Stepwells, also called bawdi or baori, are unique to India. These wells acted as the reservoirs or the storage tanks that can store large amount of water and keep it cool as well. These wells have steps built into the sides that can be descended to reach the water at the bottom. Stepwells are generally larger than common wells and are often of architectural significance, just like Chand Baori – one of the oldest and most famous step-wells in India.
Situated in the village of Abhaneri, Rajasthan, Chand Baori is one of the deepest and largest step wells of India with 3500 narrow steps in 13 stories. It extends approximately 100 ft into the ground. The well was dedicated to Hashat Mata, Goddess of Joy and Happiness upon completion.
The place was called Abha Nagri (City of Brightness) but, with time Abha Nagri became AbhaNeri.
The steps and the whole surrounding is a fine example of architectural expertise of the great Indian architectures. It also displays the geometrical intelligence of the architects of the bygone era.
Chand Baori was built during the 8th and 9th century by King Chand of Nikumbha Dynasty, to give the local population easy access to clean ground water at the bottom of the well. It provided the surrounding areas with a dependable water source for centuries before modern water delivery systems were introduced.
The state of Rajasthan is extremely arid, and the design and final structure of Chand Baori was intended to conserve as much water as possible. One side of the well has a pavilion and resting room for the royals. In addition to conserving water, Chand baori also became a community gathering place for the Abhaneri locals. The townsfolk used to sit around the step well and cool off during the summer days. At the bottom the well the air is always about 5-6 degrees cooler than at the top.
Chand Baori is no longer an active well and is maintained by the Archeological Survey of India. Chand Baori was featured in the movie The Fall and also made a small appearance in Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster The Dark Knight Rises.
Water plays a special part in Hindu mythology, as a boundary between heaven and earth known as tirtha. As manmade tirtha, the stepwells became not only sources of drinking water, but cool sanctuaries for bathing, prayer, and meditation.
The earliest stepwells date to around 550 A.D., but the most famous of them were built in medieval times. There are suggestions that they may have originated much earlier, and precursors to them can be seen in the Indus Valley civilisation. It is estimated that more than 3,000 stepwells were built in northern Indian states. Although many have fallen into disrepair and have been filled in with trash in the modern era, hundreds of wells still exist.
The Virupaksha Temple is one of the most stunning landmarks in India and the main center of pilgrimage at Hampi. Temple is noted for its architecture and has been listed among the UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Dating back 1,300 years, the magnificent structure consists of a layered tower of elaborate, hand-carved friezes populated by a bevy of Hindu deities and symbols.
Mathura and Vrindavan are important places for Hindus all over the world. Vrindavan is especially a very revered and sacred place for the devotees of Lord Krishna. In fact, the Holy Land of Vrindavan can be considered to be the spiritual capital of India. It is the site where Lord Krishna spent his childhood days.
Soon the holy town of Vrindavan will be home to a unique and world’s tallest Lord Krishna temple which will be built at an estimated cost of Rs 300 crore (US$49 million) here in the next five years.
When completed, Vrindavan Chandrodaya Mandir will be the world’s tallest temple rising to a height of 210 meters – taller than other legendary landmarks and wonders of the world including the Colosseum of Rome, the Taj Mahal of Agra, the Qutub Minar of Delhi, the St. Peter’s Basilica, and the Pyramids of Giza.
The project is set in 62 acres of land and will includes 12 acres for parking and a helipad. This magnificent skyscraper has a footprint of about 5 acres and rises to a height of about 700 feet (210 metres or 70 floors).
The grand temple shall be of monumental proportions and its iconic architecture shall harmoniously combine elements of both Indian temple architecture and modern architecture.
The temple is planned to be vibrant with festivals and religious activities throughout the year.
Vrindavan Chandrodaya Mandir will not only house a temple for the worship of Lord Sri Krishna, but will also become a center for disseminating the profound message of the Bhagavad Gita and Srimad Bhagavatam, delivered in a modern context.
The temple aims to imitate Vrindavan of Krishna’s times as spelled out in the ancient texts. A look-alike of the verdant forests of Vrindavan will be recreated around this magnificent temple from descriptions in the Srimad Bhagavatam; sprawling 26 acres it will consist of the twelve forests (dvadashakanana) of Braj.
