Aurangzeb Orders Demolition of the Vishwanath Temple in Varanasi (1669)

Timeline

1. 1669–1670Varanasi · North IndiaCourt chronicles record that in September 1669 Aurangzeb ordered the demolition of the Vishwanath Temple in Varanasi (Shiva, not Vishnu). After the Jat uprising in Mathura in 1670, the Keshava Deva Temple was also demolished and an Eid prayer site built. Details about building materials being reused for a mosque could not be verified on the pages opened and are not adopted.
2. 1664–1672Delhi · North IndiaAurangzeb organized some five hundred Hanafi jurists to compile the Fatawa-i Alamgiri (also known as al-Fatawa al-Hindiyya). According to Wikipedia it was compiled c. 1664–1672 and completed in 1672 as a judicial reference for the empire, not promulgated in a single act in 1669.
3. 1669–1670North India · North IndiaThe formal restoration of the jizya tax came in 1679, so the 1669 temple demolitions should not be described as 'the jizya restored the same year'. Rajput and Maratha responses to Aurangzeb's religious policy were a long-term process; the 1669–1670 nodes state only the verified temple events.