The Varanasi District Court on Wednesday (January 31) allowed prayers in the southern cellar of the Gyanvapi mosque complex. The order reads, “District Magistrate, Varanasi/Receiver is being directed to get puja, raag bhog done by a priest, designated by the plaintiff and Kashi Vishwanath Trust, of idols in the cellar to the south, which is disputed, of building situated on settlement plot no. 9130, police station Chowk, District Varanasi. For this, suitable arrangements must be made with iron barricading and other things within seven days.” On January 24, the Varanasi district administration had taken possession of the southern cellar of the Gyanvapi mosque complex. This was following a Varanasi District Court order of January 17, through which it appointed the district magistrate of Varanasi as the receiver of the cellar, also called 'Vyasji ka tehkhana'. This case was filed by the head priest of Acharya Ved Vyas Peeth temple, Shailendra Pathak Vyas. What is Vyasji ka tehkhana? Vyasji ka tehkahana is located in the southern area of the mosque's barricaded complex, facing the Nandi statue placed inside the Kashi Vishwanath complex near the sanctum sanctorum. The tehkahana has a height of around 7 feet and carpet area of around 900 square feet. Subhash Chaturvedi, the lawyer of the petitioner Shailendra Pathak Vyas, said that the Vyas family had been conducting prayers and other rituals inside the tehkhana for more than 200 years, but the practice was stopped in December 1993. He said that the tehkhana is located between the Nandi statue and the wuzookhana of the mosque, where Hindu petitioners have alleged that a shivling was found during a court mandated video-graphic survey in 2022. Why was worship barred here? The petitioner has argued that 'Vyasji's' entry was prohibited in the tehkhana in December 1993, and hence the prayers being held here had to be discontinued. On December 4, 1993, Mulayam Singh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party formed the government in UP, ending one year of President’s Rule, imposed after the Kalyan Singh government was dismissed in the wake of the Babri Mosque demolition in Ayodhya in 1992. “The Mulayam Singh Yadav government prohibited worship inside the Vyasji ka tehkhana in the name of law and order. Before that, Pandit Somnath Vyas had carried out Hindi worship rituals here regularly,” Chaturvedi said. Chaturvedi said that idols of Lord Hanuman, Ganesh, Shiva and other gods were worshipped inside the tehkhana and katha was preached there. He said during the recent ASI survey too, idols of various Hindu deities were found inside the tehkhana. Who is the petitioner? The petitioner Shailendra Pathak Vyas is the maternal grandson of Pandit Somnath Vyas. Shailendra is currently the head priest of the Acharya Ved Vyas Peeth in Shivpur area of Varanasi. His family had been provided space inside the tehkhana to worship, and hence the place was known as ‘Vyasji ki gaddi.” Madan Mohan, a lawyer for the Hindu side in cases related to the Gyanvapi mosque, said the tehkhana was given to the Vyas family for worship and other religious rituals under the British in 1809. “Somnath ji was a priest. He had been living near the Gyanvapi area. His family from several generations had been performing religious rituals inside the tehkhana,” Madan Mohan said.
