Archaeologists From India

"Historians like Sarkar, Dr Romesh Chandra Majumdar, Vishwanath Kashinath Rajwade, Raghubir Singh, Hemchandra Raychaudhuri, Kashi Prasad Jayaswal, Devadatta Ramakrishna Bhandarkar, Govind Sakharam Sardesai and several contemporaries of theirs, many of whom shone in brilliance even under colonial rule, are in my view exemplars of what fact-based, dispassionate historians are."

"Shortly before the foreign invasions began from the 11th century onwards, the Hindu body politique was fast losing the two invaluable qualities of colonisation and proselytisation so indispensable for the self-preservation and continuance of a race or people and its culture. On the other hand, the new foreign invaders who were of Muslim religion were aggressive proselytisers, with the consequence that instead of Muslims being converted to Hinduism, many Hindus became Muhammadans. Hindu Society was now on its trial. Nevertheless, it wonderfully began to tide over this crisis by reclaiming most of the Hindus that were being converted to Muhammadanism. Śud'dhi movement in India began, not recently with the Arya Samajists re-converting the Muhammadan Malkana Rajputs, but in the tenth century."

"Perhaps such fire-altars also existed at Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, but were missed in mass diggings, and have only been revealed in a slow, careful excavation."

"Then there is the twisted copper or bronze drill discovered by Rao at Lothal. Sankalia records the find and comments: "Its occurrence at so early a date is of great moment in the history of civilization.'"

"Indeed, Sankalia’s statement of 1962 still remains valid, that despite almost a century of investigations, “we have not found anything “Aryan” on the ruins of the Indus Valley Civilisation” (Coningham and Young 2015)"

"It is clear from what has been discussed above that Indian tradition, Vedic or Puranic, is not likely to help much in the interpretation of archaeological data. The theories proposed by reputed archaeolo­gists are laboured ones and based on preconceived notions. Most scholars have twisted the traditional accounts or invented their own legends to suit their interpretations because it is utterly difficult to apply the tradition as a whole to the field of pure archaeology involving one or more material cultures ... [the] majority of Indian traditions are unhistoric and coloured and therefore none of their archaeological interpretations would prove to be free from subjectivity. The Rämäyana and the Mahäbhärata were not written for the simple aim of recording past happenings, but these were composed with the specific purpose of expounding the message of dharma through the stories, in the tradition of the A£okan dharma which itself was the outcome of the problems growing out of the Iron Age urbanisation. Even the later and secular Indian tradition connected with Vikramaditya or Alha-Udal cannot be explained in archaeological terms. Hence tradition and archaeology cannot be mixed together in any form at least as far as Indian protohistory is concerned."

"It would also be perfectly right to say that Alexander did not conquer India, that is Bharat, the present Union of India, which will be very much in keeping with the well-known silence of Indian sources about Alexander."

"At Surkotada from all the three periods quite a good number of bones of horse (Equus Caballus Linn) ... have been recovered. The parts recovered are very distinctive bones: first, second and third phalanges and few vertebrae fragments."

"Some megalithic burials have yielded iron or bronze objects such as mother goddess, horned masks, the trishul etc. As the archaeologist I. K. Sarma observes, such objects are intimately connected with the worship of brahmanical Gods of the historical period, such as øiva, Kàrtikeya and later Ambà. The diadems of Adichanallur burials are like the mouth-pieces used by the devotees of Murugan."

"Among the earliest evidences, a stratigraphic dig by I. K. Sarma within the garbagriha of the Parasuramesvara temple at Gudimallam, brought to light the foundation of a remarkable Shivalingam of the Mauryan period (possibly third century BC) : it was fixed within two circular pãthas at the centre of a square vàstu-mandala. “The deity on the frontal face of the tall linga reveals himself as a proto-puranic Agni-Rudra” standing on a kneeling devayàna. If this early date, which Sarma established on stratigraphic grounds and from pottery sherds, is correct, this fearsome image could well be the earliest such representation in the South."

"Mitra (1822-91) is famous for his publications on Orissan antiquities (1875, 1880), Bodh Gaya (1878) and a two-volume collection of essays (1881) dealing with different aspects of material life in ancient India. In his Odisha volumes he strongly advocated the independent origin of Indian stone architecture and earned the wrath of James Fergusson, the most established architectural historian of India of that time. In the volume on Bodh Gaya he argued for the existence of true arch in an early context in the Mahabodhi temple, and among his essays on the ancient Indian material life he cited copious data on beef- eating and the practice of spirituous drinking in ancient India."

