Archaeological sources:

Archaeological sources:Exploration,
Exploration,Excavation,
Excavation,
Epigraphy, Numismatics
NumismaticsandandMonuments:
Monuments:Part
PartI I––
SELF STUDY HISTORY
HISTORY

Archaeology is the study of the human past though material remains.

Material remains:
They range from vestiges of grand palaces and temples to the small, discarded
products of everyday human activity such as pieces of broken pottery.
They include different things such as structures, artefacts, bones, seeds, pollen, seals,
coins, sculptures, and inscriptions.
Archaeology help us to recover the material remains of the past.
Exploration and excavation

The science that enables us to systematically dig the successive layers of old mounds, and to
form an idea of the material life of the people is called archaeology.
A mound is an elevated portion of land covering the remains of old habitations. It may be of
different types:
Single-culture:
Single-culture mounds represent only one culture throughout.
Some mounds represent only the Painted Grey Ware (PGW) culture, others Satavahana
culture or others of the Kushans.
Major-culture:
One culture is dominant and the others are of secondary importance.
Multi-culture:
Multi-culture mounds represent several important cultures in succession which
occasionally overlap with one another.
An excavated mound can be used to understand successive layers of the material and other
aspects of a culture.
A mound can be excavated vertically or horizontally.
Vertical excavation:
It means lengthwise digging to uncover the period-wise sequence of cultures.
It is generally confined to a part of the site.
As most sites have been dug vertically, they provide a good chronological
sequence of material culture.
Horizontal excavation:
It entails digging the mound as a whole or a major part of it.
 The method may enable the excavator to obtain a complete idea of the site
culture in a particular period.
Horizontal diggings, being very expensive, are very few in number, with the result
that the excavations do not give us a full or even adequate picture of material life
in many phases of ancient Indian history.
Even in those mounds which have been excavated, the ancient remains have been preserved in
varying proportions.
In the dry arid climate:
of western UP, Rajasthan, and north-western India, antiquities are found in a better
state of preservation.
In the moist and humid climate:
of the mid-Gangetic plains and in the deltaic regions even iron implements suffered
corrosion and mud structures become difficult to detect.
Only the burnt brick structures or stone structures of the Gangetic plains are well
preserved.
Excavations have brought to light:
the villages that people established around 6000 BC in Baluchistan.
the material culture which was developed in the Gangetic plains in the second millennium
BC.
the layout of the settlements in which people lived,
the types of pottery they used,
the form of house in which they dwelt,
the kind of cereals they ate,
the type of tools and implements they used.
Some people in south India buried in graves, along with the dead, their tools, weapons, pottery,
and other belongings, and these were encircled by large pieces of stone. These structures are
called megaliths. By digging them we learn of the life people lived in the Deccan from the Iron
Age onwards.
Various methods of fixing dates and other information:
Dates of mounds and materials are fixed by various methods.
Of them, radiocarbon dating is the most important.
Radiocarbon or Carbon 14 (C14) is a radioactive carbon (isotope) which is present in all
living objects. It decays, like all radioactive substances, at a uniform rate.
When an object is living, the process of decay of C14 is neutralized by absorption of
C14 through air and food.
However, when an object ceases to be alive, its C14 content continues to decay at a
uniform rate but ceases to absorb C14 from air and food.
By measuring the loss of C14 content in an ancient object, its age can be determined.
It is known that the half-life of C14 is 5568 years. But no antiquity older than 70,000
years can be dated by this method.
 The history of climate and vegetation is known through an examination of plant residues,
and especially through pollen analysis.
On this basis it is suggested that agriculture was practised in Rajasthan and Kashmir
around 7000–6000 BC.
The nature and components of metal artefacts are analysed scientifically, and
consequently the mines from which the metals were obtained are located and the stages in
the development of metal technology identified.
An examination of animal bones shows whether the animals were domesticated, and also
indicates the uses to which they were put.
Geological and biological studies:
Geological studies give idea to get an idea of the history of the soil, rocks, etc a total
study of prehistory.
Biological studies provides the history of the world of plants and animals.
Human history cannot be understood without an idea of the continuing interaction
between soils, plants, and animals, on the one hand, and humans, on the other.
Geological and biological advances enable us to understand not only prehistory but
also history.