A capsule elevator will take visitors from the ground level to the 700 ft. tall viewing gallery giving an immersive 3D sound and light experience of the different planetary systems described in the Vedic literature. Visitors will be able to see the Krishna Janmabhoomi (Krishna Birthplace) and even the Taj Mahal in Agra through telescopes installed on the seventieth floor when the skies are clear.
The ‘Krishna Lila Theme Park’ attractions will include themed story telling areas, musical fountains, garden lawn and water features, Yamuna creek for boating experience, Braj heritage village and goshala to recreate the atmosphere of Vrindavan of Lord Krishna.
The indoor park will permit visitors and devotees to immerse themselves in Krishna Consciousness through-out the year, irrespective of the sometimes hostile weather conditions of Vrindavan. The indoor park also houses an expo to present the pastimes of Lord Krishna, the life of Sri Mahaprabhu and Srila Prabhupada. The park will also have a Bhagavad Gita Expo to ignite the minds and invigorate the intellect with the stupendous wisdom given by Sri Krishna, that form the bedrock of culture and philosophy of life in India.
The Krishna Heritage Museum will showcase the rich heritage and artistic celebration of Lord Krishna in diverse cultures of India, practiced and perfected over thousands of years.
The foundation stone of the temple was laid by the President of India, Pranab Mukherjee on 16 November 2014.
Speaking on the occasion, the President said “India is one of the oldest and culturally rich civilizations in the world. As we now make the transformative change from being a developing to a developed economy, there will be immense pressures on our socio-economic and moral fabric. It is, therefore, imperative that we reconnect to our spiritual dimensions. There can be no better way of doing this than spreading the Bhagvad Gita’s message of universal love and humanity.”
The temple is conceptualized by devotees of International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), Bangalore. At cost of Rs 300 crore (US$49 million) it will be one of the most expensively built temple in world by ISKCON.
The diamonds have been first recognized and mined in India. For centuries, India was the only place one could find these precious stones. The earliest known reference to diamond is a Sanskrit manuscript, dated from 320-296 B.C., but Diamonds have been known in India for at least 3,000 years but most likely 6,000 years.
The words used for diamonds in Sanskrit are “Vajara,” meaning “thunderbolt” which was the weapon of Lord Indra (god of rain and thunderstorms), which reveals much about the spiritual properties attributed in ancient India to diamonds.
The earliest producing diamond mines were in the Golconda region of India. Diamonds were found only in alluvial deposits in Guntur along the rivers Penner, Krishna and Godavari in Southern India.
In 600 B.C. the Mahajanapada Empire had its own units of currency, and it’s own units of measurement for diamonds. The ancient Indians used a Tandula as a unit of measure, which was equivalent to the weight of a grain of rice. Their currency was called the Rupaka, and according to a price list written in Sanskrit in the Third century, a diamond that weighed 20 Tandulas was worth 200,000 Rupaka.
The empire had no banking system, so the citizens had to keep all of the currency they possessed with them. Wealthy citizens of this empire preferred to convert their wealth into diamonds, as it allowed them to better store their riches. This was the first instance diamonds were used as an investment!
In the fourth century B.C., the rules for the assessment of precious stones, the Ratna Pariksa was codified. Ratna Praiksha—an ancient science on testing gemstones—was used by Kosadhyaksha (Superintendent of Treasury) in order to control business of pearl, diamonds and all important gems in the ancient times. It was mentioned in Arthasastra (“The Lesson of Profit”) by Kautiliya (also known as Chanakya), a minister to Chandragupta of the Mauryan dynasty in northern India. This manuscript is dated to 320-296 BCE.
The author provides an insight into the history of creation of diamonds:
“owing to the great power attributed by the learned to the diamond, the diamond must be treated as the first amongst precious stones…: the eight great diamond deposits are in: Saurashtra (Himalayas), Matanga, Paundra, Kalinga, Kosala, the shores of the Vainya and the Surpara.”
“if there is a diamond anywhere in this world, which is completely transparent, light, with a beautiful color, with absolutely even surfaces, with no scratches, no scars, no damages, no scrawls, no signs of cracks—even if it is only the size of an atom, then it is indeed a gift from God…”
Significance of diamonds in ancient India
The significance of diamonds in ancient Indian society was so great that there was a separate profession for it called “Mandalins”, the diamond experts.
