ASI dig raises questions, not answers

LUCKNOW: The Archaeological Survey ofIndia (ASI) dig at the disputed site in Ayodhya just might have succeeded indigging up the Indian equivalent of the ‘Shroud of Turin’.The picture that emerges from the information presented in variousreports published by ASI from 1954 — including the latest one releasedthis week — remains hazy and vague about a key period in Indian history.More importantly, say scholars, ASI has failed to shed any light on thesite’s connection to Lord Rama, the key issue in the entire politicalcontroversy. According to an archaeologist involved in the 1976 digsat Hanuman Garhi and Sita-ki-Rasoi in Ayodhya headed by Prof B B Lal, all thatthe latest ASI report does is establish beyond doubt the presence of a structurebeneath the demolished Babri mosque, and push the antiquity of the site back bysix centuries. Prof Lal’s report, published in the IndianArchaeology Review of 1976-77, dates the antiquity of the site to circa 7thcentury BC, while the present ASI report says the site dates back to the“middle of the 13 century BC�. Beyond this, the present ASI reportsays absolutely nothing about its association with Lord Rama. Likethe 1976 study, the present ASI report indicates that the Northern BlackPolished Ware-using people were the first settlers at the site; and bothidentify the presence of the Sunga, Kushan and Gupta periods, with humanoccupation right up to 11th century AD. Importantly, both reports push theantiquity of the site to within 600 years of each other, about seven centuriesbefore the Christian era began; and finally, both indicate a subterraneanstructure dating back to the 11-12 century AD. But that’s where theclarity ends. According to archaeologists, there existed a‘Dark Age’ in Indian history from the end of the Harappan culture upto the beginning of the 6th century BC. Little was excavated and recorded ofthis period till 1954, when Lal published his findings of an excavation atHastinapur in Ancient India, The Bulletin of the Archaeological Survey of India.The discovery, dating and chronology of the various periods of the excavatedsite were of key value on three counts. This was the first well-directed steptowards shedding light on the ‘Dark Age’; second, this discovery ofHastinapur — the capital of the Kauravas — was the first substantialproof providing an archaeological link between the epic and ‘actualhistory’. Third, this excavation, for the very first time, placed theantiquity of Hastinapur to around 12th century BC. As the Ramayanais understood to predate the Mahabharata, historians and archaeologists place aminimum of three centuries between the two and hence expect excavated sitesconnected to the Ramayana to date back to around 1500 BC or even earlier. TheASI dig, has found no evidence to link the underground structure with Lord Rama.