Category: History

Oldest fort in Kerala?

Before the Cheras established themselves as a major force in Kerala, it was ruled by the Ay dynasty sometime between 7th to 11th century AD with Vizhinjam as the capital.The Ay dynasty ruled the land between Nagercoil and Thiruvalla. In A History of South India, Nilakanta Sastry writes that the Ay kingdom lay around the Podiya hill, the southernmost section of the Western Ghats. He also writes that the Greek geographer Ptolemy wrote about one ‘Aioi’ was ruling the country at that time which included Cape Comorin and Mount Bettigo.
Last year there was news that a 9th century Vishnu temple was being rebuilt due to the initiative of the local people. This temple is unique since it is one of those which have a circular sanctum santorum. Much before this, when the kings of the Ay dynasty shifted their capital to Vizhinjam, they built a fort which is now considered to be the oldest fort in Kerala dating to the eighth or ninth century.

A preliminary investigation by the team has revealed the fort might have originally been 800 sq. m in area. The fort’s wall can be found on the northern and western (seaside) parts and has been constructed using large boulders set in mud mortar. The wide base of the wall tapers on its way up. According to Dr. Ajit, one important clue in dating the fort is that the walls have no battlements or `loop holes’ (holes to place cannons in). This is typical of early forts, he says.
The team was also able to trace literary and epigraphical references – of 9 AD to 12 AD vintage – to a fort and port at Vizhinjam. Sangam literature such as `Pandikkovai’, `Iraiyanar Ahapporul Urai’, `Kalingattup-parani’, of Jayamkondar, and `Vikrama-solan-ula’ are said to have numerous references to the existence of a fort, port and a mansion at Vizhinjam.
Moreover, the Srivaramangalam copper plate s of Pandyan King Nedum Chadayan ( 8 AD) have clear reference to Vizhinjam and its fort. “Here, the fort is described as surrounded by waters of three seas, protected by a wide moat, high walls which the sun’s rays do not touch and so on. Leaving aside the hyperbole typical of such inscriptions, the ground evidence at Vizhinjam that we got fits this description of the old fort. In fact the port at Vizhinjam has been mentioned in the work `The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea’, a work of the first century AD. Here Vizhinjam has been called as Balita,” said Dr. Ajit. [Ninth century fort discovered at Vizhinjam]

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Kadakkarapally Boat

The Thaikkal-Kadakkarappally Boat, Kerala

Last year we had some posts about an ancient boat discovered in in Kadakkarappally, Kerala. This boat was considered to be somewhere between 600 to a 1000 years old and the 72 foot boat, according to initial reports was built using anjili, a wood found in Kerala. The boat according to report was built by foreign seafarers
According to a new research paper we have more details on this boat, which was apparently used to transport people or commodities between coastal ports and interior backwaters. Traditionally boats built in Kerala never used iron and it was assumed that such practice started with the arrival of Europeans in Kerala, starting with Vasco da Gama in 1498.
This boat which has been dated between 13 and 15th centuries, provides proof that shipmakers in Kerala were using iron fastners before the arrival of Europeans. The authors suggest that since Kerala was a main port in the Indian Ocean trade network, it is possible that local shipmakers would have encountered ships using iron fastners and got â??inspiredâ?.
What about the theory that it was built by foreigners?

The Thaikkal-Kadakkarappally boat, therefore, has features in common with several different traditions of boatbuilding. The form of the boat appears to mirror one strand of Chinese boatbuilding and the lashed lugs are a feature commonly found in South-East Asian shipbuilding. The use of lap joints between adjacent planks is typically Indian while nails clenched over a rove are normally only identified with north European building traditions. The boat itself, however, was clearly built locally. All three species of wood identified in the remains are indigenous to Kerala. Anjily, in particular, is used for almost all of the plank-built craft in Kerala today as it is strong, resilient, fairly cheap and widely available. It is possible that the boat was constructed by foreign shipbuilders settled in Kerala, but there is no reason to conclude that the Thaikkal-Kadakkarappally boat is not an Indian vessel, built in India by Indian shipbuilders.[The Thaikkal-Kadakkarappally Boat]

It was expected that the climate of Kerala would not allow for the preservation of of archaeological material, especially in waterlogged areas. But this boat somehow survived.

What Aryan Invasion – II

“The perennial concept of people, language and agriculture arriving in India together through the northwest corridor does not hold up to close scrutiny,”

The proponents of the Aryan Invasion/Migration theory believe that Central Asian people bought agriculture to India. Also since we Indians descended from them, there should be some evidence for this in our genetic makeup.
May such theories are being put to rest now. Newly surfaced evidence shows that agriculture developed in Middle Ganga Valley much before Europe. Research by Oppenheimer, Michael Petraglia and Hannah James show that Europeans are descendents of people from India. Two recent genetic studies done in India dispute the European parenthood theory.

A study by scientists at the Central Forensic Science Laboratory in Calcutta has revealed that most present-day Indians are the descendants of early humans who began to arrive in India about 60,000 years ago. It suggests that modern Indians do not owe much genetic makeup to central Asians who arrived much later.