The diamond played such an important role in ancient India that its properties and magic powers were studied right to the minutest detail. Everything was recorded with great accuracy and implemented painstakingly in social life.
At the time of their discovery, diamonds were valued because of their strength and brilliance, and for their ability to refract light and engrave metal. Diamonds were worn as adornments, used as cutting tools, served as a talisman to ward off evil, and were believed to provide protection in battle. In the Dark Ages, diamonds were also used as a medical aid and were thought to cure illness and heal wounds when ingested.
The Hindu religious scripture called the Garuda Purana is considered to be the authoritative reference for ancient Indian gemology, and it says that the owner of a flawless diamond will be blessed with wealth, livestock, good harvests, a wife, and many children. Furthermore, the diamond will protect the owner from both fear and sorcery.
Diamonds Polishing
Diamonds were polished in India from an early time. Polishing arose from the Indian incentive to make the already nearly perfect rough stone as perfect as possible. Since diamond is hardest material known to man, what could be used to polish away such defects?
The only material for this was naturally again the diamond.
Indians discovered the possible polishing planes when one diamond polishes another and they invented the first simple diamond polishing board. This knowledge was probably kept secret. Sometime in the late Middle Ages, diamonds began to be polished in India as jewels, and the first jewels were flat diamonds which received a briolette cut (rose-cut).
Indian diamond polshing Boarda
Diamonds become known to Europe
Only with the campaign of Alexander the Great did the first diamonds come from India to the Mediterranean region. In 327 BC Alexander the Great invaded north India. He brought some diamonds back to Europe.
Indian diamonds in history reached Venice by two Mediterranean routes: the southern route was by way of Aden, Ethiopia, and Egypt, and the northern route was through Arabia, Persia, Armenia, and Turkey. Then, a direct sea route to India was established by Portuguese.
Because of their expense, Diamonds in Europe, were the possessions of the nobility and had ceremonial use. By the 1700’s, diamonds had come to represent wealth and power, and the European nobility used their wealth to invest in diamonds. Diamonds came to dominate small jewels during the 17th century and large ones by the 18th century.
England’s colonization of India brought large amounts of diamonds. English looted Indian temples and royal dynasties and took vast amounts of diamonds to England. From there, the diamonds were sold to France, Spain, Italy and other European countries.
India’s monopoly in the diamond trade end with the discovery of a diamond deposits in Brazil in 1729, and later in the 1870 in Africa. In Modern days about 49% of diamonds originate from Central and Southern Africa, additional major producers now include Siberian Russia, Canada, India, Russia, Brazil, and Australia.
Kohinoor Diamond
Koh-I-Noor, dating back to 1304, is a diamond that was originally 793 carats when uncut. Once the largest known diamond, it is now a 105.6 metric carats diamond, weighing 21.6 grammes in its most recent cut state. The Koh-i-Noor was mined in the state of Andhra Pradesh in India. The diamond was originally owned by Kakatiya Kings which had installed it in temple of Goddess as her eye. The diamond was later confiscated by various kings who won over the previous owners. Diamond was stolen by British after the death of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Today the diamond is a part of British Crown Jewels.
Kohinoor Diamond on Queen’s crown
Diamonds in Modern India
Today diamonds are mined in about 25 countries. However, for centuries India had been the world’s only source of diamonds for a thousand years. Although the supply of India’s main mines were long ago exhausted, diamonds are still found in India.
India has the world’s largest diamond polishing industry. It provides 11 out of every 12 processed diamonds for jewelry around the world. The diamond sector in India employs 1.3 million individuals. Today, 92 percent of the world’s diamonds are cut and polished in India, mostly in the city of Surat in Gujarat.
Even with India’s recent economic downturn, diamonds have overtaken gold in the Indian jewelry market, being considered on trend and a good investment.
Diamonds are the second highest discretionary item purchased after cell phones. Couples now purchase diamond engagement rings and India is the third largest market in the world for diamond jewelry, making up 12% of global demand.
