On Thursday, a civil court in Uttar Pradesh asked the Archaeological Survey of India to conduct a survey at the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi to determine if a temple existed at the site before the construction.
The mosque lies right next to the Kashi Vishwanath temple.
The order was passed in a representative suit that had been filed in 1991 by lawyer Vijay Shankar Rastogi and four others as friends of the deity “Swayambu Lord Vishweshwar”. The suit claimed that an ancient temple existed on the site with a “jyotirlingam”, a representation of Hindu god Shiva that had emerged spontaneously.
The plaintiffs claimed that Mughal emperor Aurangazeb ordered the temple to be demolished in 1669 and the current mosque was built in its place using material from the demolished structure. It was also claimed that the Hindus believe the “jyotirlingam” still exists underneath the mosque and asked for the site to be restorted to Hindus.
The order of the Varanasi civil judge…