Was the Babri Masjid built over a Ram temple?
The key to this question lies in ascertaining whether the main building depicted on the map is adorned with the shikhars (spires) of a temple or the domes of a mosque. The cartographer s semi-conical representation makes this question, too, open to interpretation. Habib believes that the domes in the map belong to the mosque. Besides, even the trees drawn on the map are conical. This is a very unusual shape for trees in this region and could indicate that the cartographer was taking some sort of licence. But Nath believes that the building is crowned by the shikhars of a Ram temple. He has prepared a confidential research monograph on the subject, possibly to strengthen the Hindu organisations claim in the High Court. While he doesn’t divulge the details, he confirms that the basic idea is to predicate that the temple showed as janmasthan was once present at the site of the Babri masjid. This school of thought is already contesting that the mosque was built in the 16th century. They wo