With the outbreak of war in Europe, India, the Crown Jewel of the British Empire, joined the Allies in battle on the 4th of August 1914. Contributing the most volunteers of any of the British imperial holdings that fought in the war, India produced between 900,000 to 1.5 million troops for combat by 1919. One in six men in the British Empire forces was from India.
Who can forget the heroism of Sikhs in the battlefields of World War I. Sikh formed 20% of the Indian Army even though they were only 1% of the Indian population in 1914. Known as the Lions of the Great War after the war, during the war they were often called the Black Lions.
Around 1,30,000 Sikhs served in WWI and fought in the battles of Ypres, Flanders, the Somme, Gallipoli, East Africa, Palestine, Egypt / Suez Canal, Mesopotamia, and numerous other battlefields in nearly all theatres of the war.
In the first battle of Ypres at Flanders in 1914 a platoon of Dogra Sikhs died fighting to the last man, who shot himself with his last cartridge rather than surrender.
After the bloody battle of Neuve Chapelle in 1915 the Sikh regements had lost 80% of their men, 3 regements stood at only 16% of their original compliment.
“It was the dark days of 1914 when our men had to face mortars, hand grenades, high explosive shells for which they themselves were not provided. They could reply only with their valour, their rifles and two machine guns per batallion. And yet they did it.” (Lt. General Sir James Wilcox, Commander of the Indian Corps)
Group of British & Sikh officer at Le Sart, France.
It is also said that some Sikh, captured in Belgium, were believed to have been Muslims by the Germans and taken to Turkey to fight along side their fellow ‘Mohammedans‘. However, they still remained loyal to the British Crown and escaped on a long trek to the British posts in Afghanistan, from Turkey through the Middle East, to once again fight under the British flag.
Though being paid a mere 11 rupees a month for his services to the Empire, Many Sikh soldier, however, also saw it as their duty to bring honour to their clan or caste, by fighting bravely on the battlefield. Some communities liked to imagine themselves as warriors.
A Sikh soldier, Indar Singh, fighting on the Somme in September 1916, wrote home:
It is quite impossible that I should return alive. [But] don’t be grieved at my death, because I shall die arms in hand, wearing the warrior’s clothes. This is the most happy death that anyone can die.
As Sikh soldiers were shipped out to faraway lands as part of the British Indian Army to fight the Great War, the British felt it necessary to nourish Sikh fanaticism by allowing the Sikhs areas to set up temporary Gurudwaras (Sikh Temples). Sikhs were allowed to take the Guru Granth Sahib, their Holy Book and Spiritual Guide with them as well as musical instruments for Kirtan, the singing of the Holy hymns which they regularly did in their base camps wherever they were posted.
Sikhs were also allowed to use traditional Sikh weapons such as Chakrams and Talwar swords. It reminds Sikhs of their commitment to fighting injustice and oppression in any form.
A letter home from a Sikh soldier:
“Thousand and hundreds of thousands of soldiers have lost their lives. If you go on the field of battle you will see corpses piled upon corpses, so that their is no place to place or put hand or foot. Men have died from the stench. No one has any hope of survival, for back to Punjab will go only those who have lost a leg or an arm or an eye. The whole world has been brought to destruction.“
War memorial The Chattri in the city of Brighton and Hove. It stands on the site where Indian soldiers were cremated during the First World War –Image SourcePatcham Down Indian Forces Cremation Memorial records the names of the Sikhs & Hindu casualties. –Image Source
Official figures suggest that 64,449 Indian soldiers died in the war. One Indian soldier, doubting that he would survive, consoled himself with the thought that his name would be written in letters of gold and inscribed in the list of the brave. The names of all of India’s known war dead were indeed carved on the main memorial to the Indian Army, the massive arch of India Gate in New Delhi. The Indians were also commemorated on the Western Front itself. There are many Indian names on the Menin Gate at Ypres.
100 years after the First World War, the Indian Army’s significant role was acknowledged by British. The British army has honoured the contribution made by Sikh soldiers during World War One.
John Dalton (1766 – 1844) is the man credited today with the development of atomic theory. However, It would be surprising for many people today to know that the theory of atoms was actually formulated 2,600 years ago by an Indian sage and philosopher. The first Indian philosopher who formulated ideas about the atom in a systematic manner was Sage Kanad who lived in the 6th century B.C.
