Taj Mahal Photos of Vedic Influence Easy to Find
BY: STEPHEN KNAPP (SRI NANDANANDANA)
Apr 2, USA (SUN) — Dear Suresh, please accept my humble obeisances, all glories to Srila Prabhupada.
Thank you for your letter. I have no problem, but was just clarifying things. Naturally, most of this controversy on the Taj Mahal is the same old stuff. But don't forget, that I did not write that article that first appeared on the Sampradaya Sun. It was what appeared in the Mumbai newspaper as written by Philip Varghese. So I had nothing to do with what was written. However Philip Varghese did not seem to have any trouble viewing the contents of the photos and information I had provided. Plus he did mention Srila Prabhupada and a few other nice things that he had gathered from my site. So I thought that was good.
The other thing, though it may not have provided you the kind of information you would have wanted to hear, it is still a new day when a newspaper picks up this story, which, for the most part, most of them avoid this controversy, especially in India. Like you said, P. N. Oak's book is banned in India, so for a newspaper to still print this sort of information, even though they did not mention P. N. Oak, is still a step forward in allowing people to put some pressure on those people who may be in charge of allowing more investigation to occur. It is promoting the awareness. And when the Courier & Dispatch has a circulation of 85,000, this is a big help for what I consider to be "our" cause, or at least part of our cause as Vaishnavas.
As it is, you may think that this is all old news, but I get 3500 to 4000 people visiting my website everyday, many of whom do check out my Taj presentation. And there are those who already know about it, and many others write back saying they have never heard of this information or these alternative views about the Taj before, and to them it's a major revelation. Some admit they are shocked. And I'm talking about Indians from India.
So the point is that we need to keep this information in circulation so that more people can find out about it. And the fact that this newspaper did that is rather bold. So I was glad to hear about it, and did not even know that such an article had been printed, using my name and the material I had gathered. Remember, I had nothing to do with the way Philip Varghese wrote up the article. So do not refer to it as "your" article (meaning me) because I did not write it. If you have complaints you will have to take them to Philip himself.
As for me, the article seemed to be fairly based and not critical. So that's fine with me. So it is odd that the devotees themselves are often the ones who criticize the most when it could be viewed as something positive, if they truly understood the ramifications of what the publication of such an article means.
In the meantime, if you want to find the photographs on my website, all you have to do is go to the front page of my site at www.stephen-knapp.com. Then look on the left-hand side to the column of links, just a few inches down, and you will see a link that says: Photographic Evidence: Was The Taj Mahal Originally a Vedic Temple? It's very easy really. Then when you click on that everything I've got, including the photographs, comes right up. Just scroll down a little and read what is there, and links to all the photographs will be there. Just click on the ones you want to see. Or go straight to: www.stephen-knapp.com/was_the_taj_mahal_a_vedic_temple.htm. That should be pretty easy.
Anyway, I hope that helps. There's been many emails and many other websites that have taken these photos from my site to spread this photographic evidence. I get such emails regularly as if they are sending me something new, not knowing that they originated from my site. So it may not stir you much but there are plenty of other people out there that think this is worth spreading around. I was merely fortunate enough to have gotten these photos and put them on my website. Even P. N. Oak did not have these. So I let people take the photos and do as they like. All I did was consolidate the evidence. And who knows, maybe there will be more articles or emails that circulate because of Philip's article in that Mumbai newspaper, or at least more visitors to my website. That can't be all bad. So maybe in time if enough writers continue to work in this way, maybe in time there will be a trend to look beyond the false or biased views of Indian history.
Hare Krishna,
Sri Nandanandana dasa
