Older records and excavations are usually ignored, but in the case of Pataliputra they are a treasure trove of data, especially given the threat of urbanization and the possibility of holding up future excavations.
Origin of Pataliputra
Pataliputra was the second capital of the Magadan Empire, and its foundations were laid during the reign of Ajatashatru, a contemporary of the Buddha and a member of the Haryanka dynasty (c. 4 AD).th -Fiveth B.C).
Ajatshatru turned a small village called Parigrama into a city. Strengthen that. However, it was his son and successor Udain who transferred the seat of power in Magdhadan from Rajgriha to Pataliputra and made it into its present situation. This movement of capital facilitated trade and commerce along the Ganga, enhanced access to major routes, and turned the city into a thriving economic and cultural center synonymous with excellence.
Pataliputra urged Chinese travelers: Hien Tsang Let’s stop and talk about its glorious past. An honest account of this city was written about 2,000 years ago by Megasthenes, the Greek ambassador to Chandragupta, who was in his Mauryan court, from 300 to 302 BC.he explained It was a nine-mile-long city planned in the shape of a parallelogram, defended by a large timber wall protected by 64 gates, 570 towers and openings for shooting arrows, and beyond which was a moat. It was configured as. About 400,000 people lived there.
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Dig Pataliputra
In a work of 1788 Hindustan Map Reminiscence – or Mughal Empire, British geographer Major James Rennell was the first to definitively establish the relationship between modern Patna and two ancient cities, Paribotra and Pataliputra, mentioned in Greek and Sanskrit sources, respectively . This helped Scottish surveyor Francis Buchanan, who was the first to conduct regular surveys. investigation In Patna. Early explorers like Alexander Cunningham and J.D. Begler also repeatedly attempted to find the places mentioned by Hoyen Tsan and Fa Hien in their chronicles. These surveys laid the foundation for the first excavations at Patna. LA Waddell Between 1892 and 1899.
However, the most notable discovery of Waddell’s excavations was a palisade, which he compared to one discovered in the Swat Valley in 1893. Thirty years before his excavations, Waddell had recognized that 25 to 30 beams had been exposed during tank construction at Waddell. “Maharajkanda” or “Emperor’s Moat”, and later he recognized them to be the wooden towers mentioned by Megasthenes. While following this trail at Brandybagh, Tulsimandi and Maharajganj, he discovered the remains of upright beams made of sal wood. The beam is 18-20 inches in diameter, appeared to be arranged in double lines about 5.5 feet apart, and each pillar appeared to be connected by a horizontal board. The gap between the two rows of beams was likely filled with soil.
The Ashokan Pillar by Waddell, the location of the huge stupa, the remains of other sculptures, and the excavated ruins provided strong evidence that Kumrahal village was the site of the ancient palace of Pataliputra. Waddell also proposed that the palace would stretch from Choti Pahari to Kumrahal.
Scholars continue to hold up Waddell’s work as a benchmark for their field.other scholars as well PC Mukherjee At the same time as Waddell, he explored Lohanipur near Patna in 1897 and 1898 and discovered a 76 meter long ocean trench running from east to west. But it was his 1912 excavations, led by archaeologist DB Spooner, one of the first privately funded archaeologists, that revealed unknown aspects and questions of the ancient city.
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DB Spooner explores Persian connections
On November 9, 1914, a paragraph titled: Parsi Dominion of India It was published in the London correspondent section of ‘. indian era. This document details the excavations at Pataliputra carried out from 1912 to 1917. spooner Approved by Sir John Marshall of the Archaeological Survey of India. It seems to suggest that Persipolar architecture had a significant influence on Indian architectural styles, and was indicative of ancient Iranian dominance in the eastern region beyond the Punjab. Spooner later reflected on these sentiments in a paper titled: Zoroastrian period in Indian history, Published in the Journal of the British Asiatic Society (1915).
Re-excavations and additional findings at Brandyburg and Cumrahar have forced researchers to make such a claim. One of the major discoveries of the excavation was a pile of stone fragments stacked in a straight line, evenly spaced 4.57 m, or 15 feet from each other. These remains consist of fragments of sandstone columns, and Spooner managed to excavate a total of 80 such fragments (of which he found 72 at the site). His reasoning pointed out that these were the remains of the Mauryan pillared halls.the hall where there was Area: 39.14m x 31.66mwhich appear to have constituted an open pavilion, probably reached by boat through the canal.
