Archaeology in Bihar (K. P. Jayaswal Memorial Lecture Series, Volume - V)

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Bihar is literally littered with archaeological remains, and since the beginning of archaeological activities in India in the latter half of the 19th century, it has attracted archaeologists and antiquarians both Indians and foreign. However Cunningham taking the accounts of Hsuan Tsang as his archaeological Bible concerned himself mostly with Buddhist sites and in his investigations and explorations followed the itinerary of the 7th century Chinese pilgrim. The record of archaeological activities in Bihar to-date are scattered and dispersed in Archaeological Survey Reports, Annual Reports of Archaeological Survey of India, Annual Report of Indian Archaeology and in Monographs and in archaeological excavation reports like the Mahabodhi, Waddell's excavations of Pataliputra, Kumrahar Excavation Reports, reports of excavations at Vaiśāli, Sonepur and Pataliputra excavations, unpublished reports of some excavated sites such as Antichak (Vikramaśilā), Chirand, Campă. For a general reader and scholars interested in the discipline it is not easy and not always possible to wade through the labyrinth of archaeological data of various kinds, and pertaining to from prehistory to late historical period stored in the diverse scholarly publications. D. R. Patil's Antiquarian Remains in Bihar published in 1963 was a laudable attempts to organise the data in classified alphabetical order. But since the work was published, much new materials both in volume and quality are available. And then a systematic account of archaeological activities alone, and not an alphabetical index with notes on archaeological and historical sites, would be handy and useful for the discipline of archaeology which has now become a part of curriculum of graduate and post- graduate studies and research in many Universities.