Historical and Archaeological Remains and Monumental Heritage of Bharatpur, Rajasthan

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This treatise in other words, a monograph represents the total gist of the result of the exploration in the form of village-to-village Survey carried out by the author of District Bharatpur, Rajasthan. It is a matter of-fact solid compilation in the form of a result-oriented pattern and consists of seven chapters with a bibliography at the end.

Chapter one, Bharatpur contains a description of the District's geomorphic features including the hill and river formation and drainage apart from others. Chapter two briefly narrates the history from early Historic, Mauryan upto the pre independence.

Chapter three extensively narrates the exploration of the village-to village Survey in order of tehsils. Chapter four details the cultural sequence of the Excavations at Noh, the only site so far excavated in the District.

Chapter five and six list the Central and State protected Monuments and Sites with the features narrated in the brief.

Chapter seven analyses the emerging picture of the explorations and interactive cultural milieu tracing from latter half of the second millennium B.C upto the late medieval times.

The monograph contains profuse illustrations of the Monumental Heritage with the District map and the Chart of the legendary Jat Rulers of Bharatpur.

Baldev Singh Negi, born on 19.11.1945 at Village Maletha, district Tehri Garhwal, Uttarakhand. He passed M.A. in Ancient History and Archaeology and M. Phil from Rajasthan University. He obtained Post Graduate Diploma in Archaeology from the Institute of Archaeology, Archaeological Survey of India in 1981-82.

He served in the Archaeological Survey of India in various capacities and retired as Deputy Superintending Archaeologist in 2005. He was engaged as a consultant from April 2010 to March 2011 for digital photo documentation of the antiquities, housed in the Central Antiquity Collection, Purana Qila, New Delhi.

The author has explored District Bharatpur (Rajasthan), and Bhatinda and Ludhiana (Punjab). As a member of the Indo-French Archaeological Expedition explored Hissar and Bhiwani districts of Haryana and Sri Ganga Nagar district of Rajasthan and discovered 87 potential sites.

He has attended the excavations Siri Fort, Delhi, a medieval site in 1976 77, Rama Puram, Andhra Pradesh, a chalcolithic site in 1980-81; Sringverpur, Uttar Pradesh, an early historic site in 1984-85; Thanesvar, Haryana, an early historic and early medieval site in 1988-89 and Dholavira, Gujarat, a protohistoric (Harappan) site in 1991-93.

Sh. Negi's research papers have been published in reputed national and international journals. He also attended a large number of conferences and seminars on various archaeological subjects.

The main aim and intent of archaeological investigation of an area or region comprise in general to understand the historical process of human development and the way of life lived, on the basis of the material and cultural remains brought to light. This is achieved by a systematic planning of a regular exploration of intense nature to collect the ceramics and artefactual remnants and note the structural features, in addition have close observation of the ancient settings and the environment.

A careful study of the archaeological collection from excavations is a primary step in understanding the nature, formation and development of the settlements, ceramic, craft and art technology and manufacturing processes revealed by the artefactual antiquities and the faunal and floral remains adding knowledge of the environment especially on pasture and cattle rearing. The total archaeological evidence in a way adds to the material advancement and cultural manifestation in different periods of time, identified in a chronological sequence.

A question arises as to how to proceed in planning the programme of scientific exploration and what are those factors that should be taken to count for implementing to get the rightful results. This needs digression of understanding the past experiments of archaeological explorations historically beginning from the latter half of the nineteenth century. This begins with the well-known discoveries of the identification of places connected with the life and times of Buddha and later, identification of the significant sites of the times of the Mahajanapadas and subsequently, general investigation of known sites spread over the whole of northern India. No doubt some of them are well tested historical places mentioned in the literary and historical texts and travel documents and are in a way of pioneering nature. They represented historical events that needed identification as the relics were found so visible on surface. A proverbial success of such documentary proof furthered the process and quickened the pace of archaeological investigations in other parts of the country.

The Archaeological Survey of India had launched a Village-to-Village Survey programme of extensive nature for identifying the extant remains of settlements of ancient mounds and antiquarian remains all over the country in 1957. The present work is one such programme undertaken and also successfully completed. The field work was carried out from August 1977 to August 1983 in district Bharatpur under the supervision of the Superintending Archaeologist, Archaeological survey of India, Delhi Circle, New Delhi. The aim is to collect more accurate information of the ancient remains, traditional history, architectural features and other moveable antiquities of all types. The author endeavoured to collect every piece of cultural data from each tehsil under a given plan. The exploration of district Bharatpur was undertaken with a view to trace the archaeological sequence of the cultures of this area.

The village to village survey conducted tehsil wise (A) Bharatpur (B) Bayana (C) Dig (Deeg) (D) Kaman (E) Kumber (F) Nadbai (G) Nagar (H) Pahari (1) Rupbas and (3) Wer (Weir) tehsils, in a systematic way to search for prehistoric, proto-historic, historic and medieval sites, temples, mosques, sculptures, monuments, inscriptions, coins etc.

All attempts were made to visit each and every site including, mosque, temple and fort in every village falling within the jurisdiction in district Bharatpur. The survey has been made in the interior and remote areas including forested portions and nearby hill ranges.

It was felt that most practicable course would be to collate whatever published information available in respect of the numerous ancient remains and exploration in district Bharatpur and compile in a systematic manner so that an intelligible and informative account of the antiquarian remains may be available in one single compendium. It is an essential guide for archaeological knowledge and research on the ancient remains of Bharatpur, Rajasthan.

**Contents and Sample Pages**