This excavation brings to light the question of the origins of architecture in India. John Marshall, Director General of the ASI from 1902 to 1928, believed that the ruins of a pillared hall are the oldest structures in India, apart from the Mauryan Chaitya Hall discovered in Sanchi, Madhya Pradesh. He pointed out that there is. (Annual Report of the Archaeological Survey of the Eastern Circle of India 1912-23: 56).
The original Mauryan floor was found under a layer of columnar debris, on which no upright shaft or pedestal was found. Above the fragments of these pillars were piles of ash and charcoal, about a foot deep, followed by the remains of brick walls of the Gupta and post-Gupta periods. Spooner proposed that the building’s wooden superstructure was destroyed by fire in the 5th century AD, before the brick building was constructed. The pillars are characterized as monoliths made of Chunar sandstone and stand freely on the wooden floor without socket holes.
He initially believed that the columns were erected without plinths. However, this ultimately Persepoli style layout. Based on the presence of distinct black circles in the silt deposits and their specific dimensions, he deduced that the statue on the pedestal must have stood between the columns. He saw similarities between the Pillared Hall and the house of Xerxes.
This excavation revealed something seriously missing from Waddell’s excavations. The remains of palatial buildings and administrative buildings may support literary testimony through archaeological remains, but Spooner’s judgment of the Columned Hall was far from stable.
Spooner recognized that further research was needed to support his claims. However, he was confident in his Persian connection theory. With great support, especially from Ratanji Jamsetsi Tata, who was interested in knowing his ancestry, Spooner felt that foreign influences had to be developed in Indian art and architecture, which he reflected in the method. (Vishnupriya Basak). Spooner was adamant about establishing the Zoroastrian and Parsi ancestry of the Mauryan emperor, going so far as to declare the Mauryan ruler Chandragupta Maurya to be a Parsi. [PC Mukherjee 1898. Report on the Excavations on the Ancient Site of Pataliputra (Patna-Bankipur)]. He claimed similarities between the Achaemenid halls of Persepolis and the Mauryan halls, as there is no equivalent in India. Some archaeologists, such as A. Ghosh, argue that this pillared hall was not Chandragupta Maurya’s durbar hall, but the meeting place of Ashoka’s Third Buddhist Council.
38 years after Spooner’s excavation, Asphalt State with Artekal vijayakanta Mishra’s excavation Confirmed the existence of a hall with pillars. In place of the administrative structures of the Mauryan and later periods, they dug many monastic complexes. They also found no flood deposits. In fact, they opposed Spooner’s subsidence hypothesis. Their findings suggest that the ash tubes were not caused by the column’s subsidence, but may have been caused by subsequent destruction by stone thieves. They also discovered Sunga and Kushana structures beneath the brick wall structures of the Gupta period in the Pillard Hall area.
This excavation, conducted by Altekar and Mishra, was an important step towards understanding the dynastic period in ancient Indian history by establishing the cultural evolution of the site.
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Choti Pahari and Panch Pahari
Apart from the pillared halls and palaces that Spooner so intently explored, Chinese texts mention stupas in places such as Choti Pahari and Panch Pahari in Bihar.
The great stupa of Choti Pahari is considered to be the resting place of the Buddha..Pilgrimage record Brandi, a temple, a large edict pillar recording King Ashoka’s great gift to Buddhism, and a stepping stone of the Buddha, similar to the one in Chaitya Hall, state that the Buddha’s stepping stones existed here. This stupa was considered the first of his 84,000 stupas erected by King Ashoka and contained the relics of the Buddha adjacent to the palace. Hiung Tsang also pointed out that the pagoda’s foundation wall had caved in and it was in ruins. Furthermore, the bricks had been plundered by residents long before Waddell’s excavations, and only traces of what would have been a grand tomb were discovered.
Where are these ruins now?
Although the name Choti Pahari still exists and the site is also considered a protected monument, not much remains of the great stupa of Choti Pahari. The same is true of Panch Pahari, south of Choti Pahari, where five stupas are said to be surrounded by dozens of stone dwellings.
Now, where is the rest of Pataliputra? As you can see, it took not one but multiple excavations over several decades to reconstruct the story of an ancient society.
And I worry that the last 40 years of research will be the only reference for the future.
Disha Ahluwalia is an archaeologist and junior research fellow at the Indian Council of Historical Research. She tweets @ahluwaliadisha. Views are personal.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)
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