Taken together with archaeological remains, geological and biological studies act as
important sources for the study of over 98 per cent of the total time scale of history
starting with the origin of the earth.
Ethno-archaeology:
It studies the behaviour and practices of living communities in order to interpret the
archaeological evidence related to communities of the past.
The Indian subcontinent is an area where many traditional features and methods survive—
for instance in agriculture, animal husbandry, house building, the clothes people wear and
the food they eat. Modern craftspersons are an important guide for understanding the
ways in which ancient craftspersons made things.
For instance, a tradition of carnelian bead manufacturing exists in Khambhat, in
Gujarat, today.
Studying modern bead making in this region gives valuable clues about the way in
which the Harappan beads may have been made and the possible social organization
of the bead makers.
Ethno-archaeology can contribute towards filling the silences and gaps in history.
For instance, it has helped archaeologists make inferences about women’s role in
subsistence and craft-related activities in early times.
Studies of modern communities of hunter-gatherers and shifting cultivators can help
understand the life-ways of people who followed similar subsistence strategies in the past.
Of course, ethno-archaeological evidence must be used by keeping in mind the differences
between the present and past contexts.
Archaeology as a source of history
Archaeology usually provides an anonymous history, one that sheds light on cultural
processes rather than events.
Archaeology is mainly used to study prehistory and ancient history.
Prehistory is concerned with the period for which there are no written sources, and history
is basically based on written material.
Archaeology is the only source for prehistory.
It is also the only source for those parts of the past covered by non-deciphered written
records (Proto-history), and continues to provide valuable information even after the
beginning of the historical period.
Unfortunately, once literary sources become available, historians tend to use archaeology as a
secondary, corroborative source.
One of the current challenges for early Indian history is to adequately incorporate
archaeological evidence into the larger historical narratives.
Archaeology often tells us about aspects of everyday life that are not revealed or emphasized
in texts.
Despite the critical use of Vedic and post-Vedic literary sources for history in pre-Ashokan
times, archaeology remains a very important source for historians.
The ancient Indians left innumerable material remains. For e.g. The stone temples in
south India and the brick monasteries in eastern India. However, the major part of
these remains lies buried in mounds scattered all over India.
Archaeology provides information on the history of human settlements and can give very
specific details about modes of subsistence—the food people procured in order to live,
and how they obtained it.
It offers details about the crops people grew, the agricultural implements they used,
and the animals they hunted and tamed.
It is an excellent source of information on various aspects of the history of technology—
raw materials, their sources, the methods used to make artefacts of various kinds.
Archaeology also helps reconstruct routes and networks of exchange, trade, and
interaction between communities.
Although a large number of religious texts are available for ancient and early medieval
India, an exclusively text-based view of religion will not tell us everything we want to know
about religious practice.
The material evidence of ancient religions can make a major contribution in this
area.
There are many problems involved in translating archaeological cultures into history.
An archaeological culture need not necessarily correspond to a linguistic group, political
unit, or a social group such as a lineage, clan, or tribe.
One of the most important questions is how to explain changes in material culture,
especially pottery traditions. This is an issue that has not yet been adequately addressed or
understood in the context of ancient India.
 Archaeological evidence does not necessarily provide a complete picture of the material
culture of ancient people.
Artefacts found in the archaeological record generally consist of things that have been
thrown away, lost, forgotten, hidden, or left behind (intentionally or unintentionally)
by people when they moved elsewhere.
Not all material traits survive.
Archaeological reconstruction depends on the amount and kind of material that is
preserved, and this in turn depends on the objects themselves and on
environmental factors, particularly soil and climate.
Inorganic materials like stone, clay, and metal objects are most likely to survive in
the archaeological record.
Stone age people must have used tools of wood and bone as well, but it is the
stone tools that have survived in large numbers.
Tropical regions, with heavy rains, acidic soils, warm climates, and dense
vegetation are not favourable for preservation. These things have to be kept in
mind when assessing archaeological evidence.
Epigraphy

