The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c20.53

v3.c20.53

When the work of blood was finished Mahmūd entered the temple, the gloom of which was relieved by the light from costly lamps, which flickered on the fifty-six polished pillars supporting the roof, on the gems which adorned the idol, and on a huge golden chain, the bells attached to which summoned to their duties the relays of attendant priests. As the eyes of the conqueror fell upon the hewn stone, three yards in height above the pavement, which had received the adoration of generations of Hindus, he raised his mace in pious zeal and dealt it a heavy blow. Some historians relate that when he commanded that the idol should be shattered the Brāhmans offered to redeem it with an enormous sum of money, and that their prayers were seconded by the arguments of his courtiers who urged that the destruction of one idol would not extinguish idolatry and that the money might be employed for pious purposes. To both Mahmūd replied that he would be a breaker, not a seller of idols, and the work of destruction went forward. When the idol was broken asunder gems worth more than a hundred times the ransom offered by the Brāhmans were found concealed in a cavity within it and Mahmūd’s iconoclastic zeal was materially rewarded; but this story appears to be an embellishment, by later historians, of the earlier chronicles. Of the fragments of the idol two were sent to Ghaznī to form steps at the entrance of the great mosque and the royal palace, and two are said to have been sent to Mecca and Medina, where they were placed in public streets to be trodden underfoot.