"To judge of the past from the present, let us take the English nation in India. It has held India for a longer period than the Greeks did Bactria from the time of Alexander to that of As'oka, but yet it has produced no appreciable effect on the architecture of its neighbours. The Bhutanese and the Sikimites have not yet borrowed a single English moulding. The Nepalese, under the administration of Sir Jung Bahadur, are not a whit behind-hand of As ́oka and his people; Sir Jung went to Europe, which As'oka never did; still there is no change perceptible in Nepalese architecture indicative of a European amalgamation. The Kashmiris and the Afghans have proved equally conservative, and so have the Burmese. But to turn from their neighbours to the people of Hindustan : these have had intimate intercourse with Europeans now for over three hundred years, and enjoyed the blessings of English rule for over a century, and yet they have not produced a single temple built in the Saxon, or any other European style. Thus the conclusion we are called upon to accept is that what has not been accomplished by the intimate intercourse of three centuries, and the absolute sovereignty of a century, in these days of railways, and electric telegraphs, and mass education, was effected by the Greeks two thousand years ago simply by living as distant neighbours for eighty years or so."

"The theory of large-scale invasion by Aryans is now discounted as there is no evidence to support it."

"The most interesting is the discovery of bones of horse from the Kayatha levels and a terracotta figurine of a mare. It is the domesticate species (Equus caballus), which takes back the antiquity of the steed in India to the latter half of the third millennium BC. The presence of horse at Kayatha in all the chalcolithic levels assumes great significance in the light of the controversy about the horse."

"In view of Stein’s statement which had led us to believe that nothing very ancient would be found in the region, it was a great thrill for us when even on the first and second days of our exploration we found sites with unmistakable affinities with the culture of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro. And a few subsequent days’ work convinced us that the Sarasvatī valley had been really a commingling of many rivers, not only geographically, but culturally... ‘the valleys of the Sarasvatī and the Drishadvatī must be regarded as very rich indeed in archaeological remains’."

"[Ghosh is critiqued for his] utter subjugation to the framework of writing offered by Wheeler... [and for his] remarkable unwillingness to break out of the frame of thought which controlled research on ancient India in the pre-independent India period.... [He chose to] abide by the dictates of colonial Indology without showing any inclination to break out of their shackles."

"There is general agreement among scholars that all this demonstrates that "it can be stated with certainty that the present Ghaggar-Hakra is nothing but a remnant of the RgVedic Sarasvati which was the lifeline of the Indus Civilization"."

"In India the ... true horse is reported from the Neolithic levels at Kodekal [dist. Gulbarga of Karnataka] and Hallur [dist. Raichur of Karnataka] and the late Harappa levels at Mohenjo-daro (Sewell and Guha, 1931) and Ropar and at Harappa, Lothal and numerous other sites. … Recently bones of Equus caballus have also been reported from the proto-Harappa site of Malvan in Gujarat."

"‘The large number of protohistoric settlements, dating from c. 4000 BC to 1500 BC, could have flourished along this river only if it was flowing perennially.’"

"Whether the Aryans should be regarded as the authors of the Painted Grey Ware or not has been a matter of dispute. While most Indian scholars have held that they were, others have doubted it. It is not necessary to reconsider the matter here in detail, and it would suffice to emphasize that the geographical horizon of the later Aryans is cotenninous with that of the Ware; there is also a remarkable chronological proximity between the dates of the beginning of the Ware and the later Vedic age, which no critical scholar would place before the start of the first millennium B.C. There can, therefore, be no reasonable doubt in ascribing the Ware to the later Aryans."

"The description of the location, size and desiccation of the Sarasvatī River in the Vedic, epic and classical literature perfectly matches the features and history of the Ghaggar-Hakra River. Therefore it can be stated with certainty that the present Ghaggar-Hakra is nothing but a remnant of the Rgvedic Sarasvatī which was the lifeline of the Indus Civilization."

"V.N. Misra: ‘Late Harappan sites are concentrated on the tributaries of the [Sarasvatī] river, originating in the Siwalik Hills. They appear to be a consequence of the desiccation of the river and mass migration of the population to less dry regions near the Siwalik Hills and across the Yamuna.’"

"Bisht is well aware of the plethora of opinions proffered in interpretations of the Vedic landscape: "Diametrically opposite views have been expressed and rejected due to intrinsic contradictions, lack of coherence or consistency inherent in the approaches, or due to the appearance of fresh evidence" (392). Like Singh, he believes previous interpretations were predisposed to anticipating the Indo-Aryans to be "batbarian equestrians who, before entering India, roamed about in Central Asia and the Iranian Plateau . . . [and] thrived on stock-breeding and primitive farming" (392). He, too, finds that "the information gleaned from the Rgveda projects a pictute of considerably civi- lized Aryans." They had "a variety of petmanent settlements and fortified towns as well as monumental structures. They were advanced in agriculture, stock-breeding, manufacture of goods and long distance trade and commerce via roads, rivers, and seas" (393)."

"The archaeological and the anthropological evidences, represented by the various culture- groups of the second millennium B.C., are inconsistent with the philological evidence. Even the archaeological and anthropological evidences have been found to vary from region to region—Anatolia, northern Iraq, northern Iran, Soviet Central Russia, Swat valley and Gandhara region or Pakistan and Ganga-Yamuna doab. . . . It is obvious, therefore, that there was no single culture associated with the Aryans in all these regions. . . . Are we to assume that the Aryans were migrants with no defined culture but with adherence to a linguistic equipment?"

"As far as Thapar and Rahman (1996) are concerned, there is nothing "to show that the Indo-Aryan peoples possessed a specific material culture, special pottery, or particular figurines that would enable us to establish some kind of identification marks for their migration" (1996, 277)."

"Hindu religion, philosophy and social structure are nothing but the records of a glorious and instructive struggle of the human mind to free itself from limitations that become meaning less in the course of time, and to attain to more and more glorious heights that are revealed by man's ever expanding vision. There is no doubt that Hinduism will become once more a great world force, the moment this consciousness becomes a part and parcel of the modem Hindu mind and begins to mold and influence its activities in the different spheres of life.""

"Prof. D Mandal retired from the Department of Ancient History and Archaeology, Allahabad University, who was appointed on adhoc basis as Lecturer in 1972 but prior thereto he claimed to have worked as exploration assistant since 1960. Initially he appeared as an expert to depose that there is no archaeological evidence to show either existence of any temple at the disputed site or that a temple was demolished before construction of the disputed structure. The statements made by him in cross examination shows the shallowness of his knowledge in the subject:"

"“I never visited Ayodhya” (E.T.C.)"

"Given all the drama and moralistic bombast with which they used to surround this controversy, one would have expected their eagerness to report KK Muhammad's eyewitness account. But no, they were extremely sparing in their coverage, reluctant to face an unpleasant fact: the guilt of their heroes, the "eminent historians". These people outsourced the dirty work to Hindu and Muslim streetfighters and to Islamic terrorists, but in fact it is they who have blood on their hands."

"At the site where we got 12 pillars, they found 50 with the base and in 17 rows, indicating the presence of a huge temple. They also found ‘amalaka’ (a notched stone disk that sits on top of Hindu Temple ‘shikhara’) and ‘pranala’ (discharge outlet attached to the wall of a Hindu temple sanctum) and that too ‘magar pranala’ (crocodile-faced), which must be in a temple and not anywhere else. He also found over 263 terracotta idols. Do you expect this in a mosque? Then there was an inscription which clearly says that this temple is dedicated to Mahavishnu who killed Bali and Ravan. Also, in my work, I was the only Muslim… but in Mani’s excavation one fourth of the labourers engaged in earthwork were Muslims deputed to ensure that there was no bias or manipulation. Everything was videographed in the presence of an expert committee comprising independent people like lawyers and magistrates. The truth came out and proved some historians just wanted to complicate the issue. Muslims were ready (to find an amicable solution) and wanted to settle the issue without bloodshed. But a group of historians would not allow that."

"Mr. Mahadevan's comments were really an objective analysis of the archaeological data. I can reiterate this with greater authority, for I was the only Muslim who had participated in the Ayodhya excavation in 1976-77 under Professor Lal...I was at the Hanuman Garhi site, but I have visited the excavation near the Babri Masjid and seen the excavated pillar bases. The JNU historians have highlighted only one part of our findings while suppressing the other. ... Ayodhya is as holy to Hindus as Mecca is to Muslims. Muslims should respect the sentiments of their millions of Hindu brethren and voluntarily hand over the structure for constructing the Rama temple."

""The Babri issue, would have been settled long ago if the Muslim intelligentsia would not fallen prey to the brain washing of these historians"."

"In his Malayalam autobiography, Njan Enna Bharatiyan (I, an Indian), Muhammad states: A team of Left historians in Jawaharlal Nehru University such as Romila Thapar, Bipin Chandra and S. Gopal argued that there was no mention of the dismantling of the temple before the nineteenth century and Ayodhya was a Buddhist-Jain centre. Historians such as Irfan Habib, R.S. Sharma, Athar Ali, D.N. Jha, Suraj Bhan, too joined and it became a big grouping…[they] instilled courage and gave false hopes to the BMAC [Babri Masjid Action Committee]. This resulted in a reversal of the thought process amongst Muslims who had till then, been pondering wholeheartedly about giving back the mosque and settling the matter amicably. They came to a renewed conclusion that the mosque will not be given…"

"“I do not have any specific knowledge of history of Babur's reign.”"

""It was they who connived with the extremist Muslim groups to derail all attempts to find an amicable solution to the Masjid issue. Some of them even took part in several government-level meetings and supported the Babri Masjid Action Committee," he said."

"“ I know Dr. Suvira Jaiswal too. I have talks with her also. . . . . . From her articles it appears that she is influenced by Marxism.” (E.T.C.)"

"“I know Prof. Romila Thapar too. She is also influenced by Marxism. . ."

"Talking to Firstpost on his claims made in the book, Muhammed said the the action committee held several meetings under the leadership of Irfan Habib, the then chairman of the Indian Council of Historical Research. "The Babri issue would have been settled long ago if the Muslim intelligentsia had not fallen prey to the brain washing by the Leftist historians. A set of historians including Romila Thapar, Bipin Chandra and S Gopal argued that there was no mention of the dismantling of the temple before 19th century and Ayodhya is Bhudhist-Jain centre. They were supported by historians Irfan Habib,RS Sharma, DN Jha, Suraj Ben and Akthar Ali," he said."

"“It is true that I have not seen the disputed building as yet. I did not make any physical investigation of stone used in inscriptions carved out in the disputed building. Likewise, I also did not make physical investigation of basalt stone.”"

"A team of Left historians in Jawaharlal Nehru University such as Romila Thapar, Bipin Chanra, and S. Gopal argued that there was no mention of the dismantling of the temple before the nineteenth century and Ayodhya was a Buddhist-Jain centre. Historians such as Irfan Habib, R.S. Sharma, Athar Ali, D.N. Jha, Suraj Bhan, too joined and it became a big grouping. [The Leftist drama] instilled courage and gave false hopes to the BMAC. This resulted in a reversal of the thought process amongst Muslims who had till then, been pondering wholeheartedly about giving back the mosque and setting the matter amicably. They came to a renewed conclusion that the mosque will not be given..."

"“It is true that I am of communistic thought.”(E.T.C.)"

"“ Whatsoever little knowledge I have about Babur is only that Babur was the ruler of the 16 th century. Except for this, I do not have any knowledge of Babur."

"Prof. Romila Thapar is influenced by Marxism.”"

"I had written: "I can reiterate this (the existence of a Hindu temple before it was displaced by the Babri mosque) with greater authority - for I was the only Muslim who had participated in the Ayodhya excavations in 1976-'77 under Prof BB Lal as a trainee. I have visited the excavation near the Babri site and seen the excavated pillar bases. The JNU historians have highlighted only one part of our findings while suppressing the others..." ... By JNU historians, I meant the Leftist historians such as Irfan Habib, Romila Thapar, DN Jha, Bipin Chandra and RS Sharma who do not want to see a solution to the Ayodhya issue. Till the Allahabad High Court judgment came out on September 30, 2010, these historians maintained that there was no temple beneath the Babri mosque."

"A bare perusal of the above makes it clear that he virtually made a critical analysis of the book that is Paper No.118C1/36, a small booklet published by Prof. B.B.Lal and beyond that made no further or other study/research etc.. Only on that basis, he wrote a book, and analyzed the belief of the people whether the disputed structure was constructed after demolishing a temple or that there existed any temple of 11 th or 12 th century which was demolished before its construction."

"“We have found that the nature of material residues and the units of analysis in archaeology do not match or fit the phenomenon we wish to investigate, viz. Aryan migrations. The problem is exacerbated by the strong possibility that simultaneous with migrations out of Eurasia there were expansions out of established centres by metallurgists/prospectors. Last, when we investigate pastoral land use in the Eurasian steppe, we can make informed inferences about the nature of Aryan emigration thence, which is a kind of movement very unlikely to have had artefactual correlates.”"

"Ethics and honesty, [are] rare amongst scholars working on the Indian past."

"That this ‘social science approach’ can lead to disaster is suggested by a Ph. D thesis submitted by Shireen Ratnagar under Thapar. While examining the issue of Indus-Mesopotamia trade, this thesis reduced the Indus civilization to the position held by India in the British empire as a supplier of raw materials. Kumkum Roy was another of her Ph. D students and her book on the emergence of monarchy in Vedic India arranges certain portions of the Vedic texts in an arbitrary developmental order and postulates on that basis the ‘emergence’ of monarchy. Exercises of this kind may or may not be ‘social science’, but certainly this is not honest history."

"Contrary to the common notion that Indo-Aryan speaking peoples invaded the subcontinent and obliterated the culture of the Indus people; we now believe that there was no outright invasion; the decline of the Indus cities was the result of many complex factors."

"There is evidence for the intensification of subsistence practice, multicropping and the adoption of new forms of transportation (camel and horse). These changes were made by the indigenous inhabitants, and were not the result of new people streaming into the re- gion. The horse and camel would indicate connections with Central Asia. The cultiva- tion of rice would connect with cither the Late Harappan in the Ganga-Yamuna region or Gujarat. (Kenoyer 1995, 227;)"