Inscriptions and coins come under the general umbrella of archaeology and archaeological
sources.
The study of inscriptions is known as epigraphy.
The study of the old writing used in inscriptions and other old records is called palaeography.
Inscriptions were carved on seals, stone pillars, rocks, copperplates, temple walls, wooden
tablets, and bricks or images.
In India, the earliest inscriptions were recorded on stone. However, in the early centuries of
the Christian era, copperplate began to be used for this purpose.
Even then the practice of engraving inscriptions on stone continued on a large scale in
south India. We have also in that region a large number of inscriptions recorded on the
walls of temples to serve as permanent records.
Evidences of early inscriptions:
The Harappan inscriptions, which await decipherment, seem to have been written in a
pictographic script in which ideas and objects were expressed in the form of pictures.
The oldest deciphered inscriptions belong to the late 4th century BCE, and are in Brahmi
and Kharoshthi.
These include those of the Maurya emperor Ashoka, which are in a number of different
languages and scripts, but mostly in the Prakrit language and Brahmi script (written
from left to right) but some were also incised in the Kharoshthi script which was
written from right to left.
In the fourteenth century AD two Ashokan pillar inscriptions were found by Firoz Shah
Tughlaq, one in Meerut and another at a place called Topra in Haryana.
 He brought them to Delhi and asked the pandits of his empire to decipher the
inscriptions, but they failed to do so.
These epigraphs were first deciphered in 1837 by James Prinsep, a civil servant
in the employ of the East India Company in Bengal.
Brahmi script prevailed virtually all over India except for the north-western part.
Greek and Aramaic scripts were employed in writing Ashokan inscriptions in Pakistan
and Afghanistan, but Brahmi continues to be the main script till the end of Gupta times.
After the seventh century,  there is strong regional variations in Brahmi script.
As there are no obvious links between the Harappan script and Brahmi or Kharoshthi, what
happened to writing in between remains a mystery.
Evidences of writing:
There is no direct mention of writing in Vedic literature, but references to poetic
metres, grammatical and phonetic terms, very large numbers, and complex
arithmetical calculations in later Vedic texts are taken by some historians to indicate
the possibility that writing may have been known at the time.
The first definite literary references to writing and written documents occur in the
Buddhist Pali texts, especially the Jatakas and the Vinaya Pitaka.
Panini’s Ashtadhyayi refers to the word lipi (script).
The Brahmi of Ashoka’s inscriptions seems a fairly developed script, and it must have
had a prior history of at least a few centuries. Recently, important direct evidence
that Brahmi existed in pre-Maurya times has come from Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka,
where excavations unearthed potsherds with short inscriptions that can be dated to at
least the early 4th century BCE.
Both the Brahmi and Kharoshthi scripts stand midway between alphabetic and syllabic scripts,
and can be described as semi-syllabic or semi-alphabetic.
Kharoshthi scripts:
Kharoshthi’s core area lay in the north-west—the land known as Gandhara in ancient
times. Ashoka’s Shahbazgarhi and Mansehra inscriptions are in this script.
Kharoshthi was later used in north India under the Indo-Greek, Indo-Parthian, and
Kushana kings, and was also used in certain records outside the Gandhara area, including
in parts of central Asia.
Written from right to left, Kharoshthi seems to have been derived from the north Semitic
Aramaic script.
Brahmi script:
A script written from left to right.
Origin:
Some scholars have suggested an indigenous origin, others an Aramaic origin.
A problem in accepting the latter theory is that the direction of writing and the forms
of the letters in Brahmi and Kharoshthi are different, so it is unlikely that they were
derived from the same script.
 Kharoshthi declined and died out in about the 3rd century CE. Brahmi, on the other hand,
became the parent of all the indigenous scripts of South Asia, and also of those used in
parts of central and Southeast Asia.
The different stages of the Brahmi script are often labelled on the basis of dynasties, e.g.,
Ashokan Brahmi, Kushana Brahmi, and Gupta Brahmi.
In the late 6th century, Gupta Brahmi evolved into a script known as Siddhamatrika or
Kutila, which had sharp angles at the lower right hand corner of each letter.
Regional differences became sharper after this point of time.
The modern north Indian scripts gradually emerged out of Siddhamatrika.
Nagari or Devanagari was standardized by about 1000 CE and an eastern script (known as
proto-Bengali or Gaudi) took shape between the 10th and 14th centuries.
From here, it was a short step to the emergence of the Bengali, Assamese, Oriya, and
Maithili scripts in the 14th–15th centuries.
This is also the time when the Sharada script emerged in Kashmir and adjoining areas.
Tamil script:
The earliest inscriptions in the Tamil language are engraved in rock shelters and caves
especially in the area near Madurai.
They are in a script known as Tamil–Brahmi, an adaptation of Brahmi for writing the
Tamil language.
Three southern scripts emerged in the early medieval period—Grantha, Tamil, and
Vatteluttu.
The first of these was used for writing Sanskrit, the second and third for writing Tamil.
The Tamil script first appeared in the Pallava territory in the 7th century CE.
Something similar to the modern Telugu and Kannada scripts took shape in the 14th–15th
centuries, while the Malayalam script developed out of Grantha at about the same time.
Bi-script:
Ancient Indian inscriptions include a few bi-script documents, in which the text is given in
the same language written in two different scripts.
Most of the instances come from the north-west and consist of short bi-script Brahmi–
Kharoshthi inscriptions.
The longer records include an 8th century Pattadakal pillar inscription of the Chalukya
king Kirttivarman II.
The language is Sanskrit; the text is written both in the north Indian Siddhamatrika
script and in the local southern proto-Telugu–Kannada script.
Languages of Inscriptions

