THE ‘WHY’ OF THE AYODHYA EXCAVATIONS

There exists a great divergence of opinion regarding the historicity of the two Indian epics, namely the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. According to some, everything mentioned in these textsistrue to the very letter, while othersregard them asmere figmentsof the imagination. Such confusion seemsto prevail because there are no inscriptions contemporary with the events mentioned in these epics, which could indisputably authenticate their historicity. The earliest inscriptions available in India date back to the third or fourth centuryBC(leaving aside the inscriptions of the Indus Civilization, which, unfortunately, still remain undeciphered). On the other hand, the eventsnarrated in theMahabharata and the Ramayana, if these had a basis in historical reality, are unlikely to have been later than the time of the Buddha, that isthe sixth or fifth centuriesBC, since the history of India after the Buddha isso well known that it isdifficult to accommodate the Mahabharata and the Ramayana eventsthereafter.

Since no evidence of a contemporary inscription is available to establish the his-toricity of these two epics, the only way in which an archaeologist can tackle the issue is to excavate and explore the sites associated with the respective texts. And the great advantage in approaching the problem in such a manner is thatall the sites men-tioned in these epics bear the same names even today. This is mainly because these sites have remained under almost continuous occupation ever since they were first set-tled; hence the authenticity of their names. Thus, for example, there is only one Hastinapura, one Mathura and one Ayodhya.

With thisbackground, way back in the early 1950s, I began excavationsat Hastinapura and other sites associated with the Mahabharata story and discovered a common material culture (called in archaeological parlance the Painted Grey Ware Culture) in the lower levels thereof. The settlement at Hastinapura, the key site in the story, dated to a period from about 1100–800BC. Not only were the sites inter-locked with one and the same material culture but very significant archaeological evidence also turned up fully corroborating the literary statement which runs as follows: ‘Gangayapahr te tasmin nagare nagasahvaye, Tyaktva Nichakshur-nagaram

Kausambyam sa nivatsyat (When the city of Hastinapura is carried away by the Ganga, Nichakshu will abandon it and go to Kausambi)’.

Excavations at Hastinapura have brought to light evidence of a massive destruc-tion of the Painted Grey Ware settlement on account of a flood in the nearby Ganga. Not only were large-scale erosional scars duly identified on the riverside face of the mound but even a part of the washed-away material was recovered from the bore holesmade in the river-bed from asmuch as15 metresbelow the surface.

Further excavations at Kausambi have brought to light material from its lowest levels which represents a continuum from Hastinapura.

The results of the explorations at Hastinapura and other sites associated with the Mahabharata story were published in the mid-1950s (Lal 1954–5). Archaeologists and historians all over the world have since accepted that there did exist a kernel of truth at the base of the epic, though no doubt archaeology cannot provide evidence of Lord Krishna having spilled the butter-pot!

The question then arose about the historicity of the Ramayana, and the same methodology was applied in this case as well. Five sites associated with the story were excavated: Ayodhya, the capital of the Kosala kingdom; Sringaverapura, where Rama, Lakshmana and Sita were ferried across the Ganga by the Nishada chieftain Guha; Bharadvaja Asrama, where they sojourned for a while to pay their homage to the sage; Chitrakuta, where they stayed for quite some time before proceeding fur-ther south, and Nandigrama, from where Bharata looked after the kingdom in the absence of Rama. The work commenced in 1975 and continued up to 1986, a period of twelve years. A full report on the Sringaverapura tank came out in 1993; it isa great pity, however, that the Survey hassince withdrawn the entire staff and logistical support needed for the completion of the second volume on Sringaverapura itself, covering the remaining data from that site, and also for the other reports on the other sites. For the past number of years I have been writing letter after letter to the successive directors general and even to the government minister in charge (in 1995), but so far it has been a cry in the wilderness. Let me hope that one day these reports will see the light of the day.

The summary of the archaeological evidence from these sites, very briefly, is as follows. All the sites have yielded the lowest common denominator in the form of the Northern Black Polished Ware (NBPW) culture, dating back to about the sev-enth centuryBC. More importantly, a site like Bharadvaja Asrama, which is just a flat piece of land and not a mound asall the other sitesare, hasalso yielded the same kind of material in itsearliest levelsasdid Ayodhya. Further, the occurrence of the NBPW potsherds in a stray manner, often mixed up with the river-sand, and the finding of post-holes and clay lumps with reed impressions, showed that the site was only casually inhabited with wattle-and-daub huts, as might be expected in the case of anasrama. These discoveries were briefly published in Antiquity (Lal 1981), and have been well received. The Babri Masjid [mosque] protagonists are, how-ever, hell-bent on rejecting the historicity of theRamayana. Their motivation isnot far to seek: if they succeed in controverting the very historicity of Rama it would be much easier for them to argue that asthere wasno Rama there could not have been a Janma-Bhumi (birthplace), much less a temple there. And lo and behold, they

complain that ‘Ayodhya diggingsdid not confirm the traditional notionsof chro-nology of the so-called “sacred” texts or even of the “epic” story. It provided a rude shock insofar as the Rama saga centering around Ayodhya of the Tretayuga was not shown to be hundreds of thousands of years old.’ What a demand!

As stated in the opening paragraph, it is next to impossible to get any contempo-rary inscription to authenticate the historicity of these epics. Thus, one has to depend on the kind of archaeological evidence such as discussed above. In sum, it is evident that these epics did have a basis in historical reality, were originally sung as balladsand later on, when the art of writing became common, were reduced to a textual format. In this process, a lot of interpolation took place and poetic imagina-tion had itsplay. For example, theMahabharata, which consists of nearly 100 000 versesnow, wasat one time known astheBharata comprising 24 000 verses and at a still earlier stage had only 8000 verses and was called theJaya.

A paper nearly sixty pages in length entitled ‘Historicity ofthe Mahabharata and theRamayana: What hasarchaeology to say in the matter?’ waspresented at an International Conference on ‘New Archaeology and India’, organized by the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) in October 1988. This paper con-tained many more detailsand a fuller analysisof the data than theAntiquity paper;

however, it ismost unfortunate that the ICHR authoritiesof the time saw to it that this paper never saw the light of the day. The reason? The insertion in it of a para-graph as follows: ‘In the Janma-Bhumi area, the uppermost levels of a trench that lay immediately to the south of the Babri Masjid brought to light a series of brick-built bases which evidently carried pillars thereon. In the construction of the Babri Masjid a few stone pillars had been used, which may have come from the preceding structure.’ This information had to be added since around that time questions had begun to be asked about the discovery of these pillar-bases. To begin with the Babri-Masjid historians even stated that the evidence about the pillar-bases was fraudulent, but finally reconciled themselves to its authenticity once they knew that these bases were discovered as far back as the field season of 1975–6 and that the rel-evant photo-negativeswere there in the archivesof the Archaeological Survey of India. Since the subject of the pillar-bases had become very ‘hot’ and since the ICHR refused to publish the paper, another organization got hold of it and pub-lished it in its journal,The Manthana, as it found the pillar-base evidence supportive of its theory about the existence of a Hindu temple at the site prior to the construc-tion of the Babri Masjid. The Babri Masjid historians have expressed their indigna-tion that ‘there is no convincing reason forthcoming for the forum chosen by Professor Lal to publicize his afterthought’. The fact of the matter is that I never sent the paper for publication inThe Manthana; it was hijacked, for reasons just stated, and the then ICHR authorities must carry the blame for all that happened.

Had they published the paper, no one else would have dared to run away with it.

(More will be said about the significance of these pillar-bases below.)

EXCAVATIONS ADJACENT TO THE MANDIR-MASJID