Category:Bhojshala and Kamal Maula’s Mosque

Bhojshala and Kamal Maula’s Mosque 

A 14th century building assembled from parts of earlier temples
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Instance of	mosque hall
Location	Dhar, Dhar State
Heritage designation	Monument of National Importance
22° 35′ 26.1″ N, 75° 17′ 42.2″ E
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The Bhoj Shala, otherwise known as the Hall of Bhoja and Kamal Maula mosque, is a protected site and monument under the Archaeological Survey of India. It carries the number N-MP-117 in the List of Monuments of National Importance in Madhya Pradesh/West. The monument is located in the town of Dhar, Madhya Pradesh. The is site is disputed and notionally claimed by both Muslims and Hindus, although the Republic of India has ultimate authority and jurisdiction over it. The ASI permits worship by Hindus on Tuesday and Muslims on Friday for two hours each week. Additionally, the site is open for worship on Vasant Panchami to Sarasvatī. When festivals coincide, there have been communal tensions, requiring a police presence to keep the peace.

The monument is in the approximate centre of the medieval circular city of Dhar, likely built by the Paramāra dynasty from the 10th century. It was long one of the capitals of Malwa and seat of the provincial government in later centuries, becoming the Mahratha capital of the Dhar Powars. The city was a prominent centre of education, manuscripts compilation, exchange and cattle trading. That it was a centre of metallurgy is suggested by the name Dhārānagara (city of swords) and the iron pillar found there. After a number of wars between the Yadavas, Solankis and Paramaras, during which Dhar was repeatedly sacked and burned, Malwa came under the Delhi Sultanate in early 14th century. Soon thereafter, a hypostyle mosque was constructed there using parts from fallen temples. The exact year is unknown, but an Islamic inscription found beside the building dated 1392 describes repairs by Dilāwar Khān, the then governor. After the death of Chishti Sufi saint Kamal-al-Din Malawi in 1331 CE, his tomb was placed next to the mosque and the building came to be known as Kamal Maula mosque. This suggests the mosque was built before 1331.

The mosque not only has numerous pillars from temples, but a wide range of stone panels with Sanskrit and Prakrit inscriptions from different places on the floors and walls, assembled for display rather like a modern museum. These include Sanskrit grammar rules and esoteric diagrams. The site also had a pool in the courtyard, this recently identified as the ruins of a yajna kund or sacrifical pit. Since around 1900, Luard's Gazeeteer tells us the building was being called the Bhoj Shala (the "hall of Bhoja"), sometimes the Raja Bhoja madrasa or school, based on the educational, geometric drawings and inscriptions found on the site. Despite the association with learning, the site has not yielded a statue of the goddess of learning or Sarasvatī. A damaged Jaina statue of Ambikā, mistakenly identified Sarasvatī for a number of years, was found on the site of the Old City Palace in 1875. The inscription on the pedestal, as explained in the wikipedia article on Dhar, mentions a statue of Vāgdevī (i.e. Sarasvatī), showing that the Sarasvatī at Dhār was the Jain form of this goddess. This is confirmed by the Prabandhacintāmaṇi of Merutunga, a text of the early 1300s, that records how the Jain savant Dhanapāla showed king Bhoja tablets engraved with his poem to Adinātha at the entrance to the temple of Sarasvatī at Dhār.