M. A. Sherring

Matthew Atmore Sherring (1826–1880), usually cited as M.A. Sherring, was a Protestant missionary in British India who was also an Indologist and wrote a number of works related to India. He was educated at Coward College, a dissenting academy in London that trained people for nonconformist ministry.

Quotes

• There is no doubt, in our mind, that the Ad-Bisheswar temple stood on this site, and was destroyed by the Mohammedans, who, as usual, transferred its stones to their own mosque.
  • "The Sacred City of the Hindus: An Account of the Benares in Ancient and Modern Times" also quoted in Pushpa Prasad - Sanskrit Inscriptions of Delhi Sultanate_ 1191-1526-Oxford University Press (1991) [1]

• The entire area is called Benares; and the religious privileges of the city are extended to every portion of it. Whoever dies in any spot of this enclosure is, the natives think, sure of happiness after death; and so wide is the application of this privilege, that it embraces, they say, even Europeans and Mohammedans, even Pariahs and other outcasts, even liars, murderers, and thieves. That no soul can perish in Benares is, thus, the charitable superstition of the Hindus.
  • "The Sacred City of the Hindus: An Account of the Benares in Ancient and Modern Times" [2]

• When we endeavour to ascertain what the Mohammedans have left to the Hindus of their ancient buildings in Benares, we are startled at the result of our investigations. Although the city is bestrewn with temples in every direction, in some places ve1y thickly, yet it would be difficult, I believe, to find twenty temples, in all Benares, of the age of Aurungzeb, or from 1658 to 1707. The same unequal proportion of old temples, as compared with new, is visible throughout the whole of Northern India. Moreover, the diminutive size of nearly all the temples that exist is another powerful testimony to the stringency of the Mohammedan rule. It seems clear, that, for the most part, the emperors forbade the Hindus to build spacious temples, and suffered them to erect only small structures, of the size of cages, for their idols, and these of no pretensions to beauty....
  If there is one circumstance respecting the Mohammedan period which Hindus remember better than another, it is the insulting pride of the Musulmans, the outrages which they perpetrated upon their religious convictions, and the extensive spoliation of their temples and shrines. It is right that Europeans should clearly understand, that this spirit of Mohammedanism is unchangeable, and that, if, by any mischance, India should again come into the possession of men and this creed, all the churches and colleges, and all the Mission institutions, would not be worth a week's purchase.
  • The Sacred City of the Hindus, 1868 quoted from Goradia, P. (2002). Hindu masjids.

• When Babylon was struggling with Nineveh for supremacy, when Tyre was planting her colonies, when Athens was growing in strength, before Rome had become known, or Greece had contended with Persia, or Cyprus had added lustre to the Persian monarchy, or Nebuchadnezzar had captured Jerusalem, and the inhabitants of Judaea had been carried into captivity, she (Varanasi) had already risen to greatness, if not to glory.
  • quoted in Eck, Diana L Banaras, city of light Princeton, N.J. : PrInceton University Press, 1983, p. 4-5

About

• The Europeans should clearly understand that this spirit of Mohammedanism is unchangeable, and that, if by any mischance, India should again come into the possession of men ofthis creed, all the churches and colleges and all the Mission institutions, would not be worth a week's purchase. So wrote Reverend Mathew Atmore Sherring. The Muslims had done no harm to the Christians of British India. But he was so upset at the vandali sm he saw in Benares that he could not help speaking out.
• Reverend Sherring was a devout, and maybe a s lightly bigoted evangelist member of the London Missionary Society. He was dead against idol worship. As he has written idolatry is a word denoting all that is wicked in imagination and impure in practice. IdolatJy is a demon- an incarnation of all evil. And yet he said it would not be difficult, I believe, to find twenty temples in all Benares of the age of Aurangzeb, or from 1658 to 1707. The same unequal proportion of old temples, as compared with new, is visible throughout the whole of northern India. Hi s description of the desecration of temples b y the thousand, and their blatant conversion into either mosques, mausoleums, dargahs, palaces or pleasure houses has to be seen to be believed.
• In his view, if there is one circumstance respecting the Mohammedan period which Hindus remember better than another, it is the insulting pride of the Musulmans (sic), the outrages which they perpetrated upon their religious convictions, and the extensive spoilation of their temples and shrines. When we endeavour to ascertain what the Mohammedans have left to the Hindus of their ancient buildings in Benares, we are startled at the result of our investigations. Although the city is bestrewn with temples, it is unlikely that there are many which are old.
• Reverend Sherring continued, the diminutive size of nearly all the temples in India except for the south that exist is another powerful testimony to the stringency of the Mohammedan rule: It seems clear, that, for the most part, the emperors forbade the Hindus to build spacious temples, and suffered them to erect only small structures, of the size of cages,for their idols, and these of no pretensions to beauty. The consequence is, that the Hindus of the present day, blindly following the example of their predecessors of two centuries ago, commonly build their religious edifices of the same dwarfish size as formerly.
  • Quoted from Goradia, P. (2002). Hindu masjids. quoting Sherring, Reverend Mathew Atmore, Benaras: the Sacred City of the Hindus, 1868 (republished in 1996 by D. K. Publishers, Darya Ganj, New Delhi.