The earliest Brahmi inscriptions, including those of Ashoka, are in dialects of Prakrit.
Between the 1st and 4th centuries CE, many inscriptions were written in a mixture of
Sanskrit and Prakrit.
The first pure Sanskrit inscriptions appeared in the 1st century BCE. The first long Sanskrit
inscription is the Junagadh rock inscription of the western Kshatrapa king Rudradaman.
By about the end of the 3rd century CE, Sanskrit had gradually replaced Prakrit as the language
of inscriptions in northern India.
In the Deccan and South India, Sanskrit inscriptions appeared along with Prakrit ones in the
late 3rd/early 4th century CE, for instance at Nagarjunakonda in Andhra Pradesh.
The Sanskrit element gradually increased.
In the transitional phase of the 4th and 5th centuries, there were bilingual Sanskrit–Prakrit
inscriptions, as well as those in a mixture of the two languages. Thereafter, Prakrit fell into
disuse.
Between the 4th and 6th centuries, Sanskrit emerged as the premier language of royal
inscriptions all over India.
Thereafter, it attained the status of a language associated with high culture, religious
authority, and political power not only in the subcontinent but also in certain other areas
such as Southeast Asia.
However, in the post-Gupta period, there was also an important parallel trend towards the
evolution of regional languages and scripts.
Inscriptions began to be composed in regional languages in the ninth and tenth centuries.
Even Sanskrit inscriptions show the influence of local dialects in spellings and words of
non-Sanskrit origin.
Tamil inscriptions and bilingual Tamil-Sanskrit:
In South India, inscriptions in the old Tamil language (and the Tamil–Brahmi script)
appeared in the 2nd century BCE and the early centuries CE.
Tamil became an important language of South Indian inscriptions under the Pallava
dynasty.
There are examples of bilingual Tamil–Sanskrit Pallava inscriptions from the 7th century
onwards.
In these, the invocation, genealogical portion, and concluding verses are often in
Sanskrit and the details of the grants in Tamil.
Kings of the Chola and Pandya dynasties also issued Tamil and bilingual Sanskrit–
Tamil inscriptions.
Hundreds of donative Tamil inscriptions were inscribed on temple walls in various parts of
South India in early medieval times.
Kannada and bilingual Kannada-Sanskrit:
The earliest Kannada inscriptions belong to the late 6th/early 7th century CE. From this
period onwards, there were many private donative records in Kannada, and this language
was also used in some royal grants.
There are some bilingual Sanskrit– Kannada inscriptions and a 12th century inscription
found at Kurgod in Karnataka is in three languages—Sanskrit, Prakrit, and Kannada.
Telugu and Malayalam:
The late 6th century epigraphs of the early Telugu Chola kings mark the beginnings of
Telugu as a language of inscriptions. Thereafter, there are many private donative records in
this language.
 Malayalam inscriptions appeared in about the 15th century.
Marathi, Oriya, Hindi, Gujarati:
As for inscriptions in the modern north Indian (New Indo-Aryan) languages, Marathi and
Oriya inscriptions can be identified from the 11th century.
Inscriptions in dialects similar to what is referred to today as Hindi appear in Madhya
Pradesh from the 13th century onwards, and Gujarati can be identified in epigraphs from
the 15th century.
Classification of inscriptions

