"The author's colleagues felt that he was being unduly mild while describing a major molestation of Hindu civilisation. They promptly showed the author Volume I of Cunningham's report. The author cannot help quoting, however sparingly, from what the most outstanding archaeologist of India reported: The Jama or Dina Masjid of Kanoj is cited by Fergusson (James Fergusson was a British architect who surveyed many buildings in north India during the 19th century) as a specimen of Hindu cloisters, which has been rearranged to suit the purposes of Muhammadan worship; and in this opinion I most fully concur ... it must originally have been the site of some Hindu building of considerable importance. This conclusion is partly confirmed by the traditions of the temple, who, however, most absurdly call the place Sita-ka-Rasui, or "Sita 's kitchen" ... When I first visited Kanoj in January 1838, the arrangement of the pillars was somewhat different from what I found in November 1862. The cloisters which originally extended all round the square, are now confined to the masjid itself, that is, to the west side only. This change is said to have been made by a Muhammadan Tahsildar shortly before 1857. The same individual is also accused of having destroyed all the remains of figures that had been built into the walls of the Jama and Makhdum Jahaniya masjids ... Also, the inscription over the doorway is said to have been removed at the same time for the purpose of cutting off a Hindu figure on the back of it. I recovered this inscription by sending for the present Tahsildar. The Gazetteer of Farrukhabad district edited and compiled by E.R. Neave, 15 ICS, 1911, is even more forthright. To quote: The iconoclastic fury of Mahmud Ghazni swept awa~ all the Hindu religious edifices of dates anterior to the tenth century, and later buildings of any size or importance are almost exclusively Muhammdan ... A luckily preserved copy of the much obliterated inscription over the entrance doorway shows that it was by Ibrahim Shah of Jaunpur that the building was regenerated in 1406 AD."