Kanad was born in 600 B.C. in Dwarka, Gujrat. His real name was Kashyap. He was the son of a philosopher named Ulka. From his child days Kashyapa displayed a keen sense of service. Minute things attracted his attention.
Once he went on a pilgrimage, he saw thousands of pilgrims littered the town roads & the banks of river Ganga with flowers and rice grains which they offered at the temple. He started collecting the grains of rice. Everybody thought he was insane as he was from a good family. Crowd gathered around him & one person asked him why was he collecting the grains even beggars wouldn’t like to touch these. He told them that individual grains in themselves may seem worthless, but a collection of some hundred grains make up a person’s meal, the collection many meals would feed an entire family and ultimately the entire mankind was made of many families, thus even a single grain of rice was as important as all the valuable riches in this world. Since then people started calling him Kanad, as “Kan” in Sanskrit means “Smallest particle“.
Kanad was the first person in the world to discuss atoms and molecules. It was Kanad who first propounded that the Parmanu (Atoms) was an indestructible particle of matter. According to the material universe is made up of Parmanu (Atoms). When matter is divided and subdivided, we reach a stage beyond which no division is possible, the indivisible element of matter is Parmanu (Atom). Kanad explained that this indivisible, indestructible atom cannot be sensed through any human organ.
This theory occurred to him while Kanad was walking with food in his hand, breaking it into small pieces when he realised that he was unable to divide the food into any further parts, it was too small. From this moment, Kanad conceptualized the idea of a particle that could not be divided any further. He called that indivisible matter Parmanu (atom).
Kanad further held that atoms of same substance combined with each other to produce dvyanuka (biatomic molecules) and tryanuka (triatomic molecules). Kanad also put forward the idea that atoms could be combined in various ways to produce chemical changes in presence of other factors such as heat.
Kanad founded the Vaisheshika school of philosophy where he taught his ideas about the atom and the nature of the universe. He wrote a book on his research “Vaisheshik Darshan“. People started calling him “Acharya” –mean Teacher and became known as “The Father of Atomic theory.”
Reference to matter consisting of atoms appear also in Jainism School and Buddhist School. Three different schools of thought Vaisesika, Jainist, and Buddhist came to similar but slightly different conclusions.
Another Indian philosopher, Pakudha Katyayana who lived around the 5th or 4th century B.C. and was a contemporary of Gautama Buddha, had also propounded ideas about the atomic constitution of the material world.
Between the 5th and 3rd centuries BC, the atom is mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 8, Verse 9)
This Indian concept of the atom was developed independently and prior to the development of the idea in the Greco-Roman world. These Indian ideas about atom and atomic physics could have been transmitted to the west during the contacts created between India and the west by the invasion of Alexander. Greeks came into India only in the 4th century B.C. Thus it is quite possible that the Greeks borrowed the ideas about atom from Indian philosophers in the 4th century B.C.
It remains a fact that Indian ideas about atom are the oldest. But the credit of developing these ideas further, goes to the Greeks and other western philosophers as Indian theories about the atom are greatly abstract and enmeshed in philosophy as they were based on logic and not on personal experience or experimentation.
Brahmi is the earliest Indian alphabetical script. The origin of the script is still much debated, but according to most scholars it is connected to the much older and as-yet undeciphered Indus script. As per its regional variations, it is identified as Tamil-Brahmi, Asokan-Brahmi, Northern-Brahmi, Southern-Brahmi and Sinhala-Brahmi. All modern Indian scripts are the evolved forms of Brahmi.
Inscriptions have been found on cave beds, pot sherds, Jar burials, coins, seals, and rings. Due to overseas trade, few pottery pieces and a touchstone bearing personal names in Tamil-Brahmi script are recently noticed in Arab countires Egypt and Oman.
Tamil-Brahmi Script Found in Egypt
A few years ago, a broken storage jar with inscriptions in Tamil Brahmi script has been excavated at Quseir-al-Qadim, an ancient port with a Roman settlement on the Red Sea coast of Egypt. This Tamil Brahmi script has been dated to first century B.C. The same inscription is incised twice on the opposite sides of the jar. The inscriped text is “பானை ஒறி” (paanai oRi) which means ‘pot suspended in a rope net’.
