An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v2.c44.107

v2.c44.107

**Rajghat⁴** (25°4'; 83°1'), Dt Varanasi, on the n. outskirts of Varanasi city, near the confluence of the Ganga and Barna (Varuṇā), representing the ancient city of Vārāṇasi, the capital of the kingdom of Kāśi, one of the 16 *mahā-janapadas* in Buddha's time. The antiquity of the city and its continuous history was not confirmed by any archaeological evidence till as late as 1940, when the mound was being despoiled for earth for the remodelling of the adjacent railway station. In the same year a trial excavation of the site was taken up by the ASI (Deva, 1940). The operation, besides revealing a temple hall supported on 12 pillars along with other brick structures, unearthed a store of black pottery now famous as the NBPW [11.16] and other antiquities including terracotta figurines but did not strike the natural soil. A sealing inscribed in Gupta characters with the legend *vārāṇasyadhiṣṭhānādhikaraṇasya* confirmed that the mound of Rajghat represented ancient Vārāṇasī. Much more extensive work was carried out here by A.K. Narain and his colleagues of the Banaras Hindu Univ. during 1960-7, revealing a continuous sequence of six Pds, from before the NBPW to medieval times, which should serve as an index for this region.