In the Shadow of Ram- A Translation of Visnu-Hare and Treta Ka Takur Inscriptions of the Gahadavalas at Ayodhya: Issues and Challenges

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This book argues that the inscription found in the now extinct Babri masjid should be named as Visnu-hare instead of Visnu-hari since this title does not refer to any god but to the three Gahadavala rajas who had it made. It also challenges that the Sanskrit phrase janma bhumi means Ram's birth place; instead it suggests that in this language jan means folk rather, referring to Ayodhya as land of folk. The Gahadavala temple there had been renovated from an earlier Chola temple at the spot. It was dedicated to goddess Sri Sundara Amman, the Telugu Jaina goddess of beauty & art and devadasi cult. And the so called Ram foot prints found there belonged to the Gahadavala heir Vallabha.

Further it proposes that the Gahadavala kings during the time of the inscription circa 10th century CE had become intermarried for three generations into the Ghaznavid and Suri-Shahi families who ruled Samarkhand and the Sindh provinces and formed an international elite. The Babri masjid dedicated to sambo shankara and a whole series of masjid- temple complexes at Kashi, Mathura, Prabhasa and elsewhere were the outcome of these interfaith marriages. During the time of the Gahadavala heir Vallabha, who took the title Prithviraj Chauhan Karpura and who had married one other than Padmavati the princess of Sri Lanka, the temples must have become extinct due to Bhakti ages' sectarian politics on the Hindu side, as all these temples had been dedicated to devadasi practice.

Namratha Mogaral teaches at Kuvempu University in Karnataka, India. This is her first book on epigraphy translation. Currently she is working on a translation of the edicts of Asoka.

of the many traits that shape contemporary consensual democracy in India, and which manifests almost to the extent of hubris in the public character is that any individual when participating in public discourse thinks that he is always speaking for the entire society, his community or his caste. His individual actions are justified as the whole groups' .The entire psychology of individual action today is transposed to group motivation or to a caste character even when he seeks to act in his personal favor, whether chasing after big capital or cheap limelight, even to the tragic destruction of public faith. Caste of course in India today is defined suitably to this trait as a peculiarly demonic Hindu totalitarian systemic force come from the past and that which makes individual actions unaccountable. This trait may be identified in the discourse of the highbrow academic, and the self-claimed intellectual up to that of the man-on-the-street without any change of color. Perhaps we should view the contemporary politicization of history at the service of communal forces as the result of this tendency; as actions of ambitious individuals who would rather place the onus on the group. Perhaps in hindsight what to our own generation appeared as if India underwent a gigantic crisis of identity, would all dissolve into contingencies of the moment produced by individual actions and without any historical significance at the national level.

The other characteristics worth accounting here is the law of capital that bends our faith. We may see the influence of capital in every human action at every level. It would be an understatement to say that capital plays a shamelessly huge role in public opinion and ideology making; even though often it is not recognized any more as doing so. The impulse to take possession of the capital market lies unrivalled at the root of global acts of aggression, second to only the urge to dominate any new technological regimens. This very same law is at the heart of Russia's war on Ukraine, USA's twenty odd years' possession of Afghanistan and then its withdrawal, that country's attempt to dominate China, the presently political break up of Sri Lanka, and closer home our own country's war with Pakistan; even though these wars are raged as cultural wars, such as America's war against Islamic fundamentalism or its war against Communist totalitarianism. Surely the events at Ayodhya and in Uttar Pradesh are of the same species and enjoy mass anticipation precisely for that sake. It would be wrong to attribute too big cultural meanings to these capital moves. Capital establishes pseudo communication in the public sphere debates and produces spectacular pseudo consensus regimens which are moreover hedged in by the always lurking violent retaliation on the part of the dominative individual ideologues. The worst case scenario is when ideologues begin to possess the state apparatus on basis of the pseudo consensual regimens and divert state organized capital to their purpose. This book was writ with this ambition and nothing less that it throw light on the road taken and strengthen our arsenal against such a dispossession. My views in this book come posthumously to much of these events and, therefore, are in a better position to gauge their shape.

Much of the resources for writing this book came from the ASI website accessed via EDUSAT for which I thank Kuvempu University for providing me with wi-fi and internet freely. I also owe a great deal to a number of Hindu websites for meticulous and erudite record of the events at Ayodhya. I am infinitely indebted to my publisher Readworthy team for its ungrudging co-operation and unstinted editorial help in preparing this book. I also thank all of those whose influence shaped this book either directly or by proxy, the list would be too many.

**Contents and Sample Pages**