The once great imperial Hindu
Capital of Northern India of Harshvardhan, Rashtrakutas and Jaychandra has
simply vanished from the historical landscape of the country
You think of Kannauj often.
Kannauj, along with Thanesar, was the place to be in the Classical Age just
like Delhi was in Medieval Age and later. Alexander Cunningham describes the great
city of Kanoj as the Hindu Capital of Northern India for several hundred years.
Harshvardhan, (reign 607 – 648 AD) the legendary Emperor ruled from Kannauj and
was one of the few Classical Age rulers whose court accounts survive in the
form of the beautiful Harsa Charita written by Banabhatta.
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| Kannauj Scenes |
Plate 7 from the third set of Thomas and William Daniells' 'Oriental Scenery.' Kannauj, the ancient city of Kanyakubja, the capital of the Emperor Harshavardhana and later of the Pratihara dynasty, had by the early 15th century become an important Muslim city, part of the Sultanate of Jaunpur. The Jami' Masjid or Congregational Mosque in Kannauj was converted from former Hindu buildings in the period 1400-06 by Sultan Ibraham Shah of Jaunpur. The Daniell print shows the relatively unadorned front of the half ruined prayer hall with its pointed arches and polygonal columns typical of Muslim architecture in India before the arrival of the Mughals, although the richly carved corbels supporting the mostly vanished chajja or heavy eave are typically Hindu. Facing the mosque is part of a tomb.
Hwen Thsang, the great
Chinese itinerant pilgrim, remembers Kanoj in 634 AD as surrounded by strong
walls and great ditches and washed by Ganga on its east. He notes that Harshvardhan’s
empire extended from Kashmir to Assam and from Nepal to Narmada. There is the
famous battle at Narmada when the Chalukyan King Pulakeshin II halted Harsh’s
southern march. Later the Parmaras, Gurjar-Pratiharas, Chandelas, Rashtrakutas
and Palas would wrangle among themselves to wrest control of Kannauj. The story
of Rashtrakutas of Manyakheta (Gulbarga in Karnataka) is especially inspiring
as a kingdom of south of Vindhyas would come this further up North to control
Kannauj. You always wondered why did the kings of those times fought so much.
And when the crunch came, the invaders would roll over all these kingdoms in a
matter of few decades. So much for all their bravura and all their legends.
Later the Tomars of Delhi
also would have their capital in Kannauj according to Cunningham. Mohammd Ghori
would first defeat Delhi’s King Prithviraj Chauhan in 1191 and then will march
to Kannauj to rout King Jaychandra, who was Prithviraj Chauhan’s father-in-law
and had decided not to help Prithviraj. We all have heard the story how the
Chauhan King Prithviraj took off with the daughter of the Rathore Jaychandra. This
was one of the main reasons why all these kingdoms were demolished one by one
in a brief span of time. About 150 years later, Ibn Battuta would describe
Kannauj as a small town – the same city which Ferishta describes as being seen
by Mahmud Ghazni raising its head to the skies and which in strength and
structure might justly boast to have no equal.
Gahadwals, the dynasty
whose signs you see in the museums in form of all these bewitching sandstone
images in museums, would rule Kannauj later. So, the logic says Kannauj would
have at least 800 years worth of temples. But where are they? You have not been
to Kannauj and you haven’t seen any Sultanate time photos of monuments there,
so what happened?
Gone Kannauj
So,
you are still thinking. Everyone co-existed in Kerala peacefully. Temples,
churches, mosques, synagogues all were built within metres of each others. No
demolitions, nothing. And then came the Portuguese and everything changed.
Those idiots were worse than the Delhi Sultanate. But that is another story.
In Spain, Moorish era monuments still
survive when Christianity returned. In Iran, pre-Islamic monuments from
dynasties like Sasanian still survive. In Turkey, the Byzantine structures
still survive even when Ottomans took over. Bamiyan statues and stups survived
in Afghanistan.
So,
what happened to these Turks and Afghans and Persians when they came to India?
Why did they unleash this new brand of total annihilation of cultural symbols?
What were they trying to prove? Why couldn’t they have just built their own
mosques like it has happened in Kerala in the past centuries. Not only they
would demolish but they would boast too in their inscriptions; like the one at
Qutb Minar.
Henry
Cousens and others were as affected by this practise even as they tried to be
objective. He notes: “We know, and they have exultingly recorded the fact, in
many of their inscriptions, that the Muhammadans when they first overran the
country, made a practise of destroying the chief temple at most places they
visited and building their first Jami Masjid upon its site.”
Photo
Credit - wallyg - NY Met Museum - early 12th century UP (looks totally like
Gahadvala)
Cunningham is equally
aghast when he visits Kannauj. He laments, “I am obliged to confess with regret
that I have not been able to identify even one solitary site with any
certainty; so completely has almost every trace of Hindu occupation been
obliterated by Musalmans. Cunningham notices the triangular citadel that
occupies the higher ground with few Muslim structures. The only remains of
interest are the palace ruins of Rang Mahal, Hindu pillars of Jama Masjid and
the Masjid of Makhdum Jahaniya and the Hindu statues in village Singh Bhawani.
The Dina or Jama Masjid was
built in 1406 by Jaunpur ruler Ibrahim Shah on a commanding position in the
middle of the old fort. Cunningham surmises that simply looking at its position
one can be sure that a Hindu Temple of significance existed at the site. The
Jonpur rulers in the template of Delhi Sultanate would raise similar mosques
from Hindu temples in present Jaunpur (you have not visited Jaunpur yet). Cunningham
visited Kannauj first in 1838 and then in 1862. He reports the placing of the
pillars in the Jama Masjid was changed; probably done by the Muslim Tehsildar before 1857. The same
individual also destroyed all remains of Hindu figures on the walls of the both
the masjids. Cunningham is getting angrier – the whole of these made up pillars
must have been obtained after the usual cheap Muhammadan manner – by the demolition
of some Hindu buildings – either Buddhist or Brahmanical.
 |
| Photo credit: 123rf.com |
Since the city was visited
by Hsieun Tsang so it should have a large number of Buddhist structures. Zilch.
Cunningham rues that the Muhammadan spoliation is so complete that there is not
a single piece standing to give a faint clue towards identification. There was
a great 200 feet high Stupa of Asoka; another Asoka Stupa in the north-west.
There were three monasteries and vihara that had a tooth of Buddha. There was
another lofty 200 feet high vihara with Buddha Statue. There were two majestic
temples, one dedicated to Shiva, and built of blue stones.
There would have been
scores of more temples; you are pretty sure.
 |
| Cannoge (Kannauj) on the river Ganges |
Plate 12 from the fourth set of Thomas and William Daniell's 'Oriental Scenery,' which they called 'Twenty-four Landscapes.' The views progress northwards from the far south at Cape Comorin to Srinagar in Garhwal in the Himalaya mountains. Kannauj was an important centre under Harsha, the most powerful ruler of Northern India in the early 7th century, and it later became the capital of the Pratihara dynasty. Looking at the ruined tombs in the distance the artists lamented that '...It is impossible to look at these miserable remnants of the great city of Cannoge without the most melancholy sensations, and the strongest conviction of the instability of man's proudest works.'
Pen-and-ink drawing of the mosque at Kannauj by an unknown artist between 1780 and 1820. Inscribed on the front in ink is: 'Mosque in Canouj.'
Kannauj is an ancient city in Uttar Pradesh, formerly situated on the banks of the Ganga River but now several kilometres to its south. It was the capital of a great Aryan kingdom which peaked in the 6th century and was later sacked by the Turkish ruler, Mahmud of Ghazni, in 1018. In 1540 it was the scene of the Mughal ruler Humayun’s (1508-1556) crushing defeat by Sher Shah. The Jami Masjid or congregational mosque at Kannauj was converted from a Hindu temple by Ibrahim Shah of Jaunpur in the early 15th century.
You have a theory. As
opposed to say, Ajmer, Mehrauli, Mandu where the Delhi Sultanate demolished the
temples to build mosques using the pillars, in Kannauj Ghazni paid a prior
visit to the city, ransacking the city and scooting away in 1016 AD. In the
intervening period, the temple parts would have been pilfered away. Some would
have been used in the later Gahadwal period who would have built newer temples.
And then Ghori came. Large scale ransacking would have taken place. But why didn’t
they build their Ghurid hypostyle mosques in Kannauj? The answer is that the
city was simply abandoned. The local Sultanate capital was moved to Badaun, 160
kms northwest to Kannauj.
The Daniells apparently saw
the Jami Masjid built by the Jaunpur rulers much later. Is it still there? Just
like Mathura, Kannauj apparently too has an overflowing museum with images that
would have survived and some that keep popping up from the fields around the
city. And yes, the Jami Masjid with a tomb still exists.
Some Questions: Why Kannauj
did not become a place of prominence like Mandu or Chanderi in the Delhi
Sultanate Days and why Kannauj is not popular subject of discourse today?
Next Step: Visit Kannauj,
and Badaun and Jaunpur and whole lot of places in Uttar Pradesh; a state that
you have not explored at all considering it is just next door.
References:
Four Reports Made During
the Years 1863-65 by Alexander Cunningham, Volume I, Page 279
Kannauj - The Scent of Ittar
Govt
Museum in Kannauj
History
of Kannauj
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