Gyanvapi Mosque
The Gyanvapi Mosque is located in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India. It was constructed by Aurangzeb in 1669 upon demolition of an older Shiva temple. Pre-mosque history Vishweshwar temple The site had a Vishweshwar temple devoted to the Hindu deity Shiva. It was built by Todar Mal, a premier courtier and minister of Akbar, in conjunction with Narayana Bhatta, a pre-eminent Brahmin scholar of Banaras from Maharashtra, during late 16th century. The temple contributed to the establishment of Banaras as a vaunted center of Brahminic assembly, drawing scholars across the subcontinent esp. Maharashtra, for adjudicating a spectrum of disputes concerned with Hindu religious law. Architectural historian Madhuri Desai hypothesizes that the temple was a system of intersecting iwans —a borrowing from Mughal architecture— with prominent pointed arches; it had a carved stone exterior. Pre-temple History What might have existed at the site prior to this temple is debated by scholars. Such history has been extensively contested by the local Hindu as well as the Muslim population. Desai notes the multiple histories of the original temple and tensions arising out of the location of Gyanvapi to have fundamentally shaped the sacred topography of the city. Recent accounts of the history of the