped in a mosque and not in a Hindu temple?
Sacred Motifs on Carved Stones:
The discovery of makara or crocodile image, used variously as a vahana of Ganga, as the symbol of water fecundity, as the mouth of pranala in a temple, has also been suppressed by him. Do we take this sculptural piece in black stone as the one used by Delhi Sultans and Sharqi rulers of Jaunpur in one of their mosques? The makara formed the pranala or water chute in a shrine with a deity on which milk and water are poured in abhisheka ritual; it is hollow from inside so that the liquid is taken out of the shrine.
There are many other sacred motifs found carved on stone pieces, quoted and illustrated by the excavators in their Report in favour of a temple. For example, a meandering creeper called vallari, lotus (kamala or padma), lozenges with flowers (mani ratna), divine beings called yakshas, and several others. Stylistically, all these examples of works of art were found earlier also at the site and widely published.
There has never been any literary or traditional account in favour of the existence of two mosques at the site of Ramajanmabhumi, and there is also no archaeological evidence of the ‘imagined mosque’ of the Sultanate Period either — no fragment of any Persian or Arabic inscription, no remains of Qiblah, no remains of minarets, no remains of domes, no remains of mihrab, no remains of piers, in fact no remains of any architectural member of a mosque.
Our answer to his contention that “…these are neither ‘pillar bases’ nor ‘structural bases’” is that this kind of negationism does not apply to archaeologically excavated remains since they still exist at the site and can be verified again and again; their photographs published in the Report can also been seen. Archaeology, unlike history writing, is a rigorous scientific discipline, archaeological remains are verifiable material remains.
A 10th Century Circular Structure: Hindu Shrine or Muslim Tomb?
And finally the tail end of the write-up of Irfan Habib: “I end with another absurdity” ¾ presumably of the ASI Report, “Much is made out of the ‘Circular Shrine’ (pp. 70-71) with fanciful drawings (Figs. 24 and 24A). Comparisons with other circular Hindu shrines are made (Fig. 18) though not, of course, with any circular domed buildings! When a careful reader looks at the Plan of the Circular Shrine on Fig. 17, thankfully drawn to scale, its total diameter (inclusive of the thick wall) is found to be just 180 cms or less than 6 feet! Moreover, the wall does not even make quarter of a circle, so that even this smallest of “Circular shrines” is just a piece of the ASI’s own imagination.”
Is this academics? The facts are as follows. There is, on the southern side of the site, a circular structure of burnt bricks (sizes: 28 x 21 x 5.5cm. and 22 x 18 x 5.5 cm.) laid in several courses, as many as thirteen of them found in situ. From inside, it is square. The outer diameter is less than 6 ft. The inside square space is around 4.4 ft. in length and breadth. The entrance to this structure is from the east. For this purpose a rectangular projection was made. The doorsill was laid with a calcrete stone slab. On the north side, there is water chute or pranala for the removal of water from inside the shrine.
The excavators feel that it was a small shrine. Abhisheka of the deity was done with water and milk because of the water-chute (pranala) on the north, which can clearly be seen in Plate LX, No. 60 of Vol. II of the Report. With the Muslim agenda in hand, Irfan Habib declares this shrine as a ‘tomb’. The question is whose tomb? Then, could such a small structure of around 4.3 ft. from inside contain the dead body of a man laid in extended position? Where is the dead-body? And on top of all this, is there any example in northern India, of the Sultanate and the Mughal periods, i.e., the entire Muslim period, in which a tomb is built of burnt bricks and whose roundedness starts from the ground level itself? How will a dome then be raised over this structure? Where are the piers? Let me categorically state that it could never be a tomb.
Communal Compulsions of a Communist Historian
The question is, why is Irfan Habib trying so hard against all evidence to identify the circular Hindu shrine as a Muslim ‘tomb’? Obviously, Habib wants to prove that the Babri Mosque was built on plane ground and not on the debris of a temple. This is the Muslim stand in the present-day litigation. Now, how can this be proved archaeologically?
