B. B. Lal
B. B. Lal | |
---|---|
Born | Braj Basi Lal 2 May 1921 Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh |
Nationality | Indian |
Occupation | Archaeologist, Director-General Archaeological Survey of India (1968 - 1972) |
Known for | Work on Indus Valley Civilization sites, Mahabharat sites, Kalibangan |
Braj Basi Lal (born 2 May 1921 [1]), better known as B. B. Lal, is a renowned Indian archaeologist. He was the Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) from 1968 to 1972 and has served as Director of the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla. Lal also served on various UNESCO committees.[2]
He received the Padma Bhushan Award by the Government of India in 2000.[2]
Contents
Early life and background
Born in Jhansi, United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, India,[1] Lal obtained his master's degree in Sanskrit, including the Vedas, with a First class degree from Allahabad University, India.[3][4]
Career
After his studies, Lal developed interest in archaeology and in 1943, became a trainee in excavation under a veteran British archaeologist, Mortimer Wheeler, starting with Taxila,[4] and later at sites such as Harappa and Sisupalgarh in Odisha.[5] Lal went on to work as an archaeologist for more than fifty years.
In 1968, he was appointed the Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India where he would remain until 1972. Thereafter, Lal served as Director of the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla.[2]
Archaeological work
The Archaeological Survey of India had performed conservation and restoration of Buddhas of Bamiyan, Khwaj Parsa’s Mosque at Balkh and the shrine of Khwaja Abu Naser under R. Sen Gupta and Lal in Afghanistan.[6]
During 1950-52 he worked on archaeology of Mahabharata sites, including Hastinapura, the capital city of The Kurus. He made discoveries of many Painted Grey Ware (PGW) sites in the Indo‑Gangetic Divide and upper Yamuna‑Ganga doab.[5]
In Nubia, the Archaeological Survey of India, Lal and his team discovered Middle and Late Stone Age tools in the terraces of the river Nile near Afyeh. The team excavated a few sites at Afyeh and cemetery of C-group people, where 109 graves would be located.[6][7] Lal worked on Mesolithic site of Birbhanpur (West Bengal), Chalcolithic site of Gilund (Rajasthan) and Harappan site of Kalibangan (Rajasthan).
In 1975-76, Lal worked on the "Archaeology of Ramayana Sites" project funded by the ASI, which excavated five sites mention in the Ramayana- Ayodhya, Bharadwaj Ashram, Nandigram, Chitrakoot and Shringaverapur. In the seven-page preliminary report submitted to the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), Lal reveals the discovery by the team of "pillar bases", immediately south of the Babri mosque structure in Ayodhya.[5][8]
Prof B. B. Lal has published several books and over 150 research papers and articles in national and international scientific journals.[2][5] In his 2002 book, The Saraswati Flows On, Lal refutes the earlier Aryan invasion/migration theory, arguing that the Rig Vedic description of the Sarasvati River (which dried up by 2000 BCE) as "overflowing" contradicts the claim made by certain previous historians that the Indo-Aryan migration occurred 300 years after they contend the Sarasvati River dried up (in 1500 BC) and which they also contended had led to the end of the Indus Valley Civilization.[4]
Ayodhya dispute
In Lal's 2008 book, Rāma, His Historicity, Mandir and Setu: Evidence of Literature, Archaeology and Other Sciences, he writes (that):
"Attached to the piers of the Babri Masjid, there were twelve stone pillars, which carried not only typical Hindu motifs and mouldings, but also figures of Hindu deities. It was self-evident that these pillars were not an integral part of the Masjid, but were foreign to it."[9]
Legacy
The B. B. Lal Chair at Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT, Kanpur) has been established in his honour.[10]
The British archaeologists Stuart Piggott and D.H. Gordon describe Copper Hoards of the Gangetic Basin and the Hastinapura Excavation Report, two of Lal's works published in the Journal of the Archaeological Survey of India, as models of research and excavation reporting.[5]
Honors
- Prof. Lal was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the President of India in 2000.[2][11]
Personal life
Lal continues to live in Delhi.[4] His son Vrajesh Lal is a businessman based in the United States.[2]
Works
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- Special survey reports on selected towns: Dumka, 1981.
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- Frontiers of the Indus Civilization, 1984.
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See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 B. B. Lal
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 B. B. Lal Chair at IIT Kanpur, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur website.
- ↑ 'Let not the 19th century paradigms continue to haunt us!', Inaugural Address delivered at the 19th International Conference on South Asian Archaeology at University of Bologna, Ravenna, Italy on 2–6 July 2007, online link, archaeologyonline.net
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 Book review by Dr. V. N. Misra, Book review of The Saraswati Flows on: the Continuity of Indian Culture, by Chairman of Indian Society for Prehistoric and Quaternary Studies journal Man and Environment; (vol. XXVI, No. 2, July–December 2001)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Archaeological endeavours abroad, Archaeological Survey of India Official website.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Abstract, A comparison of Fulani and Nadar HLA, ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
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- ↑ 12.0 12.1 Memoirs, On Excavations, Indus Seals, Art, Structural and Chemical Conservation of Monumets, Archaeological Survey of India Official website.
Bibliography
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External links
- The Homeland of Indo-European Languages and Culture: Some Thoughts By Archaeologist B.B. Lal
- Let not the 19th century paradigms continue to haunt us! Inaugural Address, by Prof. Lal, delivered at the 19th International Conference on South Asian Archaeology, 2007
- List of publications at worldcat.org
Preceded by | Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India 1968 - 1972 |
Succeeded by M. N. Deshpande |
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- 1921 births
- Living people
- Indian archaeologists
- Directors General of the Archaeological Survey of India
- Indian non-fiction writers
- Recipients of the Padma Bhushan
- People from Jhansi
- Allahabad University alumni
- Indian Indologists
- Analysts of Ayodhya dispute
- Indigenous Aryanists