Digging for Indraprastha

Delhi's age could be drastically altered if a team of archaeologists unearth consistent evidence from the Mahabharata period at Purana Quila

These days Purana Quila is playing host to some unexpected visitors, aside from the usual couples sneaking in for a romantic rendezvous and boisterous young men out to make mischief. A team from the Archaeological Survey of India, or ASI, has been excavating a mound near the Sher Mandal monument since February and has come across some amazing findings. The most striking of these is an 18-cm-long stone idol of Lord Vishnu that dates back to the Rajput period and a seal from the Gupta period which has four letters inscribed on it in Sanskrit. The team has also come across terracotta beads, semi precious stones, glass, earstuds, blocks for block-printing, bangles, charred grains and burnt brick from the Gupta (4th-5th centuries AD) and Kushan eras. (1st century AD)

"This 9-10 metres deep deposit is the only site in and around Delhi that yields stratified deposits from the Maurya, Sunga, Kushan, Gupta, post-Gupta, Rajput, Sultanate and the Mughal dynasties, all in one place. If you start from the top of the slope you get evidence from the Mughal period and as you keep going down the slope, the cultural history of the site keeps changing," says Vasant Swarnkar, superintending archaeologist of ASI's Delhi Circle. Encouraged by the findings, the team is now hard at work to find concrete evidence related to the culture and art patronised by the Pandavas. "The culture period, as of now, starts from 3rd century BC, which is the Mauryan era. We are trying to get to the natural level of the original habitation," says Haji Syed Jamal Hasan, director (exploration and excavation), ASI.

Enclosed by a white strip, the site is teeming with 18 eager trainees - PG diploma students from the Institute of Archaeology. Most can be seen carefully brushing the mud off the artefacts and labelling them neatly. Swarnakar points to a section where broad brick structures are exposed and fragments of a pitcher are visible alongside. "These are from the Kushan era. The brick size and style of pottery helped us identify these," he says. It's like watching a slideshow of Delhi's history as objects from the various time periods lie there, waiting to reveal their secrets.   

So what is the significance of these findings for Delhi's history? These reiterate the fact that there always has been habitation on this site as early as the Maurya, Gupta and Kushan periods, and if the team is successful in finding evidence related to the Mahabharata period, then the age of Delhi will get altered dramatically. "If we look at the standing buildings in Delhi, the earliest is Qutab Minar and the latest is Red Fort. But the history of Delhi is actually much older," says BB Lal, renowned archaeologist and former director-general of ASI.

It was he who first carried out an excavation on the site between 1954 and 1955. "Below the stratified deposit of northern black polished ware, which dates back to 700 BC, we got a stray shelf of painted grey ware (PGW). Now this PGW has been found at all Mahabharata sites such as Hastinapur, Mathura, north Panipat and Kurukshetra. So the presence of these deposits was encouraging," says Lal. "It established a connection between the epic and the site."

Carbon dating revealed that the PGW findings were from 1100 BC to 800 BC. And that is the age that Lal estimates for Delhi as well.

Lal further elaborates on the process by which he came to this conclusion. "Around 800 BC, there was a great flood in the Ganges near Hastinapur. This has even been mentioned in the Matsya Purana. So King Udayana, the fifth generation descendant of Parikshita (Abhimanyu and Uttara's son), shifted the capital to Kausambi. It is written that he invited Buddha to his capital. And since Buddha died in 500 BC, it means that Udayana was the ruler around that time," says Lal. So, taking this date, he determined the span of most Indian dynasties. "On the basis of literary works and evidence, we can peg the date of the Mahabharata at 900 BC. This is the evidence given by carbon dating," he says.

The team working at the Purana Quila is taking forward Lal's work. "If we find the stratified deposit, it will change the history of Delhi," says Swarnakar. He also has other plans for the site. Instead of covering the excavated area, he wants to set up an onsite museum there. "We want to put glass on the sections pertaining to different periods. Say, you can walk over the Kushan section and get to know about the brick structures, ornaments and pottery. Something like this hasn't been attempted in India before."