Classification into official and private records:

Inscriptions can classified into official and private records, depending on whose behalf
they were inscribed.
Official records:
They convey royal orders and decisions regarding social, religious, and administrative
matters to officials and the people in general.
Ashoka’s edicts and royal land grants are examples of official records.
Private records:
Inscriptions recording grants made by private individuals or guilds to temples, or to
Buddhist or Jaina establishments are examples of private records.
Classification according to content and purpose into types such as donative, dedicative,
and commemorative inscriptions:
Commemorative inscription:
For instance, the Lumbini pillar inscription of Ashoka is a royal commemorative
inscription, recording a specific event—the visit of the king to the Buddha’s birth-place.
Erecting memorials to dead people:
There is evidence of an ancient practice of erecting memorials to dead people.
Thousands of memorial stones are found all over the country, not always
connected with burials. Some only have sculpted scenes (realistic or symbolic),
others also have inscriptions.
The most common memorial stones were erected in memory of dead heroes or
women who committed sati.
Stones were set up in honour of Jaina men and women who gave up their lives in
the exemplary Jaina fashion of death by starvation.
On the Konkan coast, many stones were erected in memory of sailors who lost
their lives in sea battles.
Some memorial stones were worshiped.
Donative inscriptions
Refer especially to gifts of money, cattle, land, etc., mainly for religious purposes,
made not only by kings and princes but also by artisans and merchants.
Inscriptions in favour of religious establishments:
 They were inscribed on shrine walls, railings, and gateways. The excavation and
donation of caves to ascetics was recorded in inscriptions in the caves.
Donative inscriptions include records of the installation of religious images, often
inscribed on the images themselves.
Others record investments of money made by people, out of the interest of which
lamps, flowers, incense, etc. were to be provided for the worship of the deity.
Royal land grants:
Inscriptions recording land grants, made mainly by chiefs and princes, are very
important for the study of the land system and administration in ancient India.
There are thousands of such inscriptions, some on stone, but mostly inscribed on
one or more copper plates.
They record grants of lands, revenues, and villages made to monks, priests,
temples, monasteries, vassals, and officials. They were written in all languages,
including Prakrit, Sanskrit, Tamil and Telugu.
The earliest stone inscriptions recording land grants with tax exemptions are
Satavahana and Kshatrapa epigraphs found at Nashik.
The mid-4th century Pallava and Shalankayana grants are the earliest surviving
copper plate grants. One of the oldest copper plate grants from north India is the
late 4th century CE Kalachala grant of king Ishvararata. Copper plate grants
increased in number and frequency in the early medieval period.
Prashastis:
Royal inscriptions include prashastis.
Most royal inscriptions (and some private ones too) usually begin with a prashasti, but
some inscriptions are entirely devoted to eulogizing their subject.
They eulogize the attributes and achievements of kings and conquerors, and ignore
their defeats or weaknesses.
Examples are:
Hathigumpha inscription of Kharavela, a 1st century BCE/1st century CE king of
Kalinga in Orissa,
Allahabad prashasti of the 4th century Gupta emperor Samudragupta.
Certain inscriptions record the building of waterworks, wells, and charitable feeding
houses by private individuals. A series of unique records of royal initiatives of this kind are
inscribed on a granite rock at Junagadh (Girnar) in Gujarat.
Apart from a set of Ashokan edicts, this rock bears two other important inscriptions.
A 150 CE inscription of the Shaka ruler Rudradaman records the beginning of the
construction of a water reservoir known as Sudarshana lake in the 4th century BCE
during the time of the Maurya emperor Chandragupta, its completion during the reign
of Ashoka, and its repair in the 2nd century CE.
A 5th century inscription on the same rock, of the time of the Gupta king
Skandagupta, describes how the lake burst its banks due to excessive rains and was
repaired after two years’ work.
 Others are votive records of the followers of Buddhism, Jainism, Vaishnavism, Shaivism,
and the like.
They appear on pillars, tablets, temples, or images as marks of devotion.
Miscellaneous types of inscriptions:
There are other miscellaneous types of inscriptions—labels, graffiti left by pilgrims and
travellers, religious formulae, and writing on seals.
Certain inscriptions from Madhya Pradesh give a condensed summary of the basics of
Sanskrit grammar.
‘Footprint inscriptions’ are found in many parts of the country, accompanying a pair of
engraved footprints of a holy man, king or other noteworthy person.
Inscriptions as a source of history

Advantages:
Compared with manuscript of texts, inscriptions have the advantage of durability.
They are usually contemporaneous to the events they speak of and their information can
be connected to a time and place.
Changes and additions made to them can usually be detected without great difficulty.
Compared to literary sources, which tend to give a theoretical perspective, inscriptions
often reflect what people were actually doing.
Inscription are a valuable source of information on political history. The geographical spread
of a king’s inscriptions is often taken as indicating the area under his political control.

But discovery of inscriptions depends on chance and not all the inscriptions inscribed
during a king’s reign need necessarily be found. Furthermore, movable inscriptions are
not always found in situ, i.e., in their original place.
The earliest royal inscriptions do not contain much geographical material, but later ones
generally do. Their prashastisgive details about the history of dynasties and the reigns of
kings. Of course, there are problems:

Royal inscriptions naturally tend to exaggerate the achievements of the ruling king.
Sometimes, confusion is created when a genealogy mentions kings with the same
name, or when different inscriptions contradict each other on particular details.
Sometimes genealogies skip names, for instance, in the case of Skandagupta and
Ramagupta, who are ignored in Gupta genealogies because they did not come within
the direct line of succession of the later ruler.
There are cases where inscriptions of different dynasties make conflicting claims. For
instance, a Gurjara-Pratihara inscription states that king Vatsaraja conquered all of
Karnataka. However, the contemporary Rastrakuta king claims in his inscriptions to
have defeated Vatsaraja and to have ruled over the Karnataka area.
Wherever possible, details of political events given in inscriptions have to be cross-checked.
Inscriptions have also been used as a major source of information on political structures and
administrative and revenue systems.
There are very few ancient records of secular land transactions and records of land
disputes, which some inscriptions provide us. They also show the social and economic issues.
For instance, an inscription of the time of the Chola king Rajaraja III (1231 CE):
It states that farmers of a certain village found the burden of arbitrary levies in money
and paddy and the demand of compulsory labour made on various pretexts by several
agencies so unbearable that they could no longer carry on cultivation.
A meeting of the Brahmana assembly and the leading men of the locality was held in
the village temple.
Decisions were taken, fixing the dues that farmers were to give to the Brahmanas and
royal tax collectors, and the labour services that they were expected to perform
Inscriptions shed light on the history of settlement patterns, agrarian relations and class and
caste structures.
Inscriptions provide dateable information on the history of religious sects, institutions, and
practices.
Donative records help identify the sources of patronage enjoyed by ancient religious
establishments.
They also give glimpses into sects and cults that were once important but did not leave any
literature of their own e.g., the Ajivika sect and the yaksha and naga cults.
Inscriptions can help identify and date sculptures and structures, and thus throw light on the
history of iconography, art, and architecture.
They are also a rich source of information on historical geography.
In fact, the location of several ancient Buddhist monastic sites such as Kapilvastu
(identified with Piprahwa in Basti district, UP) has been fixed on the basis of inscribed
monastic seals.
Inscriptions reflect the history of languages and literature and a few refer to the performing
arts.
For example, the 7th century Kudumiyamalai inscription gives the musical notes used in
seven classical ragas.
Inscriptions from Tamil Nadu refer to the performing of various kinds of dances. The pillars
of the eastern and western gateways of the Nataraja temple at Chidambaram have label
inscriptions describing the dance poses of 108 sculpted figures carved on them, quoting
verses from the Natyashastra of Bharata.