| During the
Islamic invasions of India-which were not provoked by any Hindu attack on Islamic lands
and which lasted for over a thousand years tens of thousands of Hindu temples were
destroyed, in fact most that existed on the subcontinent. The many great temples that
Chinese travelers in the seventh century saw throughout India, which were not only Hindu,
but Buddhist and Jain, cannot be found today. These
temples were not abandoned suddenly, nor did they disappear of their own accord. The
invading Muslims willfully destroyed them in an attempt to before Hindus to convert to
their faith, or to steal the jewels that Hindus temples abound in. The most sacred temples
of the Hindus, like those built on the birthplaces of Rama and Krishna, were special
targets.
Not only were temples destroyed they were often replaced
with mosques, converted into mosques. The temple deities were often buried at the entrance
of such mosques so that Muslims could trample over them as they entered into their
mosques, thus humiliating the Hindus further. |
