Hindu Temples: What Happened to Them v2.c19.s3.31

v2.c19.s3.31

Another story is told in the *Futuhus-Salatin*. It is stated, summarises Muhammad Nazim, that shortly after the birth of Mahmud, the astrologers of India divined that a prince had been born at Ghazna who would demolish the temple of Somnath. They therefore persuaded Raja Jaipal to send an embassy to Mahmud while he was still a boy, offering to pay him a large sum of money if he promised to return the idol to the Hindus whenever he captured it. When Mahmud captured Somnath the Brahmins reminded him of his promise and demanded the idol in compliance with it. Mahmud did not like either to return the idol or to break his promise. He therefore ordered the idol to be reduced to lime by burning and when, on the following day, the Brahmins repeated their demand, he ordered them, to be served with betel-leaves which had been smeared with the lime of the idol. When the Brahmins had finished the chewing of the betel-leaves they again repeated their demand, on which the Sultan told them that they had the idol in their mouths.¹⁵ As we would see at a later stage in this study, this story inspired some other Sultans to do actually what Mahmud was supposed to have done in the imagination of a story-teller.