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Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v2.c42.s1: The Antiquity of the Background of the Epic Story

Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v2.c42.s1

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The Antiquity of the Background of the Epic Story

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The *Mahābhārata* clearly recalls the earlier Ṛgvedic civilization on the shores of the Vinaśana, the lost river Sarasvati. The archaeological findings in this area point out settlements in the third and second millennium BC. The Pre-Harappan Sothi culture in Kālībaṅgan was followed by the urban Harappan settlements in Kālībaṅgan, Banawālī, etc. Bhagwānpura (Kurukṣetra district), Dadheri (Ludhiana), Katpalon and Nagar (Jullundur) are credited with the interlocking of the PGW and the Harappan material. (Sharma, 1983:23-24 and 172-73) They exhibit the once forgotten, but newly discovered link between India’s first urban culture (Harappan) and the second (Historical period).

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Thermoluminescence dating by BARC, Bombay, has established that the settlement at Bhagwānpura started around 3000 BC and the change-over to the PGW culture took place around 1220 BC (Joshi and Madhubala, 1982: 193-94); this transition occurred between the sixth and seventh layers in the site. The onset of the PGW culture at the *Mahābhārata* site of Hastināpura, and also at Atrañjikherā, took place around 1100 BC; in these sites the earlier cultures thrived on OCP wares. At Bhagwānpura, the excavations yielded terracotta ear ornaments, bangles of copper, shell, faience and glass, *ghaṭa*-shaped beads, semi-precious stone beads, bone and ivory hair-pins, violin-shaped Mother Goddess (Sarasvatī?) statues, wheeled terracotta rams (*vāhana* of Sarasvatī?). Oval structures made of baked bricks found at Bhagwānpura, Dadheri, Nagar and Katpalon most possibly had religious affiliations. (Joshi, 1987: 19-23) This region of the Sarasvati Valley was considered to be holy in the later age of the epics, and quite significantly we find the principal characters of the epics, such as Balarāma in *Mahābhārata*, undertaking elaborate pilgrimage tours in the area.

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Apart from Hastināpur and Ahicchatra, the *Mahābhārata* story also refers to Indraprastha (modern Delhi) and Dvārkā as important sites. For obvious reasons detailed excavations could not be undertaken in the city of Delhi. However the recent marine archaeological excavation of the submerged port of Dvārkā has yielded important evidences and a significant date. (Rao, 1988: 47-53)

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Off the shore of the modern Dvārkā, lies the ruin of the mid-second millennium BC port of Dvārakā or Dvārāvatī, founded by Lord Kṛṣṇa. Underwater expedition has shown fortification wall of limestone blocks and stones measuring around 2 × 1 × 0.5 m sizes. Some moonstone pieces recovered from the debris suggest that a religious structure existed there. The retrieved chert blades and sherds of lustrous redware and black- and redware are clearly of the Late-Harappan origin; the triangular and prismatic shaped stone anchors having three holes each are analogous to the anchors used in the fourteenth century BC Syria and Cyprus. A small seal of conch-shell has an animal motif, reminiscent of the Bahrainian art. A jar bears an inscription in the Late-Harappan characters (partly resembling Semitic and partly Brāhmī) which has been deciphered by Rao (1988:52) as *mahahagacha Shah Pa* conveying the sense ‘Sea Lord Protect’. Rao had earlier (1982) deciphered the Indus Valley Script and showed how this script was eventually transformed into the Late-Harappan and the Brāhmī.

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To cap it all, A.K. Singhvi of PRL, Ahmedabad announced that the pottery sample no. 9 from the rubble wall in cliff section of BDK I (Period I) in the underwater Bet Dwarka had been thermoluminiscence dated as 3520 BP or 1533 BC. (Rao, 1988: xxiv and 52) Some scholars have adduced reasons to propose that the *Mahābhārata* war took place around 1465 to 1430 BC.

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