The Development Of Archaeology In The Indian Subcontinent.pdf

The Development of Archaeology in the Indian Subcontinent Author(s): Dilip K. Chakrabarti Source: World Archaeology, Vol. 13, No. 3, Regional Traditions of Archaeological Research II (Feb., 1982), pp. 326-344 Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/124387 Accessed: 13-02-2017 05:14 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

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The development of archaeology in the Indian

subcontinent

Dilip K. Chakrabarti

Because of its sheer size, if for no other reason, the archaeology of the Indian subcontinent will receive primary attention here. Among the earlier writings on this subject are Roy (1961), Ghosh

(1953), Allchin (1961), Imam (1966) and Chakrabarti (1976, 1979, 1981) in the Indian context.

The roots

The first European notices of the living temples and ancient monuments of India are found in

the reports of travellers and sailors in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and the first half of the eighteenth centuries. These notices relate primarily to west and south India. The most important records of living temples are by John Huighen van Linschoten in the late sixteenth century

and Pietro della Valle in the early seventeenth century. While Linschoten (Purchas 1905) was unhappy about 'pagodes, cut and formed most uglie' Valle (1664) was detailed, objective and remains unique among his contemporaries in the sense that he supplemented his descriptions of

south Indian temples with ground plans. Among the ancient monuments the rock-cut caves of the Deccan, particularly Elephanta (Fig. 1), Kanheri and Ellora, attracted most attention (anon. 1785; Sen 1949). The descriptions were sometimes detailed, although there was no attempt at historical explanations, except occasional references to Alexander. The two important archaeological landmarks on the Orissan coast, the Jagannath temple of Puri (the White Pagoda) and

the sun temple of Konarak (the Black Pagoda), were also recorded during this period (D. Mitra 1968).

The middle of the eighteenth century

This period saw the beginning of a systematic and scholarly interest. First, accurate and precise

records of monuments began to appear and there was a better appreciation of India as a rich and fruitful area of historical and archaeological investigations. Second, there was also the beginning of theoretical research, primarily concerning the historical geography of the country.

In 1758 Anquetil du Perron (anon. 1785) was interested in the precise measurements and plans

of the Ellora rock-cut complex and its associated mythology. About 1760 he investigated World Archaeology Volume 13 No. 3 Regional traditions II

?R.K.P. 1982 0043-8243/82/1303-326 $1.50/1

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The development of archaeology in the Indian subcontinent 327

Figure 1 Architectural details of pillar and statue from Elephanta Island, Bombay. From the log of Captain Pyke of the East-Indiaman Stringer, 1712, published in Archaeologia, 7, 1785, pp. 323-33 by Alexander Dalrymple Elephanta and Kanheri. Carsten Niebuhr's visits to Elephanta, where he 'made drawings of all the most remarkable parts of it', seem to be somewhat later (anon. 1785). In both du Perron and Niebuhr one detects a positive awareness of India as an area of historical and archaeological

research. Niebuhr wrote: 'One still finds among the Indians, one of the oldest nations of the world, so many valuable remains of antiquity, which deserve more attention from the literati of

Europe, than has been hitherto bestowed on them' (anon. 1785). The first significant author on Indian historical geography was M. D'Anville (1753, 1775), who was concerned, among other things, with the identification of historical sites that had been

mentioned by the Classical authors on India, such as the Palibothra of the Classical sources with

Pataliputra. A fuller subsequent study of these problems appeared in a three-volume work by Joseph Tieffenthaler, du Perron and James Rennell (1786-88). About this time Rennell (3rd ed. 1793) published an independent study of his own. In all these volumes the primary concern was with the identification of ancient sites.

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328 Dilip K. Chakrabarti The Asiatic Society The Asiatic Society was founded in Calcutta on 15 January 1784, primarily at the initiative of William Jones. An annual journal, Asiatic Researches, was first published in 1788 and a museum was established in 1814. The aim of the Society was 'to inquire into the history and antiquities,

the arts, sciences and literature of Asia'. Three historical factors explain the success of this society. First, it was increasingly clear that the early British role of the trader would be replaced by that of a territorial ruler, and the time was ripe for a systematic investigation of the country.

Second, as Poliakov (1974: 183-88) has shown, in their attempt to free themselves from Judaeo-Christian thought, Western philosophical thinking, particularly that of the French Encyclopaedists, turned to India for the origin of culture and religion. This attitude is well reflected in the writings of Voltaire, who was 'convinced that everything has come to us from

the banks of the Ganges, astronomy, astrology, metempsychosis, etc.' (Poliakov 1974: 185). This particular image of India exerted considerable influence on German Romanticism (Wilson

1964). Third, the closing years of the eighteenth century witnessed the growth of many literary and

philosophic societies in Britain (Plumb 1966: 167): By 1815 every provincial town of importance had its society, supported by both the local

aristocracy and the local manufacturers who were equally aware of the social value of

scientific discovery . . . The results of this activity were vast and valuable. The flora and fauna of Britain, the nature of its soils and rocks, were examined in detail, catalogued, and given a scientific order and arrangement. The foundation of the Asiatic Society in Calcutta was entirely in keeping with the scientific spirit of late eighteenth century Britain.