Therefore, first he made a theory, the theory that the ‘Massive Wall’ along with its attached wall represents not a temple but a mosque. Then he dated it to the Sultanate Period. Since there are absolutely no remains of a regular mosque of this period at the site, no dome, no kiblah, etc. he had no other option but to call it a Qanati mosque in which one needs only a wall with, of course, mihrabs, not one but three or five or seven or even more of them. So, this is the Communal Compulsion of Communist Irfan Habib. In trying to prove his pre-conceived notions, he is falsifying history and archaeology of many kinds ¾ Muslim architecture in India, ‘Muslim’ Glazed Ware in India, lime-mortar and plaster used in Indian art and architecture, presence of animal bones in temple debris and the presence of 50 pillar-bases at Ramajanmabhumi.
This is the inside story of imagining two mosques at Ramjanmabhumi, one belonging to the Sultanate Period (Habib has not dated this mosque precisely anywhere in his write-up, he only talks of the Sultanate Period, which covers a period of at least 300 years (1206-1526 A.D.) on his own admission but imposed on a 12th century “massive structure” of a temple, and the other of the Mughal Period of 16th century. However, for the last 400 years the world knew only of the 16th century so-called Babri Mosque at Ramajanmabhumi, but now Habib has taken out of his hat a Sultanate Period mosque which, however, never existed. Irfan Habib’s present write-up has thus completely discredited his own scholarship.
The Right Approach
Archaeology is a multi-disciplinary science. Its sources are the explored and excavated remains of material items which are verifiable by one and all. It employs several scientific methods of dating, including the well-known radiocarbon method. The data recording method is three-dimensional, hence accurate. It also employs art-historical method to date accurately sculptures and structures. It is, therefore, surprising as to why Marxist and Communal historians are making a big hue and cry over the ASI Report (2002-2003) on Ayodhya. After all, the site was subjected to excavations even previously. It was dug by Prof. A. K. Narain in 1970; by Prof. B. B. Lal from 1975 through 1980, by PWD in June 1992, by S. P. Gupta and K. M. Srivastava in July-August 1992. These were physically examined by 40 scholars from all over the country who assembled at Ayodhya in October 1992 to attend a three-day conference. Even on 6th December 1992, a lot of material of antiquarian value came to light. In January 1993 also, an amalaka was found buried in a pit by the labour engaged in erecting a barricade in the presence of high-ranking officers of the Civil and Police Administration.
Much of these material items unearthed at Ramajanmabhumi have been published variously in several volumes of Indian Archaeology ¾ A Review, a Govt. of India (ASI) annual publication besides the highly-illustrated book in Hindi, entitled Ayodhya ka Itihas aivam Puratattva by T. P. Verma and S. P. Gupta. (Refer to the Gurupurnima edition of The Hindu Renaissance for photographs of artefacts found during the earlier excavations.)
The archaeological, art, architectural and epigraphical remains are housed in the Department of History, Culture and Archaeology, Banaras Hindu University, Archaeological Survey of India, Purana Qila, New Delhi, Ramayana Research Institute and Museum, Ayodhya, and the New Police Building, Ayodhya, under the charge of the Commissioner, Faizabad.
The archaeological, art, architectural and epigraphical remains are housed in the Department of History, Culture and Archaeology, Banaras Hindu University, Archaeological Survey of India, Purana Qila, New Delhi, Ramayana Research Institute and Museum, Ayodhya, and the New Police Building, Ayodhya, under the charge of the Commissioner, Faizabad.
If we, therefore, look at the findings mentioned in the ASI Report 2002-2003, it will become quite clear that except for a few new discoveries such as the Circular Shiva Temple and a few sacred motifs on stone pieces such as the makara, nothing is really new.
Conclusion
If so, then what is the value of this ASI Report? The ASI Report has the supreme value in corroborating the archaeological and historical findings of the earlier regular excavations and casual diggings mentioned above. For example, the fragmentary Nagari inscription of the Report corroborates the inscriptions found earlier. The amalakas found earlier are exactly of the same type as has been found in the present excavations. The lotus symbol is also found depicted in identical style. The vallari or meandering creeper is also exactly the same as was found earlier.
Thus, as noted above, the supreme value of the ASI Report 2002-2003 lies not so much in digging out new things as in corroborating the old findings made by several scholars in the past. It has, therefore, stamped the final seal of approval of the so far held views that at Ramajanmabhumi there did exist a temple of the 12th century A.D., which was destroyed in order to build the disputed structure of the so-called ‘Babri Mosque’ directly on the ruins of the temple.
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