At the World Archaeology Congress in 1998, Mandal stated that what were thought to be pillar bases were actually part of a wall, despite his prior assertion that they were not in alignment and belonged to different cultural levels. In an article in the New Age magazine in 1999, he also stated that the Gahadavala inscription found in the Babri Masjid debris, attesting to a Vishnu Hari temple, did not fall from the walls of the mosque and it was possibly brought in from elsewhere.