Thursday, 28 May 2026
Aurangzeb had ordered to demolish Jagannath Temple. How was it saved?
Aurangzeb had ordered to demolish Jagannath Temple. How was it saved?
By 1681 Aurangzeb has reached the lowest level of religious bigotry. He issued a farman to destroy Jagannath Temple. He ordered his subedar of Bengal Province ,Amir-ul-Umara to demolish it.
Receving the farman the Officials arrived in Puri to destroy the temple. Odisha was under the mughal rule,however it still had the king of Khurdha known as Gajapati who acted as the protector of the temple. Now listening this news there was fear, anger and desperation everywhere. But everyone was helpless. So finally a plan was carved out. There was a negotiation with the mughal subedar . He was offered a huge amount of money as bribe. Still he knew the consequences of not executing Aurangzeb's order. However, the bribe amount was huge and Odias were successful in persuading him with the offer and he finally decided to take the risk and somehow convinced Aurangzeb that his order has been carried out.
A replica of lord Jagannath was created and it was sent to Aurangzeb's court in Delhi to mislead him.
The temple was closed permanently. All the rituals were stopped. The pilgrimage was stopped. A rumor was spread that jagannath temple and the idol has been destroyed.
Annual puri Rath Yatra was stopped
By doing all this an atmosphere was created in such a way that Aurangzeb believed that his orders has been carried out.
During that time the Marathas down south were creating a huge problem for Aurangzeb. Therefore, he had to come to Deccan to suppress the rebellion. Sikhs, Jats etc were constantly creating trouble. So, Aurangzeb was not able to concentrate on these kind of matters.
So, a big thanks to Marathas and other groups because of whom the pride of Odias and Hindus the Jagannath temple was spared from wrath of iconoclasts. Finally the temple was reopened in 1707 after the death of Aurangzeb and Rathayatra restarted.
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