Archaeology and Tradition (An Old and Rare Book)

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History is the visualisation of the past by the historian. The past is not available to him for a direct perception, It is seen through the facts which come down to him. The historian cannot claim to have the past in its totality for reconstruction. His picture has always to be conditioned by the facts which he can collect.

The task of the historian for a period before the invention of writing always remains baflling indeed. Even for the historic period he does not always get a direct and comprehensive account. The chronicles and ancient narratives have their own shortcomings in terms of what they chose to record and how they actually presented them.

For the period before Aśoka we do not have any definite epigraph or coin with legend, In the absence of contemporary epigraphic and numismatic evidence we have to depend on archaeology and literary evidence as our only source, Scholarly opinion is divided about the extent to which these sources are actually relevant and their relative merit and reliability.

In historical research archaeology enjoys a prestigious position on account of its scientific basis and methods. It makes due use of several scientific disciplines and tools in unearthing facts, analysing them, and deriving information from them, The technique of excavation and the method of recording the antiquities have been developed in a manner which does not leave scope for the subjective factor. Advanced scieneific methods help us fix the chronological position of the objects with a reasonable accuracy. In evaluating the meaning and significance of his data an archaeologist is keen to utilise statistics and anthropology.

But the archaeological data is often not very vocal, We make it speak out, We have to explore its context. We have to determine its use and meaning by finding out parallels from contemporary or similar societies

It is here that traditions come to our help. Traditions are not to be dismissed as garbled narratives full of mythological and absurd details. With all the problems about their available form and intriguing chronological stratification, they look back to a very early time, often coterminus with the occurrence of the events, In this sense they have the respectability of a contemporary record.

Schliemann was probably the first archaeologist who tried to identify the Greek traditions in its archaeological remains. With his completed faith in the historicity of Homer's Iliad he started his search for the city of Troy and Myce nae. In 1872 he identified the 'Palace of Priam' and 'Priam's Treasure which included two diadems, six bracelets, sixty car-rings, 8,700 rings, buttons and ornaments of gold, an electrum vase and others of silver and bronze, and many bronze weapons. Inspite of scholastic jeers of the contemporary academics, Schliemann continued his search, and in 1876, while excavating the Shaft Graves at Mycenae, he not only identified the 'Golden Mycenae' of Homer but also had a 'gaze upon the face of Agamemnon'. And then digging from Schliemann in Greece to Evans (1900) in Crete, from Knossons, the Palace of Minos, to Sir Leonard (1926) at Ur-'Royal Tombs of Ur-and many other excavations in Lebanon, Palastine and Syria with a view to locating the Bible cities or sites, have led to appreciable good results (Albright, 1966). In India the scholars turned to archaeology for the verification of the Epic stories quite late. B. P. Sinha (1993) may be correct in thinking that 'this was partly because the earlier archaeologists from Cunningham onwards were very much concerned with Buddhist sites about which there were Chinese account and datable Buddhist and Jain literary texts. In the second decade of the present century when the archaeologists came to know of the Indus civilization accidentally, much of the energy and resources of the Archaeological Survey of India was involved in the study of this civilization. It was left to B. B. Lal (1954) to 'embark on the adventure of testing Indian traditions on the crucible archaeology' (Sinha, 1983, 104). although Pargiter in 1922, a great proponent of the value of historical traditions, had asserted 'the general trustworthiness of the tradition is the fact demonstrated, whenever it has been possible to test tradition by results of discoveries and excavations' (Pargitar, 1972, 6). The process once started by Lal has been carried on by other historians and archaeologists in India and Puratattva no, 8 is very largely devoted to the discussion of the theme 'Archaeology and Tradition'.