By Japan K Pathak
Ahmedabad

“Future generations of Indians are going to curse us because we didn’t take care of our heritage,” said Mr. Madhukar Keshav Dhavalikar, a veteran archaeologist while speaking at Dr SR Rao memorial foundation lecture at IIM Ahmedabad.

He was speaking this in reference to the situation of Rangpur site of Indus valley civilization that was excavated by Dr SR Rao.

He said population is growing and land is limited. Therefore people are encroaching historical sites. In ten years there will be a situation that we will not have many ancient sites intact.

Dhavalikar pointed out that in the name of research people just do compilation these days. But in the past it was not so.

He said archaeologists excavate the sites but hardly 10% reports are published. This happens not just all over India but across the world in the field of archaeology.

Dhavalikar said Dr SR Rao not just excavated Lothal but wrote two bulky volumes of report, and he studied even economic features of Lothal, and industries located there. This was a new aspect of life that he pointed out.

He said there are 16,000 sites of Indus valley civilization in India and 400 in Pakistan. There’s debate going on that instead of Indus valley civilization, it should be actually called Saraswari civilization.

He said the areas of Punjab, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Sindh where this civilization was located are even today known for their acumen in trade and commerce. Same was the scenario in the past during Indus valley civilization days. And Gujarat in particular was into export of luxury items to Mesopotamia including shells, beads and ivory. Kautilya had said that best ivory was found in Saurashtra. Dwarka was known for shells. Saurashtra was known as Kunti Saurashtra. There were industrial estates on this land. Nageshwar in Saurasthra was into shell cutting. There were only two seal manufacturing units at that time and one of them was in Lothal. Prosperity of Indus valley civilization was largely due to marine trade in Saurashtra region.

Dhavlikar in his presentation showed how ancient Dholavira town was divided in four parts. Each part was fortified and people from one part would not go to the other part.

He said the roads were measured by 1.76 cm measurement of finger. The smallest road was 1.8 meter wide, and then in proportion the measurement was double, triple and so on. There was 1.9 meter high drain in which a human could stand up for cleaning work.

He said there’s an ancient huge tank at Dholavira site. Even when the place was not excavated, this tank used to offer water to local people. He said he visited the place in 1984 when excavation had not kicked off. It was scarcity period at that time and local villagers used to fetch water from that ancient tank which had always presence of water.

Dr Dhavlikar showed a inscription of crows in a boat discovered from Mohenjo Daro. He said there’s Jataka story that when people go from one country to other country across sea, they keep crow with them, that’s because crow has tendency to fly back to its place of origin when released. Thus, the sailors on their return journey used to free the crow when they wanted to inquire about the right direction to native place. The sailors would follow the direction of crow flight.

Dr Dhavlikar time and again pointed out that it was Saurashtra region that contributed to Indus valley’s prosperity.

On controversy around Dr SR Rao’s claim that Lothal had the oldest dockyard in the world, Dr Dhavlikar said it was our Archaeological Survey of India(ASI) responsible for confusion around this fact. ASI could call an international conference after Rao’s discovery of dockyard and could prove its point. Some people abroad said that the discovered structure was not dock yard but a tank for watering vegetable garden. It is only we Indian who tolerate such absurd claims. 800 ft long, 150 ft wide bricks structure was actually a dockyard, and we should proudly say that. Why don’t we openly say that yes it was a dockyard – the world’s oldest dockyard discovered.

Dhavlikar in his presentation also highlighted another controversy around presence of horse in a seal. He said it could be wild ass actually.

He also made presentation on Kuntasi site of Indus valley civilization discovered in Gujarat. He said, this just two acre size site had double fortification wall. It was a bead manufacturing site.

He also showed a slides featuring Lingas(Shiv Linga) found at Harappa and Kalibangan, earlier battle chariot of the world discovered at Harappan site 100 miles away from Pune, memory pillars at Dholavira(two in number and hardly 5 ft in size, in Sanskrit they are called Chhaya Stambh. There are two such pillar at Kanheri also), a person in Padmasana posture(Yoga).

Dr SR Rao Foundation organizes one memorial lecture every year. The first such lecture was delivered in Delhi, the second in Gujarat where Dr. Rao worked for 13 years. Dr. Rao’s daughter Nalini Rao is professor in Soka University in America. She was also present in this function. In her speech she said, we don’t have enough text available to link us to our past, and therefore monuments and archaeological sites are very important for us to relate to our past.

– DeshGujarat