Aurangzeb Reimposes the Jizya and Orders Temples Destroyed
A century after Akbar ended the tax, Aurangzeb brings it back, and punishes disloyal nobles by desecrating the temples tied to their names
Quick facts
- Jizya reimposed
- 1679
- Banaras Vishvanath temple destroyed
- 1669
- Mathura Keshava Deva temple destroyed
- 1670
- Rajasthan temples destroyed
- 1679-1680
What happened
In 1679 Aurangzeb reimposed the jizya, the tax on non-Muslim subjects that Akbar had abolished 115 years earlier, a step widely read at the time and since as a marker of a harder religious line than his predecessors. Around the same period Aurangzeb also ordered the destruction of specific, named temples: the Vishvanath temple at Banaras in 1669, associated with a Mughal officer suspected of aiding the escape of his enemy Shivaji, and the Keshava Deva temple at Mathura in 1670, tied to the leader of a Jat rebellion. Historian Richard M. Eaton's peer-reviewed analysis of the pattern across Indo-Muslim states finds these were not indiscriminate: Aurangzeb also formally ordered, in 1659, that Brahmin temple-keepers at Banaras be protected from harassment, writing that ancient temples should not be torn down under Islamic law even as he added that no new ones should be built there. Nine years after the jizya's return, in 1679 and 1680, Aurangzeb ordered several prominent Rajasthan temples destroyed, each one tied to a Rajput chieftain who had specifically withdrawn loyalty to the Mughal state.
Why it matters
Whether read as ideological retrenchment or, as Eaton argues from the documentary pattern, a targeted political tool aimed at temples tied to specific acts of disloyalty or rebellion rather than Hindu worship generally, the jizya's return and the temple destructions marked a real and lasting break from Akbar's policy, alienated Rajput allies whose ancestors had served the empire for generations, and became one of the most cited grievances behind the Rajput and Maratha resistance that grew through Aurangzeb's later reign.
How we know
Eaton's scholarship, drawing on the Ma'athir-i Alamgiri and other Mughal-era chronicles, catalogs specific documented instances of temple desecration by date, site, and the political circumstance behind each order, distinguishing it from undocumented claims of empire-wide, indiscriminate destruction; historians continue to debate how to weigh Aurangzeb's stated religious justifications against the political pattern Eaton identifies.
Sources
- Richard M. Eaton, published in Frontline (from Journal of Islamic Studies research). Temple Desecration and Indo-Muslim States · Peer-reviewed (author-declared)franpritchett.com · Cited as a "journal" source (no stronger domain match).
- Richard M. Eaton, published in Frontline (from Journal of Islamic Studies research). Temple Desecration and Indo-Muslim States · Peer-reviewed (author-declared)franpritchett.com · Cited as a "journal" source (no stronger domain match).
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