MARTAND SUN TEMPLE

May 11, 2022

After prayers were held at the ruins of the eighth-century Martand Sun Temple in Jammu and Kashmir’s Anantnag last week, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has expressed its concern to the district administration while refraining from lodging a formal complaint.

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The ASI, which functions under the Ministry of Culture, is the custodian of the protected monument.
According to ASI officials, prayers are allowed at its protected sites only if they were “functioning places of worship” at the time it took charge of them. No religious rituals can be conducted at non-living monuments where there has been no continuity of worship when it became an ASI-protected site.
Although the Martand Sun Temple was once a thriving place of worship, commissioned by Lalitaditya Muktapida in the eighth century, it was destroyed by Sikandar Shah Miri in the 14th century.

Source : Indian Express