Early theoretical approaches There were two early theoretical traditions. The first was distinctly geographical in content and

a continuation of the earlier historical-geographical studies. In the late eighteenth century its chief exponent was Rennell (1793), who identified ancient Pataliputra with modern Patna. He was also aware that ancient Ujjayini was the Ozene of the Periplus and Ptolemy. On some sites, such as Gaur, he made precise measurements. By and large Rennell's was a factual approach that tried to bring an element of objectivity into the reporting of ancient Indian monuments and sites.

The primary exponent of the second theoretical tradition was William Jones, who tried to link Indian history to Universal History as it was then understood. Its important source was the

ten 'discourses' Jones delivered on various topics between 1784 and 1793 (published between

1788 and 1793) as President of the Asiatic Society. When he delivered his discourses, the biblical theory of human creation was still dominant. There was no doubt about the unitary origin of mankind from a common ancestor. In this way all branches of the human family were

thought to be linked and likely to show survivals in various spheres of life that would reflect their commnon ancestry and spread from a single place of origin. One of the main issues before Jones was to understand these survivals in the Indian context and to demonstrate how ancient

India and Indians were historically linked to other human groups in the world. This theme is

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The development of archaeology in the Indian subcontinent 329 recurrent in virtually all his discourses. Jones's idea of the affinity of Sanskrit with several other

ancient languages neatly fitted into this thought-pattern. In the third discourse delivered on 2 February 1786 (1788: 430-1), he argued that the speakers of Sanskrit had an immemorial affinity with the old Persians, Ethiopians and Egyptians, the Phoenicians, Greeks and Tuscans; the Scythians or Goths, and Celts; the Chinese, Japanese and Peruvians; whence, as no reason appears for believing that they were a colony from any one of these nations or any of these nations from them, we may fairly conclude that they all proceeded from some central country ...

Jones's ideas were echoed by many of his contemporaries, although in a different form. T. Maurice (1800-1) wrote a seven-volume study of Indian Antiquities in which antiquities themselves hardly figured, but there were discussions of such esoteric issues as the Indian origin

of Druids. This was not an isolated idea but may be found in the works of a number of authors

until the middle of the nineteenth century (Chakrabarti 1976). With his emphasis on India as the centre of all things, Maurice echoes the tradition of the Encyclopaedists. Francis Wilford (1792) sought to trace the origin of the Nile on the basis of 'Hindu sacred books'. The point which must be stressed is that William Jones and many of his contemporaries were

not interested in accurately observing and reporting on Indian antiquities and monuments. For them, the basic problem was to integrate the emerging historical knowledge of India with contemporary notions concerning the origin of culture and civilization and within the framework

of the unitary origin of man as laid down in the Bible. These provided a significant framework for interpreting the Indian past. Jones's linguistic hypothesis linking Sanskrit to Greek, Latin and other languages, is only a part of this interpretive framework evolved in the context of pre-evolutionary thinking. If to Jones (1792) the centre of population, knowledge, languages

and all the arts was Iran, some of his contemporaries made India the centre of all things (cf. Maurice 1800-1). Until the middle of the nineteenth century it was believed that different cultural influences along with actual migrations of people went out of India, ultimately penetrating as far north as Scotland. From the middle of the nineteenth century, however, an entirely contradictory hypothesis was generally promoted: India was at the receiving end of various cultural influences and migrations of people emanating from regions further west. Whether this reversal of opinion had something to do with the establishment of the Raj in the

post-Mutiny period is, of course, difficult to determine, but the coincidence is too clear to be overlooked (Chakrabarti 1976). Both these hypotheses have one thing in common: emphasis is placed on movements of people as an explanation of historical change. In the historical studies on ancient India this explanation, which is rooted in pre-evolutionary thought-patterns, has served as the cornerstone of almost all historical explanations. It is also forgotten that the linguistic hypothesis of William Jones, which gave rise to the Aryan hypothesis, is part of the paradigm of pre-evolutionary Universal History.

1784 to 1830

There are at least three records of field discoveries (Davis 1790; Duncan 1798; Babington 1823) and some descriptions of ancient monuments (Chambers 1788; Harrington 1788; Goldingham

1795, 1798; Mallet 1799; Stirling 1825; Alexander 1830) during this period but it deserve

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330 Dilip K. Chakrabarti attention primarily because of two, basically non-archaeological, surveys which also recorded

monuments and sites. Colonel Colin Mackenzie was a military engineer who subsequently became the Surveyor General of the Topographical Survey of India. Much of his antiquarian

work, which was done principally in south India, remains unpublished, but his notes and drawings have been used by many later authors. It has been said that 'Mackenzie visited nearly every place of interest south of the Krishna river, and prepared over 2,000 measured drawings

of antiquities, carefully drawn to scale, besides facsimiles of 100 inscriptions, with copies of 8,000 others in 77 volumes' (Imam 1966: 17). The second important surveyor of this period was Francis Buchanan, whose south Indian surveys were published in 1807. His surveys in east India remained unpublished for a very long time. Buchanan noted archaeological sites, and his field observations are still useful because they recorded details which have since been lost.

