This is absolutely outrageous LIES by @tishasaroyan
In his podcast with you, Mani Shankar Aiyer has the audacity to declare at 11:07 in the video that under the Somanath temple - "It was a Buddhist Prayer Hall that was destroyed during the rise of Hinduism against the Buddhists after Shankaracharya - and it seems Mularaja had built a small temple with a small Mandapa on the ruins of that Buddhist Prayer Hall", all this while Ruchika nods in agreement.
Did Mani Shankar come up with this bizarre fantasy in some dream, so that he could demonize Hindus?
Ruchika and Mani Shankar Aiyer are blatantly LYING! B.K. Thapar of the ASI carried out excavations underneath the Somanath mandir in 1950-51. His excavation report mentions NO such thing as what Aiyer is claiming. Thapar never found any trace of any Buddhist remains underneath the Somanath Mandir!
In his report Thapar clearly reports evidence of three Hindu temple phases under the Somanath structure and also discovered remains of an even earlier structure beneath the earliest excavated temple phase, including reused sculptural fragments, older retaining walls, and other pre-existing remains. Thapar explicitly states that the nature and date of the earliest structure could NOT be determined from the available evidence. He NEVER identified it as a Buddhist hall. His excavations yielded ZERO Buddhist remains. (See Screenshots 1 and 2 from B.K. Thapar's report summary below)
In fact, the ONLY hypothesis Thapar claims is that the earlier structure may have been a Hindu Surya (Sun) temple, based on its long-standing association of Prabhasa with sun worship in Hindu Puranic tradition.
Ruchika and Mani Shankar Aiyer have blatantly FALSIFIED B.K. Thapar's report, to distort the historical facts and demonize Hindus as iconoclasts.
Please take serious note of this outrageous distortion of the sacred Somanath Mandir's history @EduMinOfIndia@MinOfCultureGoI@AmitShah clearly
How long will we allow such malicious, lying charlatans to distort and falsify our history, so that they can spread hatred between communities and portray Hindus as villains?