Introductory essay explores temple building and destruction in Mughal India, indicating the complex role of faith.
In this introductory essay, Guest Editor Sam Dalrymple considers temple destruction alongside temple construction in order to better understand the place of non-Islamic faiths in the Mughal Empire. Drawing on the French gem merchant Tavernier's vivid accounts of the "four great pagodas” of Hindustan, the essay demonstrates that hundreds of temples were actively built and maintained across the empire at precisely the same time as temple desecration punctuated the landscape.
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Sam Dalrymple (2026) studied this question.
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