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NEWS : Model of Hindu temple uneartherd in Pakistan
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To: GHEN <srh@netcom.com>
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Subject: NEWS : Model of Hindu temple uneartherd in Pakistan
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From: ashok <ashokvc@giasbm01.vsnl.net.in>
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Date: Sat, 07 Sep 96 09:12:35 PDT
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Priority: Normal
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ReSent-Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1996 04:14:33 -0400 (EDT)
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Resent-From: lists@rbhatnagar.ececs.uc.edu
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ReSent-Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.91.961003041433.24314V@rbhatnagar.ececs.uc.edu>
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ReSent-To: ghen@netcom.com
Title : Model of Hindu temple unearthed in Pakistan
Author : P S Suryanarayan
Publication : The Hindu
Date : August 28, 1996
A 'unique model' of a Hindu temple is said to have been
discovered during archaeological excavations in the Swabi
district of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province.
According to some Pakistani media reports published
yesterday, the items recovered during recent excavations
near a spot where Alexander the Great had crossed the
Indus include coins of that period, containers, a statue
of a Hindu god and a model of an ancient Hindu temple.
While there has been no official announcement in this
regard, the media reports seem to acquire a certain
degree of importance in the current context of the
Pakistani State seeking to establish a new identity of
its own. Pakistan, which is now celebrating the fiftieth
year of its independence as an Islamic State of South
Asian origin, appears to be engaged in an exercise at
placing this brief history in a larger perspective of
several millennia of civilisational existence. Reference
is often made, in this connection, to the ancient Indus
Valley civilisation as a possible legacy of Pakistan too.
Now, it is a historical reality that the Indus Valley
civilisation, which is universally seen as a historical
heritage of post-colonial secular India, predated the
rise of Islamic civilisation which Pakistan has been
claiming as its real genesis. Viewed in this
perspective, Pakistan's latest effort to focus on the
pre-Islamic Indus Valley civilisation as an aspect of its
historical evolution assumes thematic importance worthy
of new scholastic studies in India and elsewhere in the
world. It is not immediately clear, though, whether the
Pakistani State will now seek to reinvent itself without
at all de-emphasising its identity as an Islamic
Republic. In any case, the publication of news about the
discovery of an ancient Hindu temple 'model' is in line
with the spirit behind the sale of some Hindu religious
exhibits in some Pakistani shopping arcades.