Potsherd with Tamil Brahmi inscription, circa first century B.C., found in Egypt.
A pottery specialist at the British Museum,London, identified the fragmentary vessel as a storage jar made in India.
Iravatham Mahadevan, a specialist in Tamil epigraphy, has confirmed that the inscription on the jar is in Tamil written in the Tamil Brahmi script of about first century B.C.
According to Mr. Mahadevan, the inscription is quite legible and reads: paanai oRi, that is, ‘pot (suspended in) a rope net.’
Earlier excavations at this site about 30 years ago yielded two pottery inscriptions in Tamil Brahmi from the same era. Another Tamil Brahmi pottery inscription of the same period was found in 1995 at Berenike, also a Roman settlement, on the Red Sea coast of Egypt.
Tamil-Brahmi Script Found in Oman
Yet another 1900 years Tamil-Brahmi script inscribed on a potsherd was found at the Khor Rori area in Oman. The script reads “nantai kiran” and it can be dated to the 1st century CE.
Found by The Italian Mission to Oman during its second archaeological excavation in 2006 in the Khor Rori area, this potsherd was deciphered when the piece came for a pottery exhibition in Kerala in September 2012.
The potsherd was found in a residential area of Sumhuram city in a layer mixed with a few pottery pieces and animal bones.
“Potsherd could be dated to first century CE or a little earlier. There was so much of Indian material, including beads, coins and pottery, discovered during the excavation that it was important to show the relationship between India and the southern coast of Oman,” said Alexia Pavan, an Italian archaeologist, who found this potsherd.
The text nantai kiran is a fragment or a complete personal name in two words. The last word that could be read as Kiran, is a popular personal name in Tamil, since very early times. There were many poets of the Changkam corpus who had that name. According to archaelogists, the broken piece of the pot carries the personal name of an important trader who commanded a high regard in the trading community.
The port of Sumhuram could be dated to circa third century BCE to fourth century ACE. The discovery in the ancient city of Sumhuram has opened a new chapter in understanding the maritime trade of the Indian Ocean countries, according to specialists in history.
It was generally believed that India’s contact with the Mediterranean world began with the Roman trade and much of the studies were concentrated on the Red Sea ports such as Quseir al-Qadim and Berenike, both in Egypt. The latest discovery in Oman was significant as it opened a new avenue in understanding the impact of the Indian Ocean trade, particularly on the west coast of the peninsular India.
These discoveries provided material evidence to corroborate the literary accounts by classical Western authors and the Tamil Sangam poets about the flourishing trade between the south India and Rome (via the Red Sea ports) in the early centuries A.D.
Tamil Brahmi script is also noticed in other countries like China, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand.
There is much evidence—archeological and linguistic—to support the notion that the ancient Vedic (Aryan) civilization was spread far beyond India, and that it was much earlier than the civilizations we have been taught to believe were the first.
Controversial historian and author P.N. Oak has pushed the idea that the glorious Vedic civilization was at one time spread all over the world and it preceded the Greek and even the Egyptian and Babylonian epochs.
Vishnu Idol Found in Russia
In 2007, during an excavation in an abandoned village in the Volga region of Russia, archaeologists excavated an ancient Vishnu idol. The idol dates from between the 7th and 10th centuries, was found in Staraya Maina village which is much older than Kiev, so far believed to be the mother of all Russian cities. The Times of India reported that this discovery raised questions about the prevalent view of the origin of ancient Russia.
The Vishnu idol is depicted with a hammer in one left hand while the deconglated seventh arm on the right side holds a reticulated sickle.
This translates into Staraya Maina is the name of the land of the 45 rivers (on whose banks the noble Rishis conducted the famous Horse Sacrifices), where the sun god descends.
The period 6-7th century also marked flourishing trade ventures by Indian rulers. Palas in the North and Cholas in the South were enterprising dynasties. During their times the Indian influence through trade spread to Far East and to regions beyond the mountainous border.
According to a 2010 religious census population of Hindu in Russia is 140,000.
According to Mahabharata, Indraprastha was the capital of the kingdom led by the Pandava. The Demon Maya, built the city and the palace of Indraprastha for the Pandavas. The area for the palace was created by clearing the forests of Khandava by Arjuna and Lord Krishna. Pandavas also built other cities like Swarnaprastha (modern-day Sonipat) and Panaprastha (Panipat) in their province.