The findings do lend support to the migration of people from central Asia into India.

“Although we did find genetic signatures from central Asian populations in Indian communities, there are not enough (signatures) to prove large-scale mixture with local populations,” research team leader Vijendra Kashyap told The Telegraph.

“The perennial concept of people, language and agriculture arriving in India together through the northwest corridor does not hold up to close scrutiny,” Kashyap and his colleagues at the University of Oxford and the Estonian Biocentre said in their research paper.[Aryan impact myth crumbles]

A separate study by Partha Mazumder at ISI Calcutta also proves that genetic signatures of Indian men are older than 10,000 years and this predates the arrival of Europeans in India.

The First Farmer: From India?

The findings indicate that people residing in this area too started farming 10,000 years back

Recent discoveries in archaeology are pushing back the dates of many civilizations. The discovery of murals and writing in a Mayan site in San Bartolo in the lowlands of northeastern Guatemala pushed the dates for Mayan art and writing to 250 – 100 B.C. Now a single grain of rice is showing that developed civilization may have existed in India about 7000 years back, much before the Harappan civilization.
The Archaeological Survey of India had started excavating many sites across the country looking for evidence of cultures that pre-dated the Indus Valley Civilization and the main sites are Virana (Haryana) and Lahudadev (UP)

“This would mean that there were pockets were urbanisation would have started before the well-developed urban civilisation of the Harappans,” said Mani.
But now we have studied a variety of rice that was obtained from the Lahura-Deva site, which revealed that there were regular farming and cultivation activities going on in 6th century BC,” he said.
Mani also said that revelation of developed cultures should not be misunderstood as a separate civilisation.
“We have also received pieces of pottery and other evidence from sites like Lahura-Deva and they have created a lot of curiosity as they can themselves become a tool to trace the evolution of Harappan civilisation,” he added. [Grain of rice points to pre-Harappan culture]

The discoveries in Lahuradeva site also indicate that Middle Ganga Valley would have been the home of the first farmer. Previously it was believed that agriculture began in West Asia in a region known as the Fertile Crescent with the domestication of barley and wheat. Later a new Fertile Crescent was discovered in China where rice cultivation began much before agriculture in West Asia. In the Indian subcontinent wheat and barley cultivation began in Kachi Plain in Baluchistan(Pakistan) in the seventh millennium B.C.
Now recent excavations show that people in this region took to farming and domestication of animals much earlier.

Lahuradeva has now provided the answer. The archaeologists here have found remains of carbonised material containing grains of cultivated rice along with wild grass. There are several layers of ancient civilization buried under the mound â?? as the archaeologists found out when they dug deeper..
The findings indicate that people residing in this area too started farming 10,000 years back. Talking to Hindustan Times, director State Archaeological Department Rakesh Tiwari said the habitation deposits had been divided into a five-fold tentative culture sequence, including Early Farming Phase, Copper Age, Early Iron Age, NBPW and Early Centuries BC/ AD.
The cultural remains of Early Farming Phase, including potsherds, charred and un-charred bones, scattered small pieces of charcoal, small burnt chunks of clay, a small piece of stone and tortoise shell, were found here. Ceramic industries of the period consisted of hand made red ware, black and red ware, he said. [The â??first farmerâ?? belonged to (UP) India, says ASI]

Earlier date for Mayan Art and Writing

Mayan Murals dated 100 B.C, San Bartolo, Guatemala

New archaeological evidence is shifting the timeline of Mayan history. In 2005, archaeologists revealed the final section of the earliest known Mayan mural in the city of San Bartolo in Guatemala. This mural shown above tells the story of creation and the mythology of kinships. This mural has been dated to 100 B.C and thus establishing that Mayans used art and writing centuries earlier than believed.

“There are kings, they have art, they have writing,” Saturno said. “All these things we attribute to the Classic [Maya period] are all in existence in the Preclassic. Now if we want to talk about origins, we need to be going back further in time.”
The Classic period dates from about A.D. 250 to 1000. The Preclassic period dates from about 2000 B.C. to A.D. 250.
Prior to this find, researchers believed sophisticated Maya painting and writing wasn’t firmly established until the seventh century A.D. [Oldest Known Maya Mural, Tomb Reveal Story of Ancient King]

Now the same archaeologist, WIlliam Saturno has found ten bold hieroglyphs painted on plaster and stone from the same site and radiocarbon tests prove that the writing is 100 years older than the murals. This information pushes back the date of Mayan writing to some time between 300 to 200 B.C, around the time the Mauryan empire was in the full bloom in India.

Mayan Hieroglyphs dated 300 – 200 B.C, San Bartolo, Guatemala

For example, glyph 7 is an early version of “AJAW,” a symbol ubiquitously used with kings’ names that means “lord, noble or ruler.” Glyph 2 has vague pictorial qualities and may suggest a hand holding a brush or a sharp knifelike object.
A common problem with dating Mayan writing is that it is often on stone, which scientists can’t accurately date using radiocarbon dating. Instead, they must use stylistic changes to date materials.
However, Saturno and his team found these writings in a pyramid made in part with wood, which is carbon-based and can be dated with radiocarbon techniques. [Earliest Maya Writings Found]

What Aryan Invasion?

