About 13 years back when I was a self-style researcher of Gujarat’s history, I used to spend hours in libraries reading the books related to Gujarat’s history. And while going through the lanes of Gujarat’s history, the most interesting chapters I found were from medieval Solanki ruled Gurjar desh. Existing political map of Gujarat was for the first time consolidated in that era, which is known as the golden era of Gujarat, and the centre point of whole Gurjar desh and this Golden era was the capital city of Patan.

While the city of Ahmedabad is celebrating 600 years of existence, it is interesting to note that Patan stayed as capital of Gujarat for longer period than Ahmedabad. Moreover the city of Patan was capital of Gurjar desh that was much larger than present Gujarat state. In Solanki era, our Gurjar Desh’s geographically area was upto northern Madhya Pradesh in east(Malava region was won by Siddhraj Jayasimh), parts of present Sindh state of Pakistan(Nagarparkar area) and Ajmer(Arnaraj was defeated by Siddhraj) in north, and Konkan in south(Mumbai has still a fort built by Gujarat’s medieval ruler). Shri Kanaiyalal Munshi has given a nice map of this medieval period Gurjar Desh in his one of the books.

Now after reading the exciting details of Solanki rule and Patan, I couldn’t prevent myself from visiting existing Patan town in north Gujarat. And in those days when it was easy for me to move freely, my fascination with Gujarat’s history and one old State transport bus brought me to Patan. I camped there for 15 days around Diwali in perhaps 1998.

I already had some books and some photocopies narrating the details of Patan with the help of which I started walking around the city. Some local friends(as we have some property in Patan including a Shiv Mandir) were ofcourse there to help,but they had little knowledge or interest in history and archaeology. This continued till I met Mukundbhai Brahmkhshatriya.

For me, and for all those who visit Patan with some historical interest can not return back without visiting Shri Mukundbhai Brahmkhshatriya – an old man who runs local newspaper and a small printing press, but who is well known for his knowledge on local history and for his immense interest in local archaeology related issues.

When I visited Shri Bhrahmkhshatriya, he asked me to visit a small village called ‘Vadli’, just five kms from Patan in western direction. Mukundbhai narrated how worth it was to visit Vadli. He told me how sculptures and parts of houses of medieval Patan city emerge from the land of village Vadli often. He said, “the people of Vadli don’t buy bricks when they need to build house, because there are so many medieval era bricks abundant in the village here and there”. Mukundbhai told me how 300 Jain Tirthankar murtis were discovered from Vadli village sixty years back(some of them are at Panchasar derasar in Patan). He also said there were limestone structures appearing at some places in Vadli from beneath the land. Mukundbhai was of strong opinion that Vadli should be excavated by Archaeological department. He was equally passionate about demanding further excavation of Patan’s partially excavated Sahastraling Tank and erection of protective dome over Queens stepwell in Patan. But excavation of Vadli was still first thing in his agenda.

Motivated by veteran historian of Patan, I visited Vadli(that was known as Vatapalli in medieval era) and spent a day there. I should say it was a fascinating experience. Almost every villager had something to say about his experience of discovering something of medieval era. If one person had some coins of medieval era to show, other person had pottery to showcase, and if nothing, one could easily talk about large-size medieval bricks. Yes Vadli was prospective site for excavation, I agreed with Mukundbhai after my visit. Now this is the end of this part of the story. But the other part is interesting and fresh.

The Government of Gujarat has approved the allocation for Archaeological excavation in Vadli village in its recently announced budget draft for fiscal year 2011-12.

When DeshGujarat contacted Gujarat state Archaeology department’s Superintendent Shri Y.S.Rawat, he confirmed this, and added that his department would first need to seek permission for excavation from concerned department of the central government. Rawat said this procedure would be carried out in month of July this year. “Once the centre approves the proposal, the department would be in capacity to start the pre-excavation procedures such as identification of land, creation of team and survey. Ofcourse a full-scale excavation will follow.

Rawat’s department lastly completed excavation in another north Gujarat town Vadnagar, thanks to Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s deep interest in it, as Vadnagar is Modi’s birthplace.

While Vadnagar excavation actually realized, due to Modi’s deep interest in that task, the excavation in Vadli will be realizing because local MLA and powerful state cabinet minister Anandiben Patel is taking interest in it. Now if you have a question how Anandiben started taking interest in Archaeology, Shri Mukundbhai of Patan has an answer.

For last many years whenever any VIP would come to visit Patan’s places of tourist interests, the local administration would call Mukundbhai to guide that VIP. Mukundbhai would happily agree to do that service but with hidden agenda of finding an opportunity to tell that VIP to recommend excavation of Vadli and further excavation of Sahastraling talav. In the course of this, once Mukundbhai got a chance to meet local MLA and state Revenue minister Anandiben Patel, and he was successful to convince Anandiben to visit the village Vadli. When Anandiben Patel personally witnessed rich possibilities of discovery of archaeological treasure of medieval Gujarat here, she decided to push for excavation cause in Gandhinagar.

Let’s hope Archaeological excavation begins soon in Vadli, possibly in this year only. Superintendent Rawat backs this idea saying: “Yes it’s possible this year.”