The exact location of Indraprastha is uncertain but Delhi is thought by some to be located at the site of the legendary city of Indraprastha. Although there is not much physical evidence about the city but locals did claim that there existed a huge mound (which could have contained the remains of the city) upon which the Mughals built the Purana Qila (Old Fort). The fact that until 1913 there was a village within the fort called Indrapat gives credence to the belief that Purana Qila was built on the ruins of Indraprastha.
The ruins of this fort are located on a small hill which once stood on the banks of the Yamuna river. It is where Humayun‘s capital Din Panah was located. The Purana Qila was constructed by Sher Shah Suri between 1538 to 1545.
The ASI’s excavation at Purana Qila in New Delhi – Image Source
In historical times, human settlements were always made closest to a river bank or source of water. The excavation spot at Purana Qila has been identified because of its proximity to the original flow of the Yamuna, so archaeologists are confident of finding evidence.
The ongoing excavation at the Purana Qila site might lead to discovery of concrete evidence that will help in studying the culture and art patronised by the Pandavas. The clue that Archaeological Survey of India’s members are looking for to establish the link is painted grey ware PGW. It is grey pottery painted with geometric patterns in black that archeologists associate with the Mahabharata period. Similar stuff has been noticed in other sites associated with the epic Mahabharata as well. If the ASI is successful in finding painted grey wares from the Mahabharata period, it will prove the existence of the city of Pandavas.
A 12th Century Vishnu idol found during the excavation. – Image Source
“There is a possibility that once we excavate further will find some evidence. In the first excavation in 1954, painted grey wares were discovered. However, the wares were not found in stratified deposit. If they were found in stratified deposit, we could support that there were traces of the Mahabharata period,” said Vasant Swarnkar, superintending archaeologist of ASI.
The Purana Qila mound contains remains of a continuous cultural habitation starting from Mauryan period (3rd century BC) to the Mughal through Sunga, Kushana, Gupta, Rajput and Sultanate periods. The archaeologists has discovered artefacts from all the eras which includes a rare 12th century sculpture of Vishnu, a terracotta seal from the Gupta period, pottery typical of the Kushan and Gupta periods, structures from the Rajput and Kushan periods, copper coins, terracotta human figurines, beads made of semi-precious stones and glass, ear studs of terracotta and charred wheat and rice grains. Latest findings included an ivory pendant, human figurines, a Gajlakshmi tablet and objects from the Mauryan period. The Archaeological Survey of India has also discovered a Mauryan Period ring well 4.4 metres below the earth.
Opened after a span of 40 years, the Archaeological Survey of India has carried out an excavation here since February this year. This was the third and largest excavation in Purana Qila after the one ASI did in 1955 and in 1969- 73. Due to Monsoon The Archaeological Survey of India has put excavations at Purana Qila on hold till November.
The ASI also hopes that it will also be able to convince the government to declare Delhi a World Heritage City.
Indian Scientists have discovered the world’s oldest known case of a successful human brain surgery after unearthing a 4300 year old skull from an ancient Harappan site in India. This discovery was done by the scientists from the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) who found evidence pointing this to be the oldest known case of successful “Trepanation” in the world meant to treat a skull injury.
The trepanation, also called “trephination” had been the oldest craniotomic surgical procedure practised by mankind since the Stone Age by way of drilling holes in the damaged skull to remove shattered bits of bone from a fractured skull and clean out the blood that often pools under the skull after a blow to the head.
Much older trepanation cases have been found across the world. It was first noticed in Peru and later in Europe as well around 5000 years ago. However, the current discovery gives a concrete proof about this being a case where the person who underwent the surgery had survived the drilling of his skull. The damages to the skull which looks like was caused by a strong blow on the head, and the areas of the surgical incursions performed with healing skull structures clearly show that the person survived the surgery for a considerable time after the brain operation.
During the Bronze Age trepanation was practised as a common means of surgery in the Indian sub continent. Sushrutha Samhita is the oldest known surgical text and it describes in detail the examination, diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis of numerous ailments, as well as procedures on performing various forms of cosmetic surgery, plastic surgery and rhinoplasty.
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