Steatite statue of a high priest
or official; circa 3000 B.C.,
found at Mohenjo-Daro

Stephen Oppenheimer concluded by genetic studies that people moved into India from Africa initially and rest of the world population were descendents of this group. University of Cambridge researchers Michael Petraglia and Hannah James came to the similar conclusion by analyzing fossils, artifacts, and genetic data. So if there was a migration, it was from India to Europe and not the other way. Does this prove that there was no Aryan Invasion/Migration?
While the above migrations happened about 85,000 years back, the theory of Aryan Invasion/Migration talks about what happened around 4000 years back. This is what Dr. Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, who has been excavating in the Indus city of Harappa has to say

The transition from one culture to the next was gradual as seen at Harappa, and there is no evidence for invasions by outside communities such as the so-called Indo-Aryans.
Although some scattered skeletons were discovered in the later levels, they do not represent warfare or raiding, and there is no evidence that the site came to a violent end. [Decline and Transformation]

Now the BBC has updated their page on the history of Hinduism to reflect this. So why are some people still holding onto the invasion theory? A good answer comes from Suhag A Shukla, who was the legal counsel for the Hindu American Foundation in the recent California textbook controversy.

There is no evidence of any invasion or any war. Honestly, the people who have held onto the Aryan invasion theory, probably based their entire careers on that particular theory and have expounded that through their research, they have a vested interest in not seeing it disappear.[‘I am not for rewriting Hinduism’]

The Gondeshwar Temple, Nasik

Gondeshwar Temple, Sinnar, Nasik (Photo by Amol N. Banker)

The Gondeshwar temple is a very beautiful temple built in the Hemadpanthi style of Architechture. During the Adilshahi rule in Maharastra, Ahmednagar was the capital. One of the pradhans (minister) of Ahmednagar was Hemadpanth who popularised a typical style of construction using locally available black stone and lime. This style became very popular and came to be known as the Hemadpanthi style. The Gondeshwar temple is one of the few structures of this style still in good shape. [Nasik City Guide]

More Gondeshwar photos

The legend of Charumati maybe true

“This will surely open a new horizon in the history of the Kathmandu Valleyâ??â??

When it comes to Emperor Asoka’s children, the standard line in most textbooks is about how Mahinda and Sanghamitta were sent to Ceylon to spread Buddhism. There is not much mention about his other children and what they did.
He had other sons named Kunala and Tivara[14]. Apparently he also had a daughter named Charumati, and recently one stupa constructed by her was found in the Kathmandu Valley.

Archaeologists at the Department of Archaeology, a government institution to conserve and protect ancient monuments of the country, said this is the first time something has been found in the Kathmandu Valley written in Brahmi script, which was prevalent in 300 BC.
Only two inscriptions have been found so far in Brahmi script in Nepal â?? one in Lumbini and the other in Lignihawa, both erected by emperor Ashoka.
â??We were just enlightened. We could not believe when we found bricks with a word in Brahmi script. This will surely open a new horizon in the history of the Kathmandu Valley,â?said senior archaeologist Prakash Darnal.
The brick has a Dharma-Chakra emblem, two Swastikas, a word â??Cha-ru-wa-tiâ?in Brahmi script and also two other words in the most ancient form of Nepalbhasa script, Bhujimol.
â??Till date, historians believe that the sixth century AD inscription of Mandeva at the Changu Narayan is the oldest inscription found in the Valley and a statue of Jaya Barma, found at Mali Gaon, is regarded as made in the second century ADâ?, he said.
â??What we have found in Chabahil may prove that Kathmandu has a 2,300-year-old written history,â?Darnal said. But he also added that the evidence is not yet scientifically tested and the word could have been written later in Brahmi script that was extinct by the second century in Nepal.
â??The word â??Charuwatiâ?proves the legend of Charumati, said to be Ashokaâ??s daughter, and this has some grounds in the historyâ?, he said.[2300-year-old inscription found in Chabahil]

Raja Ravi Varma's Lithographs

Raja Ravi Varma (1848-1906)

Raja Ravi Varma lived for a while in Maharashtra and painted many Maharashtrian women. He also ran a press in the town of Malavli. Two Italian curators Enrico Castelli and Giovanni Aprille visited the press few years back and found it in very bad condition.

“When we visited the press, we found rare paintings infested by moth and the owner was planning to sell it off. Even the Archaeological Survey of India did not want to do anything. So we decided to restore them,’’ says Castelli, who owns the Tamburo Parlante museum of African heritage. [Stoned for posterity]

These lithographs (engraving on stone), can be seen in at the exhibition titled Divine Lithography, organised at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Culture and Arts in Delhi. The exhibition is also traveling to Trivandrum and Pune.