1830 to 1861

The period beginning in 1830 witnessed a significant increase in archaeological activities. Th was due largely to the personal enthusiasm and influence of James Prinsep, the assay-master

the Calcutta mint who became the focal point of the Asiatic Society and guided its activitie along a new line. His call must have sounded inspiring to many of his contemporaries: 'What

learned world demands of us in India is to be quite certain of our data, to place the monumen

record before them exactly as it now exists, and to interpret it faithfully and literally' (1838

Another factor which gave considerable impetus to archaeological research during this peri

was the decipherment of ancient Indian scripts in which Prinsep himself played the key ro The process of decoding the Brahmi script began in the late eighteenth century with the

decipherment of two ninth-tenth-century inscriptions by Charles Wilkins (1788a, b). It culminated in the reading of the Asokan edicts of the third century BC by Prinsep in about

1837 (Prinsep 1838). About the same time Prinsep and others read the Kharosthi script which had been current, principally in the northwest (Sircar 1976). The decipherment of these two main early scripts resulted in a better understanding of the ancient Indian historical framework, within which it became possible to appreciate archaeological discoveries. It was also during this period that the foundations of the study of ancient Indian numismatics were laid down. Perhaps the most significant numismatist of the period was James Tod. Many well-known series of coins which were to revolutionize the study of ancient Indian history were brought into promi-

nence by Tod, a task in which he was soon joined by Prinsep among others (Imam 1966: 17). As far as the discoveries are concerned there were two major geographical foci, the northwest and the north Indian plain. In south India, the digging of megaliths (plate 1) was a popular

pastime, but this did not lead to anything (Harkness 1832). Barrows of a different form, the Buddhist sepulchral stupas or, as they were called in the contemporary literature, topes, provided the main attraction in the northwest. The process began with M. le Chevalier Ventura, a

general in Ranjit Singh's army, who opened the Manikiyala stupa in Panjab by driving a shaft through its centre (Prinsep 1834a, b, c, d). A. Court, an engineer in the same army, provided further information about this stupa and thought it to have been a 'royal tomb' (Court 1834). Alexander Burnes of the Bombay army, seeking 'the topes and Grecian remains in the Punjab', found himself being directed to from place to place 'like one in search of the Philosopher's

stone' (Burnes 1833). Increasing attention was paid to the sites in the north Indian plain.

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Plate 1 A megalithic site with a monolithic anthropomorph on top (Mottur, North Arcot District, Tamil Nadu). Megalithic sites in the south of India excited attention since the first half of the eighteenth century (courtesy B.K. Sinha)

This content downloaded from 210.212.93.46 on Mon, 13 Feb 2017 05:14:28 UTC Plate 2 General view of All an use excavated complex (lst-2nd century AD) at Sringaverpur, subject to tank http://about.jstor.org/terms Allahabad District, UP (courtesy Archaeological Survey of India)

332 Dilip K. Chakrabarti In 1834, at Behat near Saharanpur, P. T. Cautley (1834a, b) made an attempt to correlate an early historic settlement with the broad geographical features of the locality. The settlement was dated to the 'commencement of the Christian era' on the basis of coins. In 1837 Edward

Conolly (1837) made 'observations upon the past and present condition of Oujein or Ujjayini'. In 1843 Alexander Cunningham gave 'an account of the discovery of the ruins of the Buddhist

city of Samkassa' or Sankisa. This publication is important because for the first time it lays down the basic methods employed in Cunningham's subsequent surveys (Cunningham 1843). The main guide in this case were the writings of Fa xian, whose travels in India in the fifth

century AD provided the basic geographical bearings; all that Cunningham did was make a topographical survey of the ruins with comments on their probable identification. In 1856 A. F. Bellasis (1856a, b) described in considerable detail the early historic city of Brahminabad.

Descriptions of ancient sites during this period may easily be multiplied, but what is important is that by the middle of the nineteenth century there was a clear understanding of

the archaeological wealth of India. And in Meadows Taylor's megalithic excavations at Jiwarji (Taylor 1856) one also encounters a concern for stratigraphical details and careful recording, although Taylor must be considered far ahead of his contemporaries in this matter.

