The Deval Masjid located in Nizamabad is not a combination of Hindu & Islamic architecture. Meanwhile, it was a Hindu-Jain temple before being built by Rashtrakutas King Indra III in the 10th century CE. At the time of Tughlaq, Muhammad Bin Tughlaq destroyed the temple and instead built a mosque at the place of the temple. He also fixed a Shivalinga on its footsteps.
The original name of Deval Masjid was Indra Narayana Swamy temple. The historians said how they converted this Giant Hindu temple into a Mosque. They removed the idol and replaced its niche with Mihrab. They also destroyed the Shikhara and replaced that with stucco domes. There is an inscription inside the temple which refers to itself as Indra Narayana temple. However, later then the temple was renovated in the 11th century by a person named Jogapayya.
Later then he dedicated an image of Lord Vishnu & put it in place of a Garuda pillar. Presently, the Deval Masjid is known to locals as Vanda Stambhala Gudi which means the temple of one hundred pillars. Some remaining pieces of Lord Vishnu’s idol Dashavataras can be found here all over the walls of the mosque even now.
Historians predicted some circumstances which are to believe that happened at that time to convert this temple into the Mosque.
In 1323, the Ulugh Khan or known as Muhammad Bin Tughlaq conquer the Bodhan (present Nizamabad). It was protected by the warrior Kakatiya commander Sitarama Chandra Sastri. He offered to refuse the fight. Sitarama Chandra Shastri forced to surrender. The conditions were the conversion to Islam and the acceptance of Tughlaq’s dynasty. Then Shastri was converted to Islam religion and had given the name Alam Khan. But as soon as Tughlaq’s army left, Shastri threw off Tughlaq’s harness and again converted to Hinduism.
The next time Tughlaq’s army capture the Bodhan and they took no prisoners. But the armies surrounded the Bodhan fort and destroyed it. They cut off the head of the brave Kakatiya commander Sitarama Chandra Shastri and converted this temple into the Deval Mosque.
This has made the history of India deliberately look like that of embracing the Islamic culture than gracing the rich Hindu Heritage. The Muslim rulers forcefully entered the country in ancient times and allegedly began the process of ‘Islamisation’. The easiest way for them to achieve the goal of Islamisation was by destroying the Hindu structures and major important Hindu holy places in India.
And the result is the Babri Masjid was built in 1527 on the birthplace of Lord Ram under the rule of Mughal emperor Babur, the Hanuman temple in Srirangapatna, Karnataka was also converted into Jamia Masjid in the year 1780, and Kamal Maula Mosque was built on Bhojshala, it was the ancient temple of Lord Saraswati in Madhya Pradesh, even the Adina Mosque was rebuilt on Adinath Temple in West Bengal, and many more other examples are there.
Recently, historians found a Shivling inside the Wuzukhana of the mosque. The Wuzukhana is a place inside a mosque where Muslims wash their hands and legs before going to namaz. Many more Hindu structures and temples were destroyed and some of being converted into Islamic places or mosques. it is approximately more than 40,000 Hindu temple sites under Islamic custody. One such Hindu temple converted into a mosque is known as Deval Masjid which is located in the Bodhan area of Telangana’s Nizamabad district.
The main plan of the temple was star-shaped and this was the only thing that was not changed by Tughlaq’s army except the removal of the star chamber and the setting up of a pulpit. The structure is still with 100 stone pillars which are today evidence of the existence of the Hindu-Jain temple in the past. The Deval Mosque was originally said to be a Hindu temple and consists of Rashtrakutas and Persian inscriptions of Mohd Bin Tughlaq.
Also visit: Visit Ankapur Model Village, Nizamabad
Interestingly, the idol of the Indra Narayan Swamy temple is well preserved in the meditation hall of Shri Keshava Seva Samithi, Kandakurti village which is 25 km away from Bodhan in the Rangel Mandal of Nizamabad District, as per the beliefs.
Later back then due to the rising impact of the Islamists and their way of life, many families shifted from the Kandakurti village to Nagpur which was under the rule of Bhosle in Maharashtra. The rise of Islam in the subcontinent via trade in Kerala, during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad, spread progressively until the late 17th century to make Islamist dynasties politically control it until the rise of the Marathas.
By the time of the Britishers, who exceeds their control over India, around a quarter to a fifth of the subcontinent’s population had become Muslim. In present times people called the Deval Masjid is as Vanda Stambhala Gudi, which means a temple of one hundred pillars.
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