Following the Ajmer survey petition, a nearby mosque, Adhai Din Ka Jhonpra, which is protected by ASI, is facing a similar demand.

News Mania Desk / Piyal Chatterjee / 4th December 2024

An Ajmer court admitting a petition seeking survey of Ajmer Sharif Dargah has renewed similar demands for the historic Adhai Din Ka Jhonpra, said to be one of the oldest mosques in the state and the country.

In a statement, Ajmer’s deputy mayor Neeraj Jain claimed, “There has been evidence of a Sanskrit college and temple in the Jhonpra. It was demolished by the invaders the same way they demolished (historical education sites of) Nalanda and Takshila. There was an attack on our culture, our civilisation, our education and this (Jhonpra) too was among them.”

The Adhai Din Ka Jhonpra, a site protected by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), is only a 5-minute walk from the Ajmer Dargah. Jain said that the ASI possesses around 250 statues from the site and that “there is swastika and bells and Sanskrit shlokas on the site, which is originally over 1,000 years old” and has been mentioned in historical literature. He went on: “We have demanded this in the past too, that existing religious activities should be stopped and the ASI should ensure the return of the college’s old glory.”

As per the ASI, which has possession of the site, its name came to be “possibly from the fact that a fair (Urs) used to be held here for two and a half days.” In his 1911 book, Ajmer: Historical and Descriptive, Har Bilas Sarda wrote that the name was “given to it in the latter half of the eighteenth century” when fakirs began to assemble here to celebrate the two and a half day Urs anniversary of the death of their religious leader, Panjaba Shah, who had migrated to Ajmer from Punjab. As per Sarda, Seth Viramdeva Kala built a Jain temple in celebration of the Jain festival Panch Kalyan Mahotsava in 660 AD. “As there was no place in Ajmer for Jain priestly class to stay in Ajmer, this temple was built,” Sarda wrote.

However, the structures at the site were allegedly destroyed by Afghans of Ghor, led by Muhammad Ghori, in 1192, and the structure was converted into a mosque as per Sharda. “It was commenced by Qutubuddin Aibak in about 1200 AD with carved pillars used in colonnades… The pillared (prayer) chamber is divided into nine octagonal compartments and has two small minarets on top of the central arch. The three central arches carved with Kufic and Tughra inscriptions make it a splendid architectural masterpiece,” the ASI says.

In May, Rajasthan Assembly speaker Vasudev Devnani, an MLA from Ajmer North, demanded an ASI survey of the site in response to claims and a visit by some Jain monks accompanied by members of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, who claimed that the site once housed a Sanskrit school and a temple.