Archaeology of India

Archaeology in India is mainly done under the supervision of the Archaeological Survey of India.

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C

• Very few Indian universities offer archaeology. They are also fairly unenthusiastic about their approach to archaeological research. I know one full-fledged university archaeology department which, since its establishment in 1960, has only published the result of its first year of excavations in 1962. I know another university department – a Department of Indian History, Culture and Archaeology— where the results of excavations of a major Harappan site are not merely unpublished beyond a few pages but also the entire pottery collection from the site was reputedly taken out of the pottery bags and their contents were mixed up and buried in the trenches specifically dug for the purpose.
  • Dilip K Chakrabarti, Whose Past and Which Past? The Warring Factions of the Ancient Indian Historical Research, also in Dilip K. Chakrabarti, Nation First: Essays in the Politics of Ancient Indian Studies, 2014

• The scientific back-up of the subject remains marginal in the country. The government is simply not bothered about setting up a national laboratory for archaeological dating and chemical and other analyses. Even the quality of the Ajanta paintings has been allowed to be compromised.
  • Dilip K Chakrabarti, Whose Past and Which Past? The Warring Factions of the Ancient Indian Historical Research, also in Dilip K. Chakrabarti, Nation First: Essays in the Politics of Ancient Indian Studies, 2014

• I would say that the present state of affairs in Indian archaeology also shows, as the present state of affairs in the study of ancient India in the Indian universities does, that ‘ancient India’ does not figure conspicuously in the Indian middle class vision.
  • Dilip K Chakrabarti, Whose Past and Which Past? The Warring Factions of the Ancient Indian Historical Research, also in Dilip K. Chakrabarti, Nation First: Essays in the Politics of Ancient Indian Studies, 2014

• My familiarity with the various shades of political opinion among Indian archaeologists convinces me that none of our political parties and organizations has a coherent and professional attitude to the Indian past, archaeological or otherwise.
  • Chakrabarti, D. K. (2009). Who Owns the Indian Past?: The Case of the Indus Civilization.

J

• It is clear...that Indian tradition, Vedic or Puranic, is not likely to help much in the interpretation of archaeological data. The theories propounded by reputed archeologists are laboured ones and based on pre-conceived notions. Most scholars have twisted the traditional accounts or invented their own legends to suit their interpretations because it is utterly difficult to apply the tradition as a whole to the field of pure archaeology involving one or more material cultures.... [The] majority of Indian traditions are unhistoric and coloured and therefore none of their archaeological interpretations would prove to be free from subjectivity.... Tradition and archaeology should not be mixed together in any form at least as far as Indian protohistory is concerned.
  • M. C. Joshi. Archaeology and Indian tradition - some observations. (Joshi 1978, page 102). Puratattva 8. 98-102. Quoted in Chakrabarti, D. K. (1984). Archaeology and the literary tradition: An examination of the Indian context, page 34

S

• Ideas of invasions, diffusions, and conquests have obscured and hindered investigation into the region's indigenous cultural processes. To fully understand and appreciate the various solutions to cultural problems recorded in the South Asian archaeological record, alternative explanatory frameworks must be considered.
  • Shaffer, Jim G. 1984. "Bronze Age Iron from Afghanistan: Its Implications for South Asian Protohistory." In Studies in the Archaeology and Palaeoanthmpology of South Asia (41-75). New Delhi: Oxford University Press. p. 59. Quoted in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. chapter 9