Alexander Cunningham The need for a methodical survey under government sponsorship was being increasingly felt and

this was clearly expressed by Alexander Cunningham (1848). Apart from emphasizing the need for a government-sponsored survey, he clearly stated his preferences and methods in this publication. Monuments and antiquities had to be published in a systematic manner and adequate consideration given to those associated with Buddhism. In the proposed survey the accounts of the two Chinese Buddhist pilgrims, Fa xian in the fifth century AD and Xuan zang

in the seventh century AD, would be the geographical guides. Imam (1966) has explained Cunningham's enthusiasm for Buddhist relics. The publication of Fa xian's travels in French in 1836 and Stanislas Julien's translation of Xuan zang's work in 1857 and 1858 along with the

proof of the historical authenticity of Buddha through textual researches in Nepal, Burma and

Sri Lanka, where Buddhism was still a living religion, marked a significant breakthrough in Indological studies and Cunningham was one who was deeply influenced by it. His concern with the Chinese travel accounts was also rooted in his interest in the topographical survey of ancient settlements which he, as a military engineer, could hardly escape.

Interestingly enough, Cunningham also thought that a search for Buddhist ruins would demonstrate that Brahminism was not the only paramount religion in India and this knowledge

would facilitate the propagation of Christianity there. Second, 'it would show that India had generally been divided into petty chiefships, which had invariably been the case upon every successful invasion; while whenever she had been under one ruler, she had always repelled

foreign conquest with determined resolution' (1848). In other words, he was trying to justify the systematic archaeological exploration of India on the grounds that politically it would help the British to rule India and lead to an easier acceptance of Christianity in the country. As the head of the newly constituted Archaeological Survey in 1861, Cunningham himself initiated the

explorations he proposed, but it must be understood that by the middle of the nineteenth century the basic nature of the monuments and historical sites in India was well understood. It is worth while to recall that around this time the study of Indian architecture took a

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The development of archaeology in the Indian subcontinent 333 systematic shape. The primary credit here goes to James Fergusson, who undertook an architec-

tural survey between 1834 and 1845 and arranged the Indian architectural remains in an evolutionary order on the basis of his analysis of structural features (Allchin 1961).

Cunningham headed the Archaeological Survey for two spells, 1861-5 and 1871-85. The Survey was disbanded in 1865 and organized again in 1871. In the first phase he worked alone; in the second he was allowed two assistants. Over a total of nineteen years he went over the ground, sometimes repeatedly, of a surprisingly large amount of territory which included the whole of the Gangetic valley, Panjab and the Northwestern Frontier Province, central India and

Rajputana. No archaeologist in India, before or since, has had such a close personal familiarity with such an impressive stretch of territory. The results of surveys done either by him or by his assistants are contained in the twenty-three volumes of his Reports, published between 1862

and 1887. Along with his basic field reports one must also consider his analytical writings on historical geography, coins, inscriptions, architecture and sculpture. To all these fields he made significant contributions, in many cases on the basis of his own findings (for a comprehensive

bibliography of Cunningham, see Imam 1966). In his Memorandum of Instructions to his assistants written in 1871, Cunningham set a high

ideal for archaeology (1873): 'Archaeology is not limited to broken sculptures, old buildings and mounds of ruins, but includes everything that belonged to the world's history . .. our researches should be extended to all ancient remains whatever that will help to illustrate the manners and customs of former times'. This ideal notwithstanding, he remained throughout the

course of his official explorations true to the goal he set for himself as early as 1848, if not earlier: the elucidation of Indian historical geography by following the footsteps of Fa xian and Xuan zang. By training a military surveyor and engineer who attained the rank of major-general, he remained to the end an archaeological surveyor concerned with the issues of Indian historical

geography. In most cases his identifications of ancient sites have proved to be correct.

Excavations, for Cunningham, were matters of test-probing which was never followed by a planned effort. The basic method, in the case of a stupa, was the digging of a well to the centre.

In this he followed the tradition of opening stupas developed in the northwest. In situations where no superficial remains were visible, he dug long trenches to hit structures. In these explorations his main concern was the identification of the sites in the light of ancient records. The details of the site did not always interest him. Cunningham's near total preoccupation with historical geography places him in the tradition that had begun in India in the second half of

the eighteenth century. Yet by making the geographical issues clear and by successfully demarcating the fields of ancient Indian numismatic, inscriptional, architectural and sculptural studies he made possible the more detailed and in-depth studies of individual monuments, groups of monuments and sites by some of his contemporaries and successors.

James Burgess

Cunningham's successor in the Survey, James Burgess, was inspired by the tradition of architec-

tural studies initiated by James Fergusson. Before he came to the Survey, he made his mark by undertaking and organizing a series of detailed surveys of some of the principal monuments of

west and south India. In 1872 he started a journal, Indian Antiquary, which came to be famous for its detailed inscriptional and other historical studies. Inscriptional studies were put on a more secure basis with the series Epigraphia Indica and with the appointment of a government

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334 Dilip K. Chakrabarti epigraphist some time later. However, the main interest of Burgess lay in architecture, and

under him archaeology in India was equated with the study of structures (Burgess 1905): ancient stupas and other remains were dug up and demolished under the idea that the relic caskets or any entire pieces of sculpture found within or about them were the only objects of archaeological research, whilst no attention was paid to the character and size of the building, or to what bricklayers would call the 'bond' of the bricks, their moulding, size, etc. matters from which important deductions might possibly be drawn as to the age, purpose, arrangement and relations of sculptures, and history of a structure.

