By Pallavi Tyagi on Dec 10, 2013
Times of India
Times of India
Blunders of Indian Historical Research
I recently came across a revolutionary book by P.N Oak titled ‘Some Blunders of Indian Historical Research.’ As the name explains, the book states some startling details about some very famous monuments in India. In this blog, I will only talk about the various explanations this self-acclaimed historian has mentioned about Red fort being a Hindu monument. Read on…
About the author
Intent on rectifying what he believes to be "biased and distorted versions of India's history produced by the invaders and colonizers", Oak has written several books and articles on Indian history and founded an "Institute for Rewriting Indian History" in 1964. According to Oak, modern secular and Marxist historians have fabricated "idealized versions" of India's past and drained it of its "Vedic context and content".
Red Fort as mentioned in Prithviraj Raso
According to Oak, Prithviraj Raso, a contemporary chronicle tells us that Prithviraj Chauhan, the king who ruled Ajmer and Delhi, lived in a palace on the bank of river Yamuna. Traditional accounts also tell us that Prithviraj’s palace was known as Lal-Kot, that is, a red-walled structure. The only building in Delhi which answers four-square to these specifications is what is today known as the Red Fort. And yet the Mogul emperor Shahjahan is being wrongly given the credit of having built the Red Fort in Delhi.
Old Delhi was not founded by Shahjahan
Taimurlang who invaded Delhi in 1398, that is nearly 250 years before Shahjahan, refers to Old Delhi whose inhabitants he massacred. And yet Old Delhi is mentioned in our histories as a city founded by Shahjahan. In fact Old Delhi is built around the axial road – The Chandni Chowk - which joins the Red Fort with the building which is now known as the Fatehpuri Mosque but which was the temple of the hereditary deity of Delhi’s Hindu rulers. So even 400 years before Shahjahan, Old Delhi, Red Fort and Chandnin Chowk did exist.
Raj Ghat or Badshah Ghat
The Yamuna bank to the rear of the fort is known as Raj-ghat. That is a Sanskrit word. It could not have stuck on unless several generations of Rajas had occupied the Red Fort prior to Shahjahan and his predecessors. No Rajas ever ruled from the Red Fort after Shahjahan, the fifth generation Mogul ruler. Had Shahjahan built the fort, the bank stretch of the Yamuna at the rear would have been known as the Badshah Ghat and not Rajghat.
Architectural evidence
The Delhi gate of the fort has a pair of stone elephants outside it. Islam strictly forbids the raising of any images while Rajput monarchs were known for their love of the elephant. On either side of the fort, archways are embossed with stone-flower emblems which appear on all mediaeval Hindu buildings. Running water channels, through which Yamuna water coursed its way throughout the fort, again suggest Rajput construction because Muslims with a desert tradition could never have thought of running-water channels.
Architectural evidence
The Sbravan and Bhado pavilions and the Kesar Kund in the Diwan-i-Khas are again all Hindu terms. The Diwan-i-Khas and the Diwan-i-Aam do not have a single dome or minaret which the Muslim architecture is believed to insist on. The marble balcony in which the ruler used to sit in the Diwan-i-Aam has a temple type ceiling with stalactite style ends nicking out obliquely. The Diwan i-Khas has a striking similarity with the royal apartment inside Ambar (old Jaipur) built by the Rajputs in pre-Mogul times.
Architectural evidence
Every one of the Mogul rulers had a harem of 5,000 women as mentioned in memoirs and chronicles. All of them, the ruler himself and his many children could by no stretch of imagination be accommodated in the two-three rooms that comprise the Diwan-i Khas. The Diwan-i_khas and the Diwan-i-Aam have a mandap style ornate Hindu workmanship. Besides, the Diwan-i-Khas bears a close resemblance to the interior palace in Ambar (Old Jaipur) built around 984 A.D.
Symbol of justice
A marble grill wall near the Diwan-i-Khas displays a balance motif symbolic of royal justice. The Mogul rulers who regarded 99 per cent of their subjects as mere vermin could never think of flaunting that symbol of justice in their palace. But the Rajput rulers advised by their Brahman councillors did certainly have the dispensation of justice as one of their primary functions constantly impressed on them through the scales motif.
Heaven on earth?
A Persian couplet inlaid on a wall of the Diwan-i-Khas proclaims the place as a veritable "Heaven on Earth'. Such a boast can only emanate from a captor. Had Shahjahan been the original builder of the fort he would never have described the building in such superlative terms. The original builder is often very modest about his construction. Moreover a builder is more conscious of the building's defects to ever think of calling it a veritable "Heaven on Earth'.
A psychological principle
Another important psychological principle also applies in this case. A person calls his building a shack or a cottage rather than a paradise. It is also worthwhile considering that no matter how beautiful a wife a man may have he would never shout about her beauty from the road square or housetops. Similarly a person who toils and spends money to build a building is not the one who boasts about it. On the other hand neighbours or strangers, who have an evil eye on a building or a woman, are the ones who praise the physical beauty of those attractions.
A psychological principle
We have on actual instance from mediaeval history. Padmini, the queen of Chitor fort is famed for her physical allure. There could have been hundreds of women as beautiful as her in India's Kshatriya households. But histories have been silent regarding their physical beauty precisely because such beauty was never bragged about at least in India in public. But Padmini's physical beauty came to be talked about only because Allauddin Khilji was so enamoured of her that he moved heaven and hell to capture her.
The couplet was inlaid by the captors
This should convince visitors to the Red Fort, and historians that the bragging Persian couplet in the Diwan-i Khas is yet another very strong proof that the couplet was inlaid by the captors of the fort who, dazzled by the ornate beauty of the monument that came to them as war booty, characterized it as a veritable paradise.
Non-Islamic shrines near Red Fort
Emerging from the Red Fort we see that the two nearest shrines, only a stone’s throw from the fort, are both non-Moguls. One is the red Jain Temple and the other the Gauri Shankar Temple. Had Shahjahan built the Red Fort he would never have allowed the two non-Islamic shrines to remain there. These two temples are there because the fort was constructed by the Rajputs several centuries before Shahjahan.
Chandni Chowk’s inhabitants
Chandni Chowk, the main thoroughfare stemming from the fort is almost exclusively inhabited by Hindus. Had the Moguls built the fort we should have seen Turks, Afghans, Persians, Arabs and Hindu converts settled in Cbandni Chowk. The whole of Old Delhi has a teeming and over-whelming Hindu population. In its complicated, winding alleys all their homes too are built in the traditional Hindu style. To maintain that a cruel despot like Shahjahan built houses for Hindus and fortified the whole city with a massive wall is absurd. As Taimuriang's autobiography testifies Old Delhi existed centuries before Shahjahan.
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