New Delhi, Oct. 14: The Indian Council of Historical Research plans to research aspects of the country's "ignored" past, such as the Hindu imprint on the Taj Mahal, and create reference material on these subjects.

Rajaneesh Kumar Shukla, member-secretary of the premier research body, told The Telegraph that the council's research project committee would meet next month to prepare a road map for delving into what council members believe is the "ignored" past.

Former council chairman and celebrated historian Irfan Habib, however, denied Shukla's implied contention about India's Hindu past being ignored, saying his claims stemmed from "ignorance" of the work done by historians and the council itself.

Shukla, a former professor of comparative philosophy and religion at the Samapurnanand Sanskrit University, Varanasi, is full-time member-secretary of the Indian Council of Philosophical Research. He was given additional charge as member-secretary of the history council by the government two weeks ago.

"The Taj Mahal is a creation of Hindu masons, who left swastika marks (on the stone slabs). This has not been covered in history research," Shukla said.

Equally "ignored" is the Karkota dynasty of Kashmir and its leading king, Lalitaditya Muktapida, who "extended the territory of the kingdom from Kashmir to Kerala and from Afghanistan to Assam".

"Lalitadiya ruled for 34 years in the 8th century. It was the biggest empire of Bharat. The details appear in the Sanskrit text Rajatarangini," Shukla said, referring to 12th-century Kashmiri author Kalhana's book that many historians believe exaggerated Lalitaditya's conquests.

"But our historians have considered materials available in Persian, Arabic and English to be (more) reliable sources. Sources in Indian languages, including Sanskrit, have been ignored."

Shukla said the textbooks lacked enough material on the Ahom dynasty that ruled Assam from the 13th to the early 19th century and mostly covered the post-1835 period after the British began writing district gazetteers.

Nor did the Vijayanagara empire receive adequate attention despite representing one of the great Indian civilisations, he said.

Shukla contended that the history books did not recognise how keenly Mahatma Gandhi had felt the influence of Swami Vivekananda. He claimed that Gandhi had spoken about " sarvadoya" (uplift of all), not "antyodaya" (uplift of the last man).

The concept of antyodaya is often attributed to Sangh parivar ideologue Deendayal Upadhyaya but some scholars believe that it was the Mahatma who had derived the idea of " sarvodaya through antyodaya" from John Ruskin's book Unto This Last.

Shukla said council members believe that historical research on medieval India focused on the Mughal period, ignoring the rest.

"The methodology of history writing must also consider the literary evidence in Indian languages," he stressed.

Habib said that the role of Hindu masons in the construction of the Taj Mahal had been studied and established. He added that there was adequate material on the Vijayanagara empire in textbooks and the council's publications.

"He (Shukla) does not know about it," he said.

Habib said references to Lalitaditya in the Rajatarangini had been studied but there was no support in the inscriptions to his claims about the empire. He rejected Shukla's claim that historical research had ignored literary materials in the Indian languages.