Burgess's monographs on various groups of monuments published both before and after his retirement from the Survey in 1889 constitute one of the major foundations of Indian architectural studies. Yet it would be wrong to say that archaeology as such flourished under him in the Survey. In fact, in the post-Cunningham period there was virtually no concern with field archae-

ology. The period witnessed significant developments in the general historical understanding of ancient India but, by and large, field archaeology remained totally neglected until the appointment of John Marshall as the head of the Survey in 1902.

John Marshall

It would be invidious in this context not to acknowledge the debt Indian archaeology owes to Lord Curzon, then the Viceroy. It was under his direct patronage that John Marshall began work, and it was he who laid down the basic guidelines of this work:

It is in the exploration and study of purely Indian remains, in the probing of archaic mounds, in the excavation of old Indian cities, and in the copying and reading of ancient inscriptions, that a good deal of the exploratory work of the archaeologist in India will in

future lie . . . It is in my judgement equally our duty to dig and discover, to classify, reproduce, and describe, to copy and decipher, and to cherish and conserve (cited in Marshall 1904).

Marshall directly shaped the course of Indian archaeology until 1928, when he retired. Conser-

vation of ancient monuments and objects was among his first priorities and the basic principles

of conservation laid down by him in the Indian context (Marshall 1923) are still followed by the Survey. The Survey was reorganized and centrally consolidated; the whole of the sub-

continent was neatly parcelled into a number of archaeological 'circles', each with its complement of officers and men. The successive issues of the Annual Report beginning with the year

1902-3 faithfully reflect the manifold tasks performed by the officers of the Survey. Under Marshall the Archaeological Survey of India became the largest single organization of its kind in

the history of archaeological research and witnessed its most glorious and 'imperial' period. The details of the discoveries and excavations made in India during this period by Marshall's

colleagues and Marshall himself perhaps do not fit into the present survey of archaeological traditions, but a few salient points cannot be ignored. First, no part of the country escaped attention. Even a casual perusal of the Annual Reports indicates this. Second, specialized studies of monuments, sites and areas were not neglected. The volumes published as Memoirs bear witness to this fact. Third, some of the discoveries and excavations revolutionized the

study of Indian archaeology and ancient history. One has only to recall the discovery of

the Indus civilization and the long spell of excavations at Mohenjo Daro and Harappa, the

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The development of archaeology in the Indian subcontinent 335 explorations of Aurel Stein in Baluchistan, the explorations of N. G. Majumdar in Sind, and the

excavations at Taxila and at some of the most important early historical sites of the Gangetic valley. It may be added that all these works have been fully published. Fourth, it was during this period that the natives of the subcontinent were inducted into superior positions in the Survey and associated with both excavations and discoveries. Several Indian scholars like Ram Raj, Bhagawanlal Indraji and Rajendralal Mitra had made their mark in the field of Indological

scholarship in the nineteenth century and the help of the traditional Indian scholars was invaluable for the early decipherment of inscriptions but it was during this period that archaeology became a recognized part of Indian academic thinking. A point that is not usually appreciated is that when John Marshall was directing the Indian

archaeological scene, historical scholarship about India had already come of age. The details of ancient Indian political history, religion, economy and culture had been established on the basis of textual, inscriptional, numismatic, architectural, sculptural and other sources. Yet at the same

time, as the important sites associated with the course of ancient Indian history remained largely unexcavated, there was something shadowy about the historical image of ancient India.

The excavations initiated by Marshall at such sites as Taxila, Bhita, Sravasti, Vaisali, Rajagriha, Sarnath and Nalanda provided the much needed touch of reality to this image. The period most affected by it in the historic context was the early historic period in the Gangetic valley and the

northwest, roughly the period of 'Buddhist India'. The work initiated by Marshall suddenly made this period alive in the Indian cultural consciousness. In the nationalist image of ancient India this resuscitation of the Buddhist period played an important role. In the field Marshall was primarily concerned with the horizontal exposure of sites. This had not been previously attempted in the Indian context. In fact, apart from the work of Bellasis

at Brahminabad in Sind, no archaeologist had even thought about the total picture of the site. Under Marshall, structures were individually described and their positions plotted in relation to

the total plan of the site. Their history was determined on the basis of successive structural phases. Plans were drawn of the excavated settlement as a whole and the main cultural occupations were reconstructed both on the basis of structural remains and antiquities. For a typical 'Marshall report' see Marshall 1915. His methods of excavation have been criticized, quite justifiably, on the ground that the depth of antiquities and 'strata' was interpreted in relation to a fixed bench-level on the top of the mound, in violation of the principles of modern

stratigraphic excavation. The only point which may be said in Marshall's favour is that he achieved what he wanted: a total picture of the site and its main historical-cultural periods. This is a point that was subsequently acknowledged by the strongest critic of his excavations, Mortimer Wheeler (1950).

