"The Rudramahãlaya, like many other magnificent Hindu temples, is a heap of ruins at present. But it reminds us of a past when it was one of the most magnificent temples ever built in India. The Jãmi‘ Masjid, like many other historical mosques, stands as a dilapidated structure now. But it reminds us of a regime under which it symbolised the might of Islam... The destruction of the Rudramahãlaya at Sidhpur in Gujarat was not an isolated event; it was only a link in the long chain which stretches from the middle of the seventh century, when the first Islamic invaders stepped on the soil of India, to the closing years of the eighteenth century when Tîpû Sultãn led his expedition into Malabar. The vast land which is spread from Transoxiana, Khurasan and Seistan in the West to Assam in the East, and from Sinkiang in the North to Tamil Nadu in the South, is literally littered with the ruins of temples belonging to all Hindu sects- Bauddha, Jaina, Šaiva, Šãkta VaishNava, and the rest."