The severe financial cuts imposed by the Government of India in the 1930s did not help archaeology in the post-Marshall period, and the names of successive director-generals of the Survey until Mortimer Wheeler's appointment in 1944 are of no academic interest. It was with Wheeler that prehistory became a formal part of the Survey activities and one may thus choose

this point for a review of the developmental pattern of Indian prehistoric studies till then.

The development of prehistoric studies Isolated finds of microlithic and Neolithic implements were made in India before 1863, but it

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336 Dilip K. Chakrabarti

was in that year that Robert Bruce Foote, a geologist in the Geological Survey of India first

identified a Palaeolithic implement in India (a handaxe) in a gravel pit at Pallavaram near Madras. Foote's subsequent geological career lay in the modern states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat. In each of these areas he discovered, along with other types of prehistoric sites a large number of Palaeolithic tool-bearing localities. The two volumes

that he wrote describing' and analysing this collection were published posthumously (Foote 1914, 1916). These constitute the basic reference point for all later discoveries over a large part

of south India and Gujarat. Discoveries were also made in other parts of India (cf. Dasgupta

1931), and the wide distribution of Palaeolithic and other prehistoric implements in the country was amply clear by the beginning of the twentieth century. The early discoverers of palaeoliths in India were mostly geologists who seldom went beyond enumerating the geological context of the implements and sites. The tool-typology and the methods of manufacture were never fully discussed. Nor was any attention given to the possible evolution of tool-types. The

description of the geological contexts was usually precise and in two cases led to the proof of association of these tools with Pleistocene fauna (Wynne 1866; Medlicott 1873). There was no significant discovery between 1900 and 1930. Apart from the two volumes of Foote's catalogue published in 1914 and 1916, the only significant publication of this period

was a general survey of prehistoric India by P. Mitra (1923). The period between 1930 and 1950 witnessed the beginning of systematic interest in Indian Palaeolithic studies. In 1930 L. A. Cammiade and M. C. Burkitt (1930) studied the finds of tools over a long stretch along the Eastern Ghats which fringe the Andhra coast. Two theoretical points make this study historically significant. First, on the grounds of stratigraphy, typology and their state of preser-

vation, the tools were grouped into 'four series belonging to four distinct cultures of different

dates'. Series 1 to 4 corresponded successively to the Lower Palaeolithic, Middle Palaeolithic, Upper Palaeolithic and microlithic industries. Second, they tried to develop a climatic sequence of these industries from an analysis of their respective geological contexts. In 1935 H. de Terra of Yale University and T. T. Paterson of Cambridge University led a joint prehistoric expedition to the Potwar plateau where they discovered a succession of Palaeolithic industries and put

them in the context of successive terraces along the Soan river. The terrace-sequence was corre-

lated to the outwash of the glacial cycle in Kashmir, which again was taken to correspond to the four-fold glacial cycle in Europe. Thus an attempt was made to provide a precise chronological perspective to the Palaeolithic industries of the Soan valley. Terra and Paterson also investigated, albeit briefly, the Narmada valley and the area around Madras. A broad correlation was attempted between the Soan and Narmada sequences in an attempt to give a chronological framework to the central Indian Pleistocene and related industries. Because of its geochrono-

logical approach, their work (Terra and Paterson 1939) became an important reference point for later investigations elsewhere in India.

In 1939 K. R. U. Todd published a major paper on his discoveries around Bombay, describing a major section and the associated industries. Between 1939 and 1942 N. K. Bose

and D. Sen of Calcutta University (1949) discovered a rich Lower Palaeolithic industry in Mayurbhanj, Orissa. In 1946 H. D. Sankalia of Deccan College, Poona University, published the results of his prehistoric investigations in Gujarat. What is important from the point of view of

later development is that during this period the Indian universities became involved in prehistoric research.

The discovery of the Indus civilization and the related excavations and explorations highlighted

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The development of archaeology in the Indian subcontinent 337 the protohistoric phase of Indian archaeology in the 1920s and 1930s but even before this a considerable number of copper-bronze 'prehistoric' implements were found in unstratified contexts in the Gangetic valley and the adjacent plateau region of central India (Smith 1905). The sporadic excavations of south Indian megaliths continued from the first quarter of the nineteenth century, although with few positive results except a rich crop of iron implements and pottery.

Mortimer Wheeler

Mortimer Wheeler was at the helm of the Archaeological Survey for only four years (1944--8)

out of which one was lost in the turmoil of Independence and Partition. Yet what he achieved and initiated during this short period was considerable, and is reflected in the notes and articles that he wrote for the first five issues of Ancient India, a new Survey journal which was started

by him in 1946. In retrospect the following features stand out. First, he took a total view of

archaeology beginning with the Palaeolithic stage and emphasized the need for scientific analyses in archaeology. One can cite a few good scientific analyses from the earlier period, such as the study of animal, human and crop remains at the Indus cities of Mohenjo Daro and Harappa, and the chemical analyses of metal samples from some sites, but it was Wheeler who first argued the basic necessity of scientific aids in archaeology in India. Second, he put strong emphasis on careful archaeological planning, both on the level of an individual site and in terms of a wider area. This was something novel for India. Third, by excavating at Taxila, Harappa and Arikamedu he not only demonstrated the significance of such planning by solving major prob-

lems related to these sites but also introduced to India the modern concept of archaeological

stratigraphy. He also introduced there for the first time the significance of the study of stratified ceramic material for determining the cultural succession at excavated sites and its importance in comparative study of material between different sites. Fourth, he gave field training in his methods to a large number of Indian students who have kept his excavation tradition alive since then. He also wrote a number of articles on the excavation procedures for

his Indian colleagues and students in Ancient India. Fifth, he was wise enough to realize that

archaeological research in such a large territory as India could not be done by the Archaeological Survey alone - effective participation by the universities was necessary - and, it was under his inspiration that several Indian universities started archaeological research. Wheeler's final contribution to the tradition of Indian archaeological research is something intangible and can be appreciated only by those who have felt it, directly or indirectly. Despite his very short stay as Director General, he infused an element of urgency into the Indian archaeological scene. With him archaeology in India became exciting, worth doing for its own sake. This excitement is apparent in the articles that he wrote, and still affects those who know the scene.

The post-Independence period Whatever may be said about Wheeler's historical-archaeological theories in the Indian context

or about his emphasis on one set of data at the expense of another to prove a particular assumption, there is little doubt that he prepared the archaeology of the subcontinent for its transition to modernity in the post-Partition period. The Independence and Partition of India in

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338 Dilip K. Chakrabarti 1947 started the fragmentation of the archaeology into its present units, India and Pakistan, and in 1971 Bangladesh entered the scene in her own right. Archaeology in Sri Lanka and Nepal

is also a part of the modern picture. One can detect certain variations in the archaeological activities in all these countries, but these variations are more due to the nature of their ancient sites than to anything fundamental.

It must be stressed at this point that a review of the current data and individual theories is

beyond the scope of the present paper which will only outline the broad features and the dominant conceptual framework. The general progress of archaeology in the subcontinent will be apparent if one compares Stuart Piggott's still useful, Prehistoric India (1950) with Sankalia's

Prehistory and Protohistory of India and Pakistan (1974). For more recent developments one can do no better than turn to Jerome Jacobson's masterly survey (1979).

The number of basic discoveries since 1947 is surely impressive. These discoveries belong to all phases of the archaeological sequence beginning with the Lower Palaeolithic. Most areas have been well surveyed, yielding thousands of sites from all periods. The most important beneficiary

has been prehistoric and protohistoric research. In the field of prehistory there is hardly any

area outside the Indo-Gangetic alluvium that has not revealed its own prehistoric succession. As far as protohistory is concerned, the results are even more complete. The distribution of the

Indus civilization sites has been satisfactorily worked out both in India and Pakistan, revealing an extent and complexity that was not imagined before. The background of the Indus civilization is now well understood. Equally, if not more, impressive is the evidence concerning the protohistoric situation outside the Indus civilization. The discovery of protohistoric sites in the

northwest, Kashmir, the Gangetic valley, central, west, south and east India has added a completely new chapter to the subcontinent's history. Important historical sites of various areas were already known, but recent explorations have added a plethora of new sites (plate 2), and

the details of the historical situation are now better understood. Both explorations and excavations have played their respective parts in promoting discoveries. There is not a single major area from the hill valleys of Baluchistan to the tip of the peninsula where there is no excavated sequence. At many of the important sites there have been horizontal excavations. Considered as a whole, Pakistan shows a preference for protohistoric sites, a perfectly logical choice in view of

both the importance of such sites in that area and the need for a new nation to seek deep roots.

Nepal is fascinated more by the Buddhist remains in her foothill region and archaeology in Bangladesh has been dominated by early historic and medieval remains. In each of these cases the distribution of sites dictates archaeological preference. In India, simply because of its size and diversity of remains, by and large all periods have come in for scrutiny.

The second major phenomenon, although it is not yet particularly strong, relates to the field of natural scientific analyses in archaeology. This is more apparent in India than elsewhere in the subcontinent. A significant step in this direction was taken with the establishment of a radiocarbon laboratory in Bombay (later transferred to Ahmedabad) which has branched out in recent years to include palaeo-environmental and metallurgical investigations. A second radio-

carbon laboratory has started operating in the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany, Lucknow, which has long been known for its profound contributions to the study of ancient plant remains

and pollen sequences. Organized natural scientific groups are also active in archaeology at the Deccan College, Pune, and elsewhere. The third major tradition which has gathered momentum since Independence is the partici-

pation of the universities in archaeological field researches. Certain universities have already

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The development of archaeology in the Indian subcontinent 339 played a major role and the historic leadership of H. D. Sankalia must not go unacknowledged in this context. There is also an increasing number of archaeological publications. In addition to

the monographs, reports and miscellaneous journals one may mention the following leading

annual journals and bulletins: Pakistan Archaeology (Government of Pakistan), Ancient Pakistan (Peshawar University), Ancient India (Government of India), Indian Archaeology - a Review (Government of India), Ancient Nepal (Government of Nepal), Puratattva - Bulletin of the Indian Archaeological Society and Man and Environment (Indian Society for Prehistoric and Quaternary Studies). On the whole, one tends to agree with Jacobson (1979): 'Today there are few world areas of comparable size where knowledge of the ancient past is growing so rapidly and over so broad a geographical and chronological spectrum'. We must consider how all these discoveries and basic researches have been integrated into an

interpretive framework. To begin, we have to look first at the historical situation of archaeology as an academic discipline in India both past and present. Archaeology developed within the Indian academic scene as an adjunct to ancient historical studies. The wheels of that huge

bureaucratic archaeological machinery, the Archaeological Survey of India, moved steadily along, churning out an immense amount of data, and the ancient historians at the universities

and elsewhere continued to try to fit these data into their own structures. There was no attempt at any point to view archaeology as an academic discipline in its own right. The primary concern in the pre-Independence period was with historical material that would amplify the rich tapestry of Indian literate civilization. Prehistoric data were known, but there was not much understanding of them in the curricula of the universities or in the writings of the

historians. After all, that would only demonstrate that India too had passed through a barbaric

phase and this was hardly an attractive proposition to the nationalist spirit of the times. It is also important to appreciate that orthodox ancient Indian historical studies have always been characterized by a more or less fragmented approach to history, in which bits and pieces of data

relating to particular periods were analysed and described without any examination of what today would be called 'total history'. Even this approach has its historical reasons. First, the textual data on ancient India are severely limited in quantity and suffer from the additional handicaps of ambiguity, chronological uncertainty and limited geographical applicability. Second, contemporary studies emphasized racial and linguistic variations in the country and encouraged ancient historians to think in terms of different racial and linguistic groups. Third, Indian history was viewed as a process in which there had been continuous migrations of people

from outside bringing in techniques and innovations. The pride lay in emphasizing how these incoming groups lost their 'foreignness' and became a part of the Indian culture and populace. It is this interpretive framework of ancient India that was called upon to explain the rapidly increasing archaeological data in the post-Independence period. No particular explanation was needed for the Palaeolithic data, which were too remote in time and, because of the absence of

contemporary human remains, remained coldly impersonal and dull. There was also no problem with the data of the historic periods which were always understood and related to what was already known. The main challenge lay in the late prehistoric and protohistoric periods.

When the Indus civilization was discovered it was neatly labelled as pre-and-non-Vedic and treated as a backdrop to the stage the Aryans could act on. Wheeler's explanation for the end of

the Indus civilization as resulting from the Aryan invasions only made this position further secure. There was no problem until an assortment of settled food-producing communities of the

3rd and 2nd millennia BC were discovered in all the, major agricultural regions of the

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340 Dilip K. Chakrabarti

subcontinent. These newly discovered cultures had to be historically understood. The questions asked of them were: 1. Do these cultures represent various groups of people mentioned in early texts? 2. Do some of them belong to autochthones who were in the country before the Aryans

came? 3. Do some of them represent the traces of the early Aryans themselves? Because Iran

and central Asia were two postulated springboards of the Aryan migration to India, most of these cultures were carefully scrutinized for possible Iranian and Central Asian analogues (for

an illustration of this approach, see Sankalia 1974). Apart from this tradition of attaching ethnic and linguistic labels to the newly discovered archaeological culture groups, the dominant approach is what should be called 'descriptivehistorical', the piecing together of various pieces of information about these cultures and their integration in general descriptive terms. One of the reasons why archaeology in the subcontinent still fights shy of the rigours of modern scientific planning and analysis is that the

current approach, rooted in ancient Indian historical studies, does not demand any rigorous scientific planning and analysis (Agrawal and Chakrabarti 1979). The general situation is not acceptable to all archaeologists. Many current assumptions are being increasingly questioned and there is more emphasis on the archaeological understanding of data without taking recourse to the orthodox historical framework (for a review, see Jacobson 1979). 1

.viii.1981

Delhi

University

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344 Dilip K. Chakrabarti Abstract

Chakrabarti, Dilip K. The development of archaeology in the Indian subcontinent Because of its size, the archaeology of India has received the primary attention. All the main stages of Indian archaeology are briefly analysed, and it has been demonstrated how, an impressive number of discoveries notwithstanding, traditional and ancient Indian historical thinking has